The Lip is an independent, locally produced podcast created by former magazine journo Megan McChesney.
We feature extracts from two episodes:
- Murder Under The Mountain tells the story of Barbara Bishop who survives a harrowing ordeal after the murder of her friend Niki Goodwin.
- The Book Thief follows book-lover Denis Gallagher, and the steps he took to rescue some of his prized book collection just after the Christchurch earthquake of February 2011, with his home cut off and inaccessible behind a red zone cordon.
Richard Scott speaks to Megan McChesney about the challenges of getting a podcast like The Lip off the ground in New Zealand - and she shares her own podcast recommendations.
Megan McChesney's favourite storytelling podcasts
Strangers - a podcast by Lea Thau, a Danish woman who lives in California. Lea’s big thing is empathy: she crafts beautiful stories from interviews with people from all walks of life. She was one of my greatest inspirations in making The Lip.
Risk - These stories have mostly been recorded at one of the podcast’s live events. It’s a bit like The Moth in that the subjects have already crafted their stories before getting up in front of an audience. The point of difference with Risk is that a lot of the stories are, well, extremely risqué. Not for the easily shocked or the easily offended.
The Lapse - created by Canadian podcaster Kyle Gest. Kyle comes from a film school background and his specialty is Foley artistry. He has a sound effect for everything.
This is Love - I’m currently waiting on season two of this very special podcast, which is made by the same team as the very excellent Criminal podcast. It brings tales of all sorts of love - not just the romantic variety.
Heavyweight - This one’s from podcasting empire Gimlet. Canadian dude Jonathan Goldstein talks to people about a time in their lives when things went wrong and helps them confront it so they can move on. It sounds like a therapy session when I describe it like this but he’s very disarming, very funny, very wry.
Mystery Show - Another gem from Gimlet. It only ran for one season, but what a season. Host Starlee Kine, solves all kinds of bizarre mysteries. Belt Buckle was my favourite.
StoryCorps - StoryCorps booths are dotted all over the US. Two by two, folk pop in and record meaningful conversations with each other. The conversations are later archived for posterity. Some of the most gripping also make it onto this podcast.
