Driveway moments aren’t just for driveways anymore. Louisville Public Media’s podcasts go wherever you want to listen. And our podcast incubator puts community voices and stories in your pocket.
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LPM Podcasts
Our podcasts have a little something for everyone. Check them out, and follow your favorites!
Words for the People
Each episode features an established writer and an emerging writer, sharing their wisdom to help you free your own story. “Words for the People” is hosted by Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate.
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At a time when our whole world seems to be in need of healing, this remarkable episode
of Words For The People features Kentucky Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinson discussing the
restorative power of bringing our words into the light with Ada Limón and Silas House.
“I think healing is central to what I want out of writing,” U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón says. “If
it helps others, then more power to the work!” Crystal and Ada discuss how writing is
like finding a container that can uniquely hold a range of emotions we may need to experience
and lay down.
Many times when these stories are excavated and released into the world, they can be a
powerful mirror that echoes our common humanity and helps us understand each other in a
new way. That empathy, Crystal notes, is central to our own healing.
Ada also shares some of her award-winning poems, how Kentucky has been good for her
writing, and what her time as the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate might look like.
Next Crystal talks with nationally bestselling Kentucky author Silas House, who shares his own
experience with the healing capacity of words. “The only way I’ve ever gotten through anything
– survived any hardship – is through writing,” Silas says.
Silas talks about the importance of finding the trouble when writing and reads excerpts from his new book, “Lark Ascending.”
This episode also includes submissions from emerging Kentucky writers Carolyn Martin, John E. Campbell and Avery Guess.
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Sprinkle Sparkle
Sprinkle Sparkle celebrates Black women and people of marginalized genders prioritizing pleasure as an act of defiance. Host Nubia Bennett builds each conversation about a simple question: How did you center your own pleasure today?
This podcast is an important reminder that even a sprinkle of the sparkle that pleasure infuses into our lived experience—whether it is something big, like a vacation, the decadence of a bite of your favorite dessert, or a simple affirmation that you made the right choice—can be enough to keep going. It’s the only way we can get to where we want to be.
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When you were young, who showed you what pleasure could look like?
For Kendrick Jones, it was his parents — his dad had an after-work ritual he followed every day, and his mom spent Sunday mornings dancing to gospel and cleaning house. But he also had a more unusual role model: a drag performer named Li’l Ronnie.
“He was one of my mom’s closest friends. When he was not performing, be the cleanest fella in the room. Girls is flocking all to him, he’s just floating like he’s walking on the cloud,” Kendrick says.
When Kendrick was six or seven, he saw Li’l Ronnie in drag for the first time. “He’s still floating right through the room, and women and men are still flocking to him! He just floats through this world no matter what he looks like, where he’s at, Li’l Ronnie is Li’l Ronnie.”
Kenrick and his wife, Amber Burns-Jones, join Nubia Bennett on this episode to explore the pleasure in partnership and family.
They talk about how holding space for pleasure makes them more successful parents to their two sets of twins (you read that right: two sets of twins).
Amber and Kendrick model for their children, and each other, how to find joy in daily life, even when we have tremendous responsibilities.
Listen in and get ready for a little Sprinkle Sparkle!
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Where Y’all Really From
What’s the one universal question Asian Americans are asked at least once (but more like a million times) in their lives? “Where are you from?” “No, but where are you really from?” Where Y’all Really From focuses on the tens of thousands of folks whose answer is, “Kentucky!” Hosts Charlene Buckles & Dan Wu chat with and share the diverse stories and perspectives of Asian American and Pacific Islanders living, learning, and loving in the bluegrass state.
Sure, our season’s over… but we miss you already! So in this bonus mini episode, our hosts Dan Wu and Charlene Buckles reflect on season one, which ran the gamut from interpersonal decolonization to Doritos and buttermilk. We’re gonna go work on season two now, so let us know what you want to hear more about at wyrf@louisvillepublicmedia.org or at whereyallreallyfrom.org. Thank you so much for being part of our inaugural season!
Butter Pecan
A podcast about race, food, and racist food. Join Kelly Nusz and Darryl Goodner in discussing the wild and ridiculous racist tropes in the food you know, and probably love. While also dismantling those tropes and creating something new.
How do you take your coffee? Cream? Sugar? Or do you drink it Black? As the world’s second most traded commodity (next to oil) it’s hard to have your morning fix without coming to terms with the origins of your favorite drink. It’ll probably come as no surprise that coffee as a long history of slavery. We discuss our own relationship with coffee as we tell of its origins and early history.
Dig
Louisville, Ky. once made ambitious promises to transform its police department and mend its relationship with the Black community. Five years later, Louisville police killed Breonna Taylor in her home, kicking off a protest movement unlike anything the city had seen in decades.
In a joint KyCIR/Newsy investigation, insiders and documents reveal the systemic barriers and choices made by city leaders and the Louisville Metro Police Department that led to its failure to meaningfully change. How did Louisville go from a national leader in policing to an epicenter of the movement for racial justice in the United States? Find out on Dig Season 2: The Model City.
So much has changed since Louisville first proclaimed itself a model city for policing reform: the police chief was fired. The city was upended by protests and grief over Breonna Taylor, and David McAtee. But some things are the same: The anger. The frustration. The disconnect between the police and the community. In our season finale, city leadership makes a very familiar set of promises. Could 21st Century Policing work this time? Is it too late?
Earth and Spirit
The Earth and Spirit Podcast fosters engaging conversations with change-makers working at the intersection of meditative spiritual practice, social healing, and ecology. It is a production of the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center (www.earthandspiritcenter.org), a nonprofit, interfaith spirituality center located in Louisville, Kentucky.
Bethany Gonyea is the founder of Numinous, a nonprofit that facilitates interfaith spiritual practices to reduce human suffering. In this conversation, Bethany shares about her work in creating mass meditation events aimed at reducing crime and violence in specific geographic areas (in statistically verifiable ways), as well as bringing benefits to the meditators themselves.
RESOURCES:
Earth & Spirit Center homepage: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/
Numinous homepage: https://numinousonline.com/
Global Peaceful Cities Project: https://www.peacefulcities.org/
Bethany’s book, Become a Consciousness Athlete: A Step by Step Program to Heighten Consciousness for Daily Happiness
Five Things
How do the objects we love define us? What can we learn from the things we treasure? And how can we discover a life story through those objects? Five Things, from 89.3 WFPL and Louisville Public Media, explores those questions and more. +
Clarence Bucaro is a singer-songwriter and a one-time stay-at-home dad. He’s been making albums since 2000, with some twists and turns along the way. He’s also in a two-person book club with his mom. #goals +
Great Podversations
Great Podversations features nationally-recognized writers in conversation. These candid discussions invite the listener to learn about literature, politics, history, economics, science, and culture through the voices of compelling authors and experts. NPR’s Robert Siegel introduces each pair of fascinating guests. Great Podversations is produced by the University of Louisville Kentucky Author Forum, and distributed by Louisville Public Media. For more information, please visit kentuckyauthorforum.com.
Politician and author Charles Booker discusses his book, “From the Hood to the Holler: A Story of Separate Worlds, Shared Dreams, and the Fight for America’s Future,” with writer and Professor Eddie Glaude.
Charles Booker represented the 43rd District in the Kentucky House of Representatives, where he served on the economic development and workforce, judiciary, and natural resources and energy committees. A graduate of the University of Louisville and its Brandeis School of Law, Booker is a Bingham Fellow and a Bloomberg Innovation Delivery Team fellow. He is the founder of the advocacy group Hood to the Holler, which continues the work of his campaign, building bridges between previously siloed communities.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. He is a former president of the American Academy of Religion. Glaude is the author of several important books including “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul.” Glaude is a columnist for Time magazine and an MSNBC contributor on programs like Morning Joe, and Deadline Whitehouse. He also regularly appears on Meet the Press.
Here Today
This is a pivotal moment for west Louisville. There’s a track & field complex planned, a new YMCA in the works, and the renovation of Beecher Terrace. But as property values rise, so do property taxes, and that can be a hardship for the people already living there. Is this revitalization? Or gentrification? Here Today will track the changes in Louisville’s West End, and tell the stories of the people who call it home.
Earlier this year, we set out to take a deep look at why Louisville’s West End is changing — and how. In this last episode of Here Today, we address the uncertainty that lies ahead, and how that could affect the people who live west of Ninth Street.
Here Today is a listener-supported project. You make it possible for us to hold the people in power accountable for the promises they make. Click here to chip in: wfpl.org/supportheretoday
The latest show from our podcast incubator launched in September, 2022. “Sprinkle Sparkle” celebrates Black women and people of marginalized genders prioritizing pleasure as an act of defiance. Host Nubia Bennet focuses each episode around a central question: How did you center your own pleasure today? Listen and learn more at 
Our first “incubaby” launched in September, 2021. “Where Y’all Really From” tells the stories of Asian Americans in Kentucky. Learn more about it and hear the first season at