KYD Podcast: Linguistic Gymnastics

On this episode we’re happily upstaged by podcaster extraordinaire Helen Zaltzman, host and creator of The Allusionist. Officially, it’s Britain’s smartest podcast – unofficially, it’s also witty and very entertaining, just like Helen herself. After we chat about Australian sound, the barriers of podcast entry and what editing your own show tells you about storytelling it’s time for writer Allee Richards to read her short story ‘The Passengers‘. Come along for the ride!

Thanks to Audiocraft for their help in making this episode happen!

Further reading:

Jane Howard on how language podcasts like The Allusionist help us develop new ways of talking about the podcast form.

Allee Richards’ 2017 short story ‘Perry Feral’.

If you love the art of podcasting, check out the excellent Audiocraft Podcast.

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app. Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

TRANSCRIPT

Meaghan Dew (KYD): Hello and welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. I’m Meaghan Dew and today I’m bringing you as usual a couple of very good storytellers. You’ll hear from short fiction writer and playwright Allee Richards as she reads her story ‘The Passengers’, one of the new fiction releases on Kill Your Darlings.

Before that we’ll speak to the inimitable Helen Zaltzman, who was in the country for the Audiocraft conference earlier this year. You might recognise Helen’s voice from her linguistics podcast The Allusionist, or from Answer Me This, where she and her collaborator Olly Mann have been answering questions from their listeners for more than a decade. Since then she’s acquired a boatload of experience shaping stories, editing audio and drawing in her listeners. But since we’re word nerds here, we thought we’d start by asking her to explain the podcast voted Smartest in the 2018 British Podcast Awards.

Helen Zaltzman: I am so bad at doing this, I don’t even have the elevator pitch for my own show that I’ve been doing for three and a half years. So if I was talking about it to a friend I’d say, Oh it’s a podcast, you don’t have to listen to it. It’s fine. And if I really had to, I’d say it’s kind of an entertainment show but has a focus on language and how people use it and why we use it the way we use it.

KYD: That is pretty much how I’d describe it, except I would also use the word ‘funny’ a lot! Because if you describe it purely by the content you must often get some people like ‘oh, isn’t that a little bit dry?’ It’s like ,no, it’s really interesting! 

HZ: That is a problem. People assume that if you make a show about language it’s just saying ‘you’re using commas incorrectly, ra ra ra.’ It’s yeah, so dull. So I’m operating against people’s assumptions that this thing is dull, and who am I to say to them it’s not dull? 

KYD: You seem to be doing it quite effectively. But this is not your first foray into podcasting a