Welcome to the Hub & Spoke Expo
The Hub & Spoke Expo is our proud home for limited-run series as well as Hub & Spoke shows that have ended their run.
Lowlines
The Hub & Spoke Expo is the new permanent home of Petra Barran’s hit 2024 limited-run series. It’s a sonic scrapbook, a passport to roam, following a pull to tune into the pulse of place and befriending strangers along the way.
—
Lowlines is a 100 percent independent, 100 percent female production that follows Petra as she travels solo through the Americas, meeting people with profound connections to the places they’re from. “I dreamt up Lowlines after feeling pranged out and at constant mosquito pitch by the London business hustle,” Petra says. “I was looking for a different frequency, so I bought a £100 Tascam recorder and set off without an itinerary to record a podcast with no script, no studio, and no production team—just a deeply felt urge to get low. The tape I collected was raw and rough—and all anchored to conversations around what it means to tune into the ground beneath our feet.”
On her return to the UK, Petra secured top-tier production help from executive produce Lina Prestwood and producer Lucia Scazzocchio. The show they created has been recognized by Apple Podcasts, on numerous “best podcasts of 2024” lists, and by the Radio Academy Arias, the International Women’s Podcast Awards, and the British Podcast Awards.
The Rabbis Go South
We’re excited to introduce our first limited-run series, produced by award-winning filmmakers Amy Geller and Gerald Peary in partnership with Hub & Spoke.
The Rabbis Go South is a seven-part narrative nonfiction podcast telling the little-known story of three dramatic days in June, 1964, when 16 rabbis answered the call of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to join forces with civil rights activists in St. Augustine, Florida. The rabbis would serve as foot soldiers in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s ongoing attempts to integrate the brutally racist city.
While praying with Black clergy, the rabbis were arrested and jailed. It was the largest imprisonment of rabbis to that point in American history. In jail, the rabbis composed the joint letter “Why We Went,” explaining that the Holocaust should give Jews reason to stand up against racial injustice in America.
Check out the trailer below, and look for full episodes of The Rabbis Go South starting in September 2024.
The Briny
A podcast about how we’re changing the sea, and how the sea changes us
PUBLISHED 2017–2024
Made in the historic shipping city of Portland, Maine, The Briny is an independent nonfiction podcast from producer Matt Frassica.
In brief, sound-rich episodes, Matt shows how the oceans are recovering (or not) from centuries of overfishing and abuse, how they drive people to acts of heroism and adventure, and how they’ve become sites of experimentation to pull us out of our climate catastrophe.
Iconography
A look at our culture’s iconic places and things to see what they say about culture itself.
PUBLISHED 2016–2022
Iconography is a history podcast written, edited, and produced by Charles Gustine. It’s about the icons, real and imagined, that define and are defined by the places where they arise.
How do we understand the places we visit, and even the places we’ve never been? As a shorthand, we use agreed-upon touchstones—places (like monuments and gravesites), people (like statesmen and singers), objects (like food and fashion), and, of course, dreams (dreamed-up people and dreamed-up places and dreamed-up things). Iconography looks at these touchstones to see what they say about the culture itself, as well as the outsiders who've elevated those icons above others.
Mementos
Sometimes what you keep is on the inside.
PUBLISHED 2019–2021
What’s one thing you can never throw away … and why? What time, place, person, or experience does it connect you to? What does this thing tell us about you?
On Mementos, everyday people talk about a special item and the reason(s) they keep it. In each episode, the thing becomes a springboard for exploring and reflecting on memories, experiences, emotions, and relationships.
Mementos grew from the experiences of producer and host Lori Mortimer. After her mother passed away, she spent a few months emptying her house of her entire recorded history: receipts from her wedding and honeymoon, get-well cards, handmade cards from Lori’s brother’s fourth-grade classmates congratulating her on the birth of Lori’s younger brother. Every memento revealed more about Lori’s mother to her; but the things Lori kept were about their relationship. The show’s 2019 debut episode tells the story.