Podcasts That Can Benefit Authors

Welcome to Night Vale

            I first heard about podcasts back in high school on this youtube channel I’ve mentioned before called Vlogbrothers. Hank Green mentioned a podcast on it called Welcome to Night Vale and it sounded interesting. I needed something to listen to for a bit while I was folding laundry and as the eerie music filtered in I was immediately hooked. Welcome to Night Vale is a perfect example of the first kind of podcasts, storytelling podcasts. While each episode can stand alone, they all fit together to make a coherent story about a town where the extraordinary is a normal occurrence. If you want to read books, but find an audio book to be too droning, I recommend storytelling podcasts.

Cortex      

            The other type of podcast is a conversational podcast and these next two fit into this category. I think I’ve mentioned CGP Grey before. He is a youtuber with two podcasts in addition to his channel. While I am currently not self-employed, I really find his and his friend Myke Hurley’s conversations on Cortex about how to make their work go smoother interesting. During their bi-weekly episodes, they talk about how to be more efficient in your work life especially if you are self-employed or turning side projects into income. Driving back from my full time job, I have a good amount of time on my hands and rather than listening to repeats of the latest country hits on the radio, as I did driving to work, I like a little variety.

 If you want to improve your work life efficiency or want to make any type of money outside of your regular job without getting a part time job, I highly recommend this podcast.  Even if you don’t follow their advice exactly, it can help you reorient your brain to reorganize your workflow and be constantly looking for ways to make your life easier.

Dear Hank and John

            To be completely honest, I haven’t listened to this podcast in a while. I primarily used to listen to this podcast as I walked between classes, because as a college student I spent a lot of time doing that. However, since I graduated I don’t walk as much as so I fell out of habit of listening to them. Nevertheless I felt I should mention them, because Hank and John Green are the same two brothers whose youtube channel introduced me to the idea of podcasts in the first place.

They give dubious advice to people who email them questions and at the end of their show give news about their two interests Mars, exploration and new information found, and AFC Wimbledon, a soccer team. As with all great podcasts with hosts instead of characters, it feels like you are listening in on a conversation and get to enjoy their jokes and triumphs and troubles with them. I also listen to John’s podcast, “The Anthropocene Reviewed,” and Hank has a podcast with his wife called “Delete This.” You should check those out as well, but this was their first podcast. What can authors get out of this? Besides the fact that John Green is an author, I just recommend that you incorporate something into your life that makes you laugh. Laughter is good medicine and authors need to stay healthy just like anybody else.

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Image Credit: "Dad works the ham radio" by Nate Steiner