Press & Recognition
“Includes several series that podcast producers I respect consider their favorites.”
—Sarah Larson, The New Yorker
“I listen to Hub & Spoke for the same reasons I love my local bookstore. Here's a collection of smart, passionate professionals embracing unique ways to tell stories that are curious, quirky, and remarkably personal.”
—Michael Ambrosino, 33third.org
“Their work consistently rivals the best in the business.”
—Calen Cross, Bello Collective
The New YorkER and the NEw York Times Name Rumble Strip to TOP-PODCASTS Lists for 2022
Updated December 21, 2022—At The New Yorker, podcast reviewer Sarah Larson has named Erica Heilman’s Rumble Strip the #1 Podcast of 2022. “As the media landscape continued to shift, with resulting shakeups roiling the podsphere—excellent shows ending, reins passing, audio talent adapting—great work continued to be made at all levels, from corporate behemoths to public radio to independents,” Larson writes of the year’s podcast output. “For more than a decade, Erica Heilman has been making an endlessly inventive, independently produced podcast about her Vermont community, revealing, through an almost miraculous level of attention, what life anywhere is all about….Heilman has a keen eye and a good sense of humor, but her narrative tone is quietly serious, always focussed on her subject; the episodes create a feeling of deep, barely interrupted listening. Without sentimentalizing Vermont or her fellow-citizens, Heilman captures both who we are and the best of what we try to be.”
Earlier this month, The New York TIMES’ reviewer Reggie Ugwu also listed Rumble Strip as one of his top 10 choices for best podcasts of 2022, defining them as shows that “excelled at the mission they set for themselves, whether it was dissecting the week in news and culture, changing the way we think about our wardrobes, or traveling the world to capture the sound of wanderlust.” Rumble Strip appears alongside acclaimed podcasts such as Articles of Interest, Vibe Check, and Unexplainable.
Ugwu said of Heilman’s show, “This majestic, long-running and hard-to-classify series is ostensibly about the everyday lives of everyday residents of the state of Vermont. But although that description is perfectly accurate — Erica Heilman, the show’s creator and host, is first and foremost a local journalist — the emotional truths captured in many episodes are as big and varied as life itself. To listen to Heilman’s lyrical yet matter-of-fact reporting on a teenage student-body president who took his own life, or a lifelong dairy farmer’s 11-year friendship with a black bear, or the adolescence of a neighbor as recorded over seven years of conversations, is to imagine a better world in which her clones are dispatched to every town, state and country.”
The New Yorker Reviews Rumble STrip
October 20, 2022—The New Yorker’s Sarah Larson, regarded by many podcast producers as the leading podcast critic in American media, this week singles out Hub & Spoke’s Rumble Strip, by producer Erica Heilman, in a review calling the show “one of the best podcasts I’ve heard.” The piece names Erica’s Peabody Award-winning “Finn and the Bell,” which chronicles the impact of the life and death of a Vermont teenager named Finn Rooney, as the show’s “standout episode.” Larson calls the episode “a masterly feat of storytelling, immersing us completely; only near the end do we hear about the day Finn died, without warning, on an otherwise cozy afternoon. It concludes on a note of astonishing grace.” Larson also explains that “The show is part of the Boston-based independent-podcasting collective Hub & Spoke, which includes several series that podcast producers I respect consider their favorites.”
Read “Rumble Strip, A Limitless Podcast about Life in Vermont”
rumble strip is the only independent podcast nominated for the 82nd annual peabody awards
April 13, 2022—”Finn and the Bell,” a searing episode of Hub & Spoke producer Erica Heilman’s show Rumble Strip, joins shows from NPR, PRX, the BBC, the New York Times, and other major audio outlets as a nominee in the Podcast/Radio category of this year’s Peabody Awards for excellence in broadcast media. The episode examines the life and death of Finn Rooney, a teenager in northeast Vermont. Jurors nominated Heilman’s episode alongside series or limited-run shows such as “Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe” from the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX; “The Lazarus Heist” from the BBC; “Throughline” from NPR; the second season of “This Land” from Crooked Media; “The Improvement Association” from Serial Productions and The New York Times; “Blindspot: Tulsa Burning” from WNYC; “Dig: The Model City” from the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and Newsy; “Half Vaxxed” from WHYY and Billy Penn; and “S***hole Country” from Radiotopia Presents and PRX.
Listen to “Finn and the Bell” | Follow Rumble Strip on Apple Podcasts
Hot Pod, Timber, other podcasting news outlets cover Hub & spoke’s funding news
September 27, 2021—Hot Pod, the leading podcast industry newsletter founded by Nick Quah and recently acquired by Vox Media, broke the story last week about Hub & Spoke’s $100,000 fundraising win and its open position for a development and communications manager. Hot Pod lead writer Ashley Carman wrote: “We’ve seen podcast networks tied to nonprofits in the past, most famously with PRX and Radiotopia, so there doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason this wouldn’t work.” (We might put that last part on our Hub & Spoke coffee mugs.) Over at Timber, Jon Christensen wrote in his co-founder’s newsletter that “Indie podcasters can continue to own their IP, work to promote each other’s shows, and make an entity that can accept gifts, donations, and sponsorship. I love this, and I hope [that Hub & Spoke is] successful at making a template, no matter how informal, for other podcasters to follow.” The news has also appeared in other outlets such as the Bello Collective newsletter and PodMov Daily.
Galen Beebe of Ministry of Ideas produces “The Deterrent Tone,” a new episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz
March 10, 2021—Twenty Thousand Hertz, the acclaimed show that tells “the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds,” has released “The Deterrent Tone.” It’s a look at the history, science, and often damaging effects of the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), aka the Sound Cannon, a dangerous product of war now frequently deployed by police against peaceful protestors. The show was conceived and produced by Galen Beebe, story editor for Ministry of Ideas.
masterpiece studio releases “making Masterpiece,” produced by Nick Andersen of Ministry of Ideas
February 28, 2021—Ministry of Ideas producer Nick Andersen has a day job at GBH, home to (among many other top series) the British drama anthology series Masterpiece, which turned 50 years old in 2021. To explore the show’s founding and all its ups(tairs) and downs(tairs) since 1971, Nick created Making Masterpiece, a three-episode miniseries narrated by the series host Jace Lacob and featuring the voices of Hugh Bonneville, Alan Cumming, Derek Jacobi, Laura Linney, Elizabeth McGovern, Newton Minnow, Rufus Sewell, and many other greats from the show’s history.
OPrah Magazine features The Constant
February 26, 2021—Oprah Magazine included The Constant in its list of the “16 Best Happiness Podcasts That'll Uplift You,” alongside shows such as The Minimalists, Mad Chat, and Ten Percent Happier.
The Atlantic names Rumble STrip the Top Podcast of 2020
December 26, 2020—The Atlantic Magazine ranked Erica Heilman’s Rumble Strip #1 on its list of the 50 Best Podcasts of 2020, specifically citing Erica’s seven-episode miniseries “Our Show” about life in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. See Hub & Spoke’s press release for more details.
Erica Heilman of Rumble STrip collaborates with Sylvan Esso on “Shaking out the numb”
November 22, 2020—Erica Heilman, creator and producer of Rumble Strip, worked with singer Amelia Meath and synthesist Nick Sanborn of the band Sylvan Esso to create the six-episode podcast series “Shaking Out the Numb,” released as a companion to the band’s new album Free Love. It’s not a “making of” or “behind the scenes” thing—it’s more like a journey into the lives and Meath and Sanborn as they were creating the songs in the album. The podcast has been written up or excerpted by Vulture, NPR, HowSound, and other outlets.