Society and Culture podcast by Erica Heilman
Rumble Strip is a Vermont focused Society and Culture podcast, created by Erica Heilman, featuring uncommon conversations with everyday people. The show covers true life portraits of "road-crew workers, defense attorneys, farmers, Vermont’s mental-health-care system, taxidermists" and numerous rural subjects.
Production.
Growing up in Charlotte, Vermont, Heilman would observe her father chatting thoughtfully with his neighbor, and she felt inspired to want to speak with people the way her father did. After her time as a freelance television producer in New York City, Heilman found herself working as a private investigator which led to her interviewing people about their lives.
Heilman started out creating the episodes in her spare time, between working as a single mother with a part time job, releasing episodes weekly. Within the first two years of creating the show, Rumble Strip gained notoriety for lacking a clear narrative arc and defying easy categorization, as Heilman was primarily focused on creating a show about "the ephemera of trying to survive". The show garnered a loyal following as Heilman interviewed a variety of subjects, from prisoners to librarians, to salon owners recounting their days in the Vietnam War. She credits word of mouth as the main driver of the show's success.
In 2022, 99% Invisible featured Rumble Strip as a show about life in Vermont, but also about "life in general".
Reception.
In 2021, the episode "Finn and the Bell" won a Peabody Award, "for its tender treatment of a community in grief, and for embodying the power of local storytelling".
The NYTimes included Rumble Strip in their "Best Podcasts of 2022", calling it a "majestic, long-running and hard-to-classify series".
The show has received acclaim for its thorough and sensitive approach toward commonly difficult or controversial subject matter, such as gun control, death with dignity laws, and suicide.
References.
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