A few years ago, I noticed that a lot of my students were interested in making podcasts. This was a ripple effect, I suspect, of the sudden popularity of Serial, This American Life, and other programs of that ilk. If I was going to be advising students on that kind of work and assessing it, I figured that I should know something about it.
At the same time, we were in a holding pattern with the new edition of The Northern Caminos (have you heard that it’s finally out?), so I was trying to find some way to stay engaged with pilgrimage. After a quick search revealed that almost nothing existed that brought together pilgrimage and podcasting, everything fell into place pretty quickly.
In a surge of productivity that impresses me to this day, I relatively quickly produced 30 episodes of The Camino Podcast, combining personal pilgrim accounts with prominent authors and historians, including luminaries like Mark Kurlansky and Jack Hitt.
As quickly as it appeared, it also fizzled out. Work spiked at school, as I took on extra responsibilities for a year, and then the books finally moved forward with the Cicerone (do you know we have a second one, too?) In the meantime, others have quickly filled the podcast void, with prolific producers like Project Camino and My Camino.
As for The Camino Podcast? It’s not dead, it’s just hibernating. I’ll return to it someday for sure, but for now, I hope everyone checks out those other podcasts–and my 30 old ones! I think they hold up pretty well.
