Author: abbymullen
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Searching for Irena Wiley
In our March 29 episode, Consolation Prize featured the work and life of Irena Wiley, a talented artist who took her art all around the world with her husband, U.S. diplomat John Cooper Wiley. In the episode, we noted that Irena Wiley traveled with the USO in the Pacific after her husband’s death. In her…
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When to Kill Your Darlings
When we started Consolation Prize, it was an experiment. We didn’t know what the dickens we were doing. But it was a sort of test balloon, to see if we could make audio stories about history. Without being overly conceited, I think I can say that from a technical and storytelling perspective, we succeeded. We…
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End-of-Year Episode Roundup
Last year I talked about the podcasts I loved in 2020. This year, I wanted to call out specific episodes I’ve listened to that have impacted me in some way. These are in no particular order, except for the #1 episode that has had the most impact on my life this year. I’ll put that…
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30 Days of Podcasts
Arielle Nissenblatt challenged folks on Twitter to do #podcast30, which is listening to one podcast every day and posting about it. Naturally I’m all in for such an endeavor. So I’ll be updating this post every day with my listen for that day, along with my brief comments (which I’m also posting on Twitter). Day…
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A New Gig: R2 Studios
I have a new title: head of studio. At RRCHNM we’ve just spun off a new unit, which we’re calling R2 Studios. Its purpose is to create deeply researched historical audio stories, which you might call “history podcasts.” As the person at the Center with the most podcasting experience, I’ve been tapped to lead this…
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A Difficult (Podcast) Undertaking
Eric Nuzum, whose podcasting work I greatly admire, wrote recently that he thinks that episode narrative podcasting might be on its way out. He means narrative podcasts that have a clear beginning and end, like a miniseries, rather than a series like Consolation Prize, which could theoretically go on indefinitely. He made some very compelling…
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Wrapping Up Season 1
Today we released the final episode of Season 1 of Consolation Prize. The whole team is going to have a debrief session sometime later this summer, but I figured I should get my thoughts down while they’re still fresh. So here’s a few random thoughts about this first foray into narrative podcasting, for me and…
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The Halfway Point
If we take literally the Bible’s accounting of our days as “threescore and ten,” then today is the halfway point for me: 35. Happy birthday to me. 2020 hasn’t shaken out quite like I expected, but it hasn’t been without its joys and comforts. So here are a few professional-ish things I’m grateful for today.…
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Top Ten Podcasts of the Year
Yeah, I talk about podcasts a lot. One might say I’ve become mildly obsessed with them. But I’ve learned so much from listening to podcasts, and I’ve learned SO MUCH from making them, that I have opinions–a lot of them–about what makes a good podcast and about my favorites. Spotify told me that my top…