Welcome to the next in the Podcast Showcase series, where we share podcasts with you in the words of the podcasters themselves. This time, we talk to The Hansel and Gretel Code
Sum up your podcast in three sentences
Hansel and Gretel is a real-life Da Vinci Code, with a treasure trove of secrets hidden between the lines: a space I’ve been exploring for years.
Taking the fairytale line by line, each episode is a deep dive into the rich space of meaning hidden in a place people rarely look nowadays: metaphor.
Turns out, the fairytale is a goldmine of cultural and literary significance that will rock your world — and entertain the hell out of you.
Who is your ideal listener? Who loves your show?
You have to dig history and literature, love fairytales, be curious as to what they might mean beyond “the moral of the story,” and not be afraid of finding out that your assumptions about Hansel and Gretel may be all wrong.
You’re probably way more intuitive than you thought you were, you don’t mind not knowing exactly where each episode is headed as I take you through that magical, metaphoric forest, and you can’t believe you’re being forced to laugh out loud by a podcast.
What made you start this podcast?
Having spent over 10 years researching the metaphoric nooks and crannies of Hansel and Gretel, I worried that I might never be able to polish it all up properly into the book it’s meant to be.
When I took up podcasting I wanted to talk about art, and metaphors, and museums, but I found that polishing my fairytale material into audio episodes was a much more urgent, important, and satisfying enterprise.
What have you learned about your subject thanks to this podcast?
After 30 episodes, I’m only about 20% of the way through the fairytale, and each day as I revise and polish the script, I find the material organizing itself to teach me something new — to see it from another angle. Double and triple checking my sources I’m always finding new facts, and getting a deeper perspective on facts I’ve already uncovered.
What has your experience of podcasting been? What do you love / hate about the process?
I LOVE being able to share this material in a coherent and entertaining way. Podcasting has taught me how to edit, and I would never have been able to share what I know before, because I hadn’t spent enough time reading it OUT LOUD to myself and revising based on the sound of the words and the rhythm of the sentences.
I HATE having to spend weeks revising and editing my scripts. Sometimes it takes me days to get one paragraph right. I also love the audio production process, even though it can get tedious. I don’t love my voice, but I’ve gotten used to it, and I love the back-and-forth rapport I’ve developed with the characters I use to inject some serious humor into each episode.
If someone wants to start listening to your podcast, which episode would you recommend they start with? Why?
Episode 1 is pretty good for starters because it lays out the project in a good way, and it’s entertaining enough.
Episode 10, though, is when I started getting closer to the tone I wanted.
Things have evolved since — and will likely keep evolving — but Episode 10 was definitely a turning point in terms of humor, and in terms of keeping the information from getting too dense. (Earlier episodes tended to be as dense as a fruitcake, and while I adore fruitcake, it’s also a punchline I don’t want to emulate.)
Which other podcasts do you love listening to?
Like most people, I found season 1 of Serial to be compelling storytelling. And I like listening to Seth Godin.
For the most part, though, there aren’t a whole lot of podcasts I really enjoy. Sometimes I feel like I must be the most difficult-to-please jerk in the world.
I mostly listen while I’m working out, so if the conversation or the story doesn’t energize me, I’m ready to pull the plug and move on to an audio book. At least with audio books, there’s less of a problem with discovering something juicy.
Then again, I like listening to sports podcasts that discuss my favorite Chicago teams — for the same reason I like reading the Chicago sports pages.
If people want to find you online, where can they do so?
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Image: Public Domain
