Podcasts I listen to.
The kinds of podcasts I listen to are broken up into headings, so keep scrolling to find another section.
Go here if you're looking for my podcast.
I love---and let me repeat this again---love, podcasts.
They aren't locked to an ecosystem despite everybody in the tech and publishing industry hating this fact. Tech and publishers and producers can't stand the fact they operate on protocols rather than platforms and I love podcasts because of that, but there's other reasons I love the medium.
You don't have to pay for podcasts. You don't have to be locked into one app. Because I have physical disabilities, podcasts are a fantastic way for me to rest and learn at the same time. I can just lay in bed and listen. Podcasts also must contain audio description by design. Otherwise, sighted people won't know what's happening either. Sighted people are limited by the audio medium and this means they don't have an advantage over me.
My tastes are split between fiction podcasts and nonfiction podcasts.
Fiction podcasts.
I find my favorite fiction podcasts using The End audio fiction directory or this audio drama directory that looks like Wikipedia.
Sometimes the Fiction category in Apple podcasts nets me interesting shows
This helped me find podcasts based on TV shows and movies I like
Typically, I listen to fiction podcasts more than nonfiction podcasts.
The styles of audio fiction I listen to vary quite a bit, but I tend to gravitate toward fiction podcasts that center around relationships or smaller storylines that are slice of life, or intimate tellings of events or themes, think a superhero show that focuses on how the superhero keeps friends when the friends feel small because they're saving the world every week. I also enjoy podcast audiobooks as well.
Even with those pulls toward relationship based audio fiction, I'll generally try any fiction podcast once if I like the trailer or first episode or synopsis.
Almost everything in this Meet Cute Channel
Owned by a Dragon, a Shifter Romance. The synopsis will tell you everything you need to know!
Fun fact, one of my Fiction stories almost made it onto this podcast.
LeVar Burton, my forever parasocial husband, reads short stories. Enough said. The podcast ended years ago but still, you won't be disappointed.
Escape artists reads all kinds of short stories across multiple podcasts.
Graphic Audio New Release Samples
Forever Yours, a love story that transcends time... Follow the written journey of a handsome and witty soldier and an aspiring baker, in the midst of the Korean War. Set in the Jim Crow south, the two share their captivating love story across oceans with weekly love letters. Together they learn that distance cannot erase the shared prejudices they face as African-Americans. Listen to Forever Yours, a new romantic fiction podcast brought to you by Well Writers Audio.
Love and Luck is a fictional radio play podcast, told via voicemails and set in present day Melbourne, Australia. A slice of life queer romance story with a touch of magic, it follows the relationship between two men, Jason and Kane, as their love grows both for each other and their community.
In this modern interpretation of the Jane Austen classic, Bennet, a 30-something, non-committal gay man struggles to find belonging when his chosen family suddenly begins coupling up and settling down.
Josephine, a pediatrician, is pretty unlucky romantically. With a little coaxing from her best friend Katrina, Josephine starts a relationship with Malik, an ophthalmologist that works in the office across the hall from hers. Malik is exactly what Josephine needs, but she doesn't quite realize it...yet.
Childish: The Podcast Musical.
Dante, a college student in NYC, becomes an RA in order to follow in the footsteps of his hero, Childish Gambino. While he hopes this will be the next step toward becoming a famous rapper, his delusions of grandeur are shattered when he realizes his dweebish co-workers are hellbent on making his life miserable.
A trouble maker in high school, Samuel finds himself on a plane heading to Ghana; a different country, needless to say, a different life. His formative years have begun. These are 'DEM TIMES'. The show is in the broader sense, a serialised teen odyssey, set within the closed-off microcosm of Ghanaian boarding school life. At its core, this is a cultural migration; a fish-out-of-water story stemming from an outsider's identity crisis inside the Ghana educational ethos -- where the school day begins before sunrise and ends after 9pm, and only after students have finished their homework (assuming chores have been completed too).
When an extraterrestrial being secretly swaps places with a human mother, both worlds spiral into chaos. The alien must learn the meaning of family to save her species from extinction — while the real mom fights to escape, return home, and protect the people she loves.
Bonnie Martinez - a talented actress starring in a popular mystery web series called Special Cases. She's torn between the career plan her manager has designed and her desire for a life away from the cameras. And maybe a relationship with a regular guy like the cute bartender Bonnie has been stalking on social media for over three months, Duante Smith. All it takes is some liquid courage after another failed date with a Hollywood producer for Bonnie to screw up in a completely unplanned way: she breaks her Non-Disclosure Agreement for Special Cases. Bonnie is in a race to fix her mistake before it costs her everything.
The Bright Sessions and the AM Files.
The Classic of audio fiction. It's still great, to this day. Superheroes go to therapy and deal with slice of life drama as well as other non powered and supernatural happenings.
As an escape from her carefully curated life and dying marriage, Diana (Demi Moore) secretly runs an erotic website where women reveal their intimate sexual fantasies.
Nonfiction podcasts.
The nonfiction podcasts I listen to are rarely podcasts where people sit and talk to each other at a table, which makes up the bulk of podcasts today. I like audio storytelling. I like podcasts with a lot of production in them. I like podcasts that read print or the web out loud in any form. I don't find a lot of value in the popular talk show style podcasts unless there's a very particular theme surrounding the podcast, such as them reading a book chapter by chapter in part one of the episode and then discussing it in part two of the episode.
I love deep Gonzo style reporting. Journalism wrapped up in complex personal narratives always teach me more than a simple interview could ever teach. I strongly dislike journalism that tries to be objective.
I can't stand murder true crime podcasts. Instead, I want to see how a town was gentrified, as an example.
Close All Tabs. Fantastic podcast covering online stuff I don't have time to keep up with. The description, in part, read, "Ever wonder where the internet stops and IRL begins? Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor. From internet trends to AI slop to the politics of memes, Close All Tabs covers it all."
A Bit Fruity Yes, this is a talk show style, but it's tight, stays on topic, and is short, and does some fantastic deep dives and explains everything to the audience. The description used to read, For years, Matt’s been unpacking the events, people, and culture wars shaping the world around us. On A Bit Fruity, we take deeper dives into those issues — joined by celebrities, experts, and journalists who help us laugh and learn along the way.
There Goes the Neighborhood, A podcast about how and why gentrification happens.
Most non-true crime podcasts by Serial
The Guardian's Audio Long Reads. Narrated versions of their lengthy articles.
Away Days Podcast: Reporting from the Underbelly Away Days Podcast is an episodic documentary series focused on unreported stories from the fringes of society. We’re compassionately documenting the underground without watering it down or editorially obscuring it. This is independent journalism with no filter. Real, raw, and ugly. Journalist Jake Hanrahan, the host and creator of Away Days has spent the last 10 years embedded in places he’s not meant to be. With unique access and a straightforward style of on-the-ground reporting, the listener will be taken deep into the places they didn’t know existed.
This American Life. Narrated journalism that started it all, I think. Has intimate stories, zooms in on issues and creates stories out of them that have a beginning, middle, and an end.
Black Men Can't Jump In Hollywood I know, I know, a talk show style podcast, but I like their film examinations! Black Men Can't Jump [In Hollywood] is a comedic podcast that reviews films with leading actors of color and analyzes them in the context of race and Hollywood's diversity issues.
If Books Could Kill. Hilarious podcast where the hosts painstakingly read the books I don't want to read and then validate my feelings with their snark about the book or articles in question. They cover more topics now but the original tagline was, The airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds.
Reveal. One of the best audio narrative journalism podcasts to date. Does deep dive investigations into many things and deliver gripping stories about caregivers, advocates for the unhoused, immigrant families, warehouse workers and formerly incarcerated people, fighting to hold the powerful accountable.
This is Love A show that centers relationships in all it's forms, and showcases their stories.
Modern Love. Mainly sharing this for the earliest episodes, the better ones. The earlier episodes were some of the best adaptation of writing I've ever seen. I don't like their newer episodes so if you can find older episodes, do so. They are far better. The earlier episodes had actors reading some of the most powerful writing on relationships I've ever seen. The newer episodes try to be ear candy and focus less on reading actual words. Bletch.
How to be a Girl. An intimate exploration of a mother learning to live with her Trans daughter and exploring gender.
This is Actually Happening. What if you were trafficked into a cult...or were mauled by a grizzly bear...or were stabbed 27 times by a serial killer - what would you do? This is Actually Happening brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. From a man who woke up in the morgue to a woman stranded in a Mexican desert fighting to survive, these stories will have you on the edge of your seat waiting to hear what happens next.
Embedded. A very good in-the-weeds series going deep on specific issues---from police departments to the military to political campaigns. NPR reporters embed themselves in institutions and communities for weeks or months, returning with intimate, complicated portraits that resist easy narratives.
Audio Let's Plays.
Before my list, here's another list of audio Let's Play podcasts Archive for the previous list but many of the links in this post are broken, but it's still worth exploring.
Also, if you don't like video games but love tabletop games, listen to people playing tabletop games too
I intentionally wrote about the below podcasts in the past tense, partially because I'm lazy and all podcasts end at some point.
I also explain which ones provide audio description, describing what's happening for the listener.
- RSS Sightless Scribbles, my podcast, showcased audio games and games with built in audio description.
- Chronically Low Competence: An Audio Only Let's Play Podcast. Played a lot of modern games, even some VR games, and provided audio description.
- Reignite Covered all Mass Effect games. Provided audio description.
- Retrograde Amnesia is more studying JRPG's but sometimes played them too. Sometimes, audio description was provided.)
- Hyrule Podcasters. The Legend of Zelda Audio Only Let’s Play Provided audio description for all the games they played.
- Planescape: Torment - The Unofficial Audio Series largely focused on the 19999 game. A fully voiced re-telling of the game’s story with a modern take and narrative drive.
- This is video games Provided audio description and read the screen. Played adult games.
- TroytlePowerPresents: The Power Play-Throughs Podcast. Played a lot of indie games. Provided audio description and read the screen.
- Daniel K's Let's Plays. Played a lot of handheld games. Provided audio description and read the screen most of the time.
- No One can Know About this. A heavily edited Let's Play podcast that focused a lot on Final Fantasy Games, with their own brand of audio description thrown in as well.
- Gorilla's playthroughs. Provides audio description for games and even describes the menus sometimes. Shockingly, my sighted friends loved the audio description touches in this podcast because it's absolutely meant for audio since it's made with blind listeners in mind.
- Hello Hyrule: A Legend of Zelda Travelogue. Played through all the Zelda games and also provided audio description and reads off dialog. Very fun crew!
- Sacred Realms: A Zelda Retrospective Podcast. Recorded in traditional Let's Play style where no audio description is provided but commentary abounds. Excellent sound quality.
- Enchantment: Dragon Age Let's Play Podcast. Traditional Let's Play style without audio description but still very fun crew. They branched out to other games, but their back catalog focused primarily on Dragon Age.
- RSS Play Along Podcast. Another traditional Let's Play style, but they focused a lot on indie games, which I loved! They'd sometimes provide audio description but mostly it was commentary and discussion.
- Let's Listen. Provided audio description. Story-driven Let's Plays in an audio-only format! Let's Listen to removed the loading screens, gameplay, and boring bits of video games, so you can sit back and enjoy the story.
- RSS Lokathor's Audio Only Let's Plays. Played all kinds of games. No audio description though, but still very fun!
- Checkin' It: An Audio-Only Let's Play Podcast. Played a bunch of chess and chess style games.
- Skeleton House - Video Game Let's Plays. Played a bunch of games with a lively crew! Sometimes provided audio description but not consistently.