The April 7 Weekly Roundup of the Iowa Podcasters' Collaborative
Fighting for Democracy, and more...
Sunrise, April 6, 2023, Mahaska County, Iowa. Photo by Robert Leonard.
Welcome to the April 7, 2023, weekly roundup of the Iowa Podcasters’ Collaborative. We are your hosts, Robert Leonard and Amy Russell. The purpose of the collaborative is to curate and promote some of the best podcasters and other digital media producers in the state. It’s built upon the model created by Julie Gammack’s Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, with its thousands of subscribers in 45 states and 44 countries.
We are looking to grow and welcome suggestions. Here are the current members of the Iowa Podcasters’ Collaborative:
George A. Clark and his Podcast - By George, are new to the collaborative. George is nearing his 500th podcast and is an Iowa video podcasting must-watch. Most recently, George interviewed Dr. William A. Gallus from ISU about the recent tornado outbreak in Iowa and shared a breathtaking video of a tornado as it formed - twins!
Mary Swander’s Buggy Land focuses on the Amish, sustainability, and the wider rural environment. Mary is the former Poet Laureate of Iowa and the executive director of AgArts. This week, spring returns to Freemartin on the wings of Purple Martins. Host Mary Swander describes the birds’ behavior and habitats, their houses, and the ways the Amish feed these birds. A neighbor traces the journey of a button from an old factory on the Mississippi River to the beak of a Purple Martin to South America and back. Scenes from an Amish reunion in a one-room schoolhouse and a Mennonite child’s discovery of a book on world mythology, a text that sends her on a journey of her own world travels.
KHOI’s Capitol Week radio broadcast with Laura Belin airs Mondays at 7:00 PM, and the archives may be found at the link above. It’s not technically a “podcast,” but we don’t care. It’s great content we are proud to link to. Laura Belin, the author of the blog Bleeding Heartland, updates us on developments in Iowa government, hosted by KHOI’s newsman Dennis Hart. All subscribers to Iowa politics with Laura Belin on Substack receive an audio file and recap of every edition of KHOI Radio’s “Capitol Week.” And please consider subscribing to Laura’s Substack newsletter, Iowa Politics with Laura Belin.
Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck offers a weekly Monday Zoom call at noon, and since it is a video digital product, it’s a broader part of the Iowa Podcasters’ Collaborative. Here is her podcast. Julie is Iowa at our best. Everything she touches makes us all better.
Award-winning radio broadcaster Spencer Dirks hosts Iowa Revolution, and he and Robert Leonard (aka Bob, or Dr. Bob, with bylines in The New York Times, TIME and more) discuss news, politics, sports, and much more. This week they discuss recent Iowa tornados, Caitlin Clark and the controversy about trash-talking during the big game, caucus news, the Trump arraignment, Knoxville’s Peace Tree Brewings’ Blonde Fatale being Iowa’s favorite beer, Spencer’s top five Reese’s shapes, and more. Please consider subscribing to Robert Leonard’s Deep Midwest.
If you aren’t a subscriber, please subscribe to the Iowa Podcasters Collaborative for this weekly roundup. And if you enjoy it, please share.