There I am, coming nose to nose with a tiny bat inching toward my microphone. No two days at work are the same. One day, I’m poring over the diary of an 18th-century Salem minister and the next day interviewing two artists, separated by geography and time, but linked in their exploration of Tibetan Buddhist spirituality and art.
I produce and host the PEMcast, the podcast at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. About ten years ago, the marketing department noticed a lack of museum podcasts. We decided that making our own could solve a problem. People loved learning about the daily behind-the-scenes of a museum, but we didn’t always have the right platform to get into it. With episodes that reach up to a half hour, we can dive deep. Fast forward and the PEMcast has won awards and showcased our talented staff across the museum.
But we aren’t the only locally produced podcast. The North Shore has quite a few to pick from and the content dives into the extreme local, focusing on our most immediate communities.
Good Morning Gloucester started as daily photos of life working on the docks in the country’s oldest fishing harbor. With the simple tagline: My View of Life on the Dock, lobsterman Joey Ciaramitaro had tapped into something people craved. In 2007, the venture blossomed into coverage of community news, everything from Saint Peter’s Fiesta to film shoots on Cape Ann, and a calendar of local events. Readers were finding him from all over the world. He published letters from Cornwall, where English beachwalkers reported finding Gloucester lobster tags. Finally Ciaramitaro asked the question: Why do people who don’t live in Gloucester keep coming back? The comment section filled with readers praising the site for its hyper local news. These were readers from Gloucester who now lived abroad, readers who had summered there as kids, a lady who considered it a crash course in all things Cape Ann being moving there.
Ciaramitaro is now heading toward one thousand podcast episodes of laidback chat. He often says a hello to his listeners (and viewers on the Youtube feed) by name, including his own mother. He features local dogs and welcomes different people in the community to talk about other local dogs. He will gossip about the dating world of Gloucester, but in a kind way. “Now there’s a couple that got together and completely love each other. You can see it on their faces. They cherish each other,” he said in a recent episode.
Steven Mallory, PEM’s Manager of Historic Structures and Landscapes, and Content Producer Dinah Cardin at the museum’s CrowninshieldBentley House.
Ever wonder what it would be like to lead walking tours in the Witch City? Salem The Podcast features two of these guides. Sarah Black and Jeffrey Lilley, two transplanted Salem Superfans, share behind the scenes stories of the busy season, go in depth on Salem history and, thankfully, interview all sorts of Salem characters. In a recent episode they sat down with Georgia Wrenn, a 13-year-old artist and entrepreneur who has opened her own shop on Salem’s Front Street called Georgia Made This.
The dark New England vibes extend to Danvers, with Lore, a top award-winning history podcast with half a million listeners, a companion book series and an Amazon TV show. With his mesmerizing voice, producer and host Aaron Mahnke takes us on a journey through time and space with frightening historical tales.
At PEM, the storytelling opportunities are endless. I’m lucky to visit our galleries, sometimes when it’s dark and quiet, and listen to a curator tell me all about a gorgeous work of art. There are an estimated 6.5 million podcasts in the world with more and more listeners tuning in. They are popping up everywhere, maybe even right in your own back yard.