Add some mountain vibes to your summer podcast queue.
Got any two-lane adventures planned this summer? Liven up your road-trip soundscape with these podcasts that aren’t just made in Appalachia—they lean into it.
Obscure Appalachia
These true crime and paranormal stories are told by the honey-voiced Candis Casper of Cartersville, Georgia. Started last August, Obscure Appalachia drops a new episode about every two weeks, and topics range throughout Appalachia. For West Virginia–based episodes, look for “The Flatwoods Monster” and “The Diversion of the Mothman.”
Stories of Appalachia
Steve Gilly and Rod Mullins tell short, true tales of Appalachia from frontier times through the 20th century. Their base is east Tennessee and southwest Virginia, but they’ll range into the adjacent states for a colorful story. Stories of West Virginia include “Tarzan of Appalachia,” “The Robbery of the Bank of Huntington,” and “The Last Public Hanging in West Virginia.” These guys are prolific—if you like their style, you’re set with hundreds of hours of road-trip listening.
Read Appalachia
A native of Appalachian Ohio, Kendra Winchester is a lifelong thoughtful reader who co-hosted the much-loved Reading Women podcast from 2016 through 2021. She brings that depth of background to her new podcast series, launched this year, in topics that include spoken dialect in audiobooks, marginalized voices, and the future of Appalachian literature.
Appalachian Mysteria
If you never listened to the well-researched series Mared & Karen: The WVU Coed Murders or Big Savage: The Death of Alexander Stevens, you have those to look forward to. Kromatic Media of Morgantown followed those with a third season, Outlandish, about a rash of potentially connected murders in Virginia, as well as several side projects. Good listening.
Old Gods of Appalachia
An eldritch horror anthology set in an uncannily similar but darker Appalachia—this podcast is a world unto itself, created by Steve Shell and Cam Collins with the talents of many other voices, musicians, and other collaborators. To get a feel for it, they suggest listening to “The Boy: Barlo, Kentucky, 1917” or “Bumper Crop: A Tale for the Season.” If you find you love OGofA, great news: You can catch Shell and Collins in a live show at the Metropolitan Theatre on August 19.
We’re enjoying a golden era of podcasting. Be sure to support the ones you love—follow, rate, and review them, and subscribe with a financial contribution if you can.
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Another great podcast is Creeks to Peaks: The Understory. It’s a podcast by The Flagspruce Initiative that highlights West Virginians near and far who are doing great things in their respective fields. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creeks-to-peaks-the-understory/id1545499607
I just ran across this article, and I wanted to say thank you for your recommendation! That’s so kind of you.