Happy New Year! February’s not too late to say that, right? How are the New Year’s resolutions going? Are you still sticking with yours? Yeah, me neither.
One thing I am sticking with in 2020 is podcasting. In July 2019, I started a podcast, The Cozy Corner with Alexia Gordon. I use an interview format where I chat with a different author each episode. We talk about their latest book, the inspirations behind it, and fun facts related to the story. The hook that sets my podcast apart from others is my focus on authors who write on the lighter side of crime. My guests write cozy or traditional or cozy-ish mysteries that leave the graphic sex and violence “off-screen.”
Although I didn’t jump into podcasting myself until mid-last year, I’ve been listening to podcasts for a while. If you’re not familiar with the form, podcasts are digital audio files, usually episodic series, available on the internet. Episodes have no set length—some are as short as ten minutes, some last a couple of hours. Topics are as limitless as creators’ imaginations. You can find a podcast on darn near anything. According to Music Oomph, in 2020 there are more than 700,000 active podcasts and 2.9 million podcast episodes. Two. Point. Nine. Million. Like I said, darn near anything. My podcast favorites list includes other bookish podcasts, like Shedunnit, Authors on the Air, and Mystery Rat’s Maze; long form/docuseries podcasts, like Drilled, The Drop Out, and S-Town; and, my favorite, true crime podcasts, like True Crime Obsessed, The Vanished, Swindled, Red Handed, The Trail Went Cold… Yes, I am a true crime fan. My favorite among favorites is Small Town Murder. Every week, the hosts present a deep dive into a murder that occurred in, you guessed it, a small town. Just like cozy mysteries. Warning: the small town setting is all Small Town Murder shares with cozy mysteries. It’s definitely NSFW.)
If you’ve never listened to a podcast, give it a try. You need internet access and software that allows you to listen to digital audio files (e.g., .wav, .mp4, .mp3). Listening’s easier if you use a podcast listening platform—apps such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Majelan, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and Anchor FM. Using a podcast listening app makes browsing easier. If you don’t have a particular podcast in mind, you can search by topic or most popular or any other parameter. You can also listen to podcasts on the web. Many of the podcast listening platforms have URLs (e.g., anchor.fm, podcasts.apple.com, soundcloud.com). You can access the audio files from their websites. Individual podcasts often have associated websites, too, but you have to know which podcast you’re looking for.
Try something new in 2020—listen to a podcast. You can find mine, The Cozy Corner with Alexia Gordon, at anchor.fm/alexia-gordon.
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