Secrets of Hosting In-Studio and Live from the Queen of Book Podcasts, Anne Bogel

This transcript was auto-generated from an audio recording. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

 Anne Bogel has spent the last six years of her life doing something uncanny. Every week on her hit show, What Should I Read Next?, she excavates a guest's reading life in fine detail. Then she recommends books that always seem to be the perfect choices for that guest, no matter who they are. It's not just her unusual ability to pair book with reader that keeps her show at the top of the charts. It's also the way Anne approaches hosting as the art of practicing deep hospitality for her guests. And that keeps her in listeners’ hearts year after year. It also makes Anne in demand as a public speaker. As intimate as she is with her podcast guests, you might never guess how raucously fun she is in front of a live audience.

If you dream of moving effortlessly between studio and stage, this episode is for you. Today we delve into the original meaning of hosting—practicing hospitality, no matter the situation—with Anne Bogel on Sound Judgment, where we investigate just what it takes to become a beloved host by pulling apart one episode at a time together. I'm Elaine Appleton Grant.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Anne Bogel. I am so delighted that you're here. 

Anne Bogel

Well, the pleasure is mine. Thank you for having me, Elaine. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

You're welcome. So What Should I Read Next? has been described as a book matchmaking show. It's usually very personal. Tell me, first of all, if you agree with that description and how it works and how you conceived of the format. Just to give a little bit of context to people who haven't heard the show yet? 

Anne Bogel

Well, I hope it's personal and I don't think I'd argue with that. And we do want it to feel like a show where the listener could see themselves in the hot seat, where they could see themselves as the guest. And that is very much by the design of the show. 

The show actually started as a blog series. I've been blogging online at modernmrsdarcy.com since 2011. And it didn't begin as a book blog. I would still say it's not exactly a book blog, but I found very quickly that as someone who loves to read and who loves to discuss big ideas and the granular particularities of everyday life, that I ended up talking about books a lot and using books as a springboard to talk about other topics that were on my mind.

And when you write about books on the internet, people start talking you to you about books and asking you for book recommendations. And a question I got so often from our readers was, Hey, I'm going on a trip, I'm in a reading funk, can you recommend a great book? You and I probably know that that is very personal to every reader. We don't have the same taste, we don't enjoy the same things. We don't gravitate towards the same genres. But I realized so many people asked me that question and I'd ask follow-up questions like, what do you mean what are you looking for? What have you enjoyed lately? They'd say, no, no, no. I just want a great book. That's all I need. And so I began stewing on this idea that reading is personal and how can you define your taste and how can you make it clear to others who are dabbling in their reading life, maybe for the first time in years, that it is a very individualized endeavor to find books you love?

So one Sunday morning on a whim, I put up a post and called it—the phrase you said—literary matchmaking, personal shopping for books, whatever you wanna call it. Let's try this out. And after thinking about it for a long time, I asked readers to tell me in comments three books they loved, one they didn't—because I think the truth often emerges in contrast, and it gives me a, a sense for where people don't wanna go in their reading—and what they've been reading lately. And I would recommend three books. A small number, won't overwhelm you, but enough to give you some choices of what you may enjoy reading next.

And I did this as a blog series for a long time and found myself thinking, though, I wish I could ask follow up questions. Not by email. I wish we could have a conversation. And this was in 2014, 2015. I had a lot of friends starting podcasts. And I thought it might be fun to try that medium.

So we started beta testing the show in late 2015 and launched in January 2016 and have been at it almost every Tuesday ever since. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So before each of these interviews, I ask my guests to share either an episode that they loved or one that was particularly challenging to make so that we can dissect your creative choices together. You gave me two, and we're gonna spend most of our time on the second one, which was a live panel at a book festival. But first to give listeners an idea of what the show typically sounds like, let's talk briefly about Episode 350: Book mail keeps us together. Why did you decide to share this one with me?

Anne Bogel

Oh, well, this one came to mind because we worked on it forever. As a team, we take submissions from our listeners, from our audience for who would like to volunteer to come on the show. And we get far more submissions than we can possibly take, but sometimes we get an idea in our inbox and we go, oh yes, we want to talk to those readers.

And we loved Adrienne and Barbara from the moment they landed in our inbox, because Adrienne is an adult reader, just a little older than me, and her mother is a lifelong reader and her mother is not quite 90 years old. She's an octogenarian, passionate reader. Reading has been a bond between those two for ages, and we just loved the idea of featuring a mother-daughter pair and a mother especially, who, because of the nature of podcasting, is a lot older than our typical guest.

Plus, when we heard about Adrienne and Barbara's love of reading and the specific books that they enjoy, we like to feature a variety of books on What Should I Read Next? We don't wanna talk about the same titles over and over again. And the more we heard about the specifics, the more we thought we need to make this conversation happen.

But for all those reasons that made it a wonderful episode, it was also a challenging one. To get ready for—to have the talk and then to capture the audio in a way that sounded great. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

She was delightful. And we're gonna hear, actually, a little clip from this episode, just to sort of help listeners understand a fairly typical format. This is a very highly structured show. It's beautiful—such warm flowing conversations, but there's a structure to it, which…I actually really love that structure. And this particular episode, it really struck me that it takes advantage of the intimacy of podcasting so well, this conversation between the three of you, the mother, the daughter, and you.

You open the episode by asking about Barbara's history as a reader, which leads her into her biography, which—you know, she's almost 90, it's kind of long. And at some point she mentions that she was a teacher, and you ask the question in this clip. 

Clip from What Should I Read Next?

Anne Bogel: Barbara, you said that you felt reading was touch and go for many years while you were teaching, and yet Adrienne, you say that she definitely passed on her love of books and reading to you. I'd love to hear a little bit about growing up a reader in that family. 

Adrienne: Oh, well one of the things that she didn't mention is that although we did move a lot, I do remember that whenever we moved, the books got packed up and they moved too. They weren't discarded as part of the move. So the first house we had in Arizona, I remember you had a whole wall of bookshelves installed in the dining room.

Barbara: Yeah. 

Adrienne: And it was just full of books. So books have always been, you know, part of the house I grew up in. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

My question is, you spend, um, a lot of time talking about Barbara's life as a reader before you ever get to the books that she likes, the books that you're gonna recommend. It's obviously a deliberate strategy, and I have some sort of educated guesses about why you're choosing this strategy, but you tell me.

Anne Bogel

Elaine, our show is a lot of different from a lot of podcasts, in that we don't talk to professionals. We do occasionally—we're gonna hear an episode in a moment, where we're talking to publishing pros of beloved authors—but often we talk to our listeners, call them regular readers, who will never be on another podcast.

And talking to someone who is a beloved teacher, mail carrier, hairstylist, dog sitter, you know, somebody who could be your niece, your nephew, or your grandma—talking to them is such a delight, but also readers don't have the context. Our listeners don't have the context for these guests that they do in the same way where if I said, oh, we're going to talk to fill in the blank podcasting host, or fill in the blank beloved author or TV star.

So what we try to do for everyone is really ground the conversation about the books in the person's reading life, to give our listeners a sense of what do they do, where are they in the world? What are all the different ways someone's reading life can take form? 

And everyone has a fascinating story to tell. I believed that in theory, before we started What Should I Read Next? But, just—we're getting ready to publish our 360th episode. So just doing it over and over and over, you learn how true that is in a practical concrete sense. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Here's what my guess was, is that to some degree, your show is about the experience of being a reader. It's like you're identifying who your listeners are, and we identify ourselves as readers, as people for whom books and words and stories are very, very important. And so there's this conversation that happens with everybody that's through that lens. 

Anne Bogel

Mm-hmm. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

And so I'm wondering whether that actually creates part of the bond that your listeners have with you.

Anne Bogel

I hope so, because we believe that when you're talking about someone's reading life, it's not just a compartment that's off over there in its own little bucket. Books are a shortcut to talking about the things that really matter in life, and when you're talking about someone's reading life, you're talking about the things that matter most to them. Or even if they say they're purely a fan of escapist reads—that's still a very personal thing. You're talking about the places that they like to visit when they wanna get away from it all. And so I think it's important to ground the conversation about books in the context of their life, ’cause the two can't be rent asunder and we strive to honor that.

Elaine Appleton Grant

It's a piece of what sets you apart. Because there are, now, I'm sure there weren't when you started, but there are now many book podcasts. 

Anne Bogel

Mmm. There are so many book podcasts. And you know, the funny thing is the concept for What Should I Read Next at the beginning was it was going to be an 18 minute show. And the person would pop on and tell me three books they love, one book they don't, what they're reading lately, and I would recommend three titles. But a lot of times you learn what you want to do from what you feel is missing. And I found myself just wanting to ask some questions and dig in and talk about the context of the life in which these books were being read and not just the books themselves.

Elaine Appleton Grant

What is your goal as a podcast host, when you think about what you're trying to achieve with each episode of the show, what's at the heart of that? 

Anne Bogel

Oh, that's a great question ’cause I could give you a whole list. Reading is something that so many people do on their own. And something that I've encountered in talking to so many readers, not just on the podcast, but now on the podcast, is that so many people feel like they are the only one who is as passionate about books and reading as they are.

And so to be able to shine a spotlight on these individual readers week after week, I feel like so many people have a chance to go, oh, me too. Me too, me too. That sounds like me. And our goal is to have a guest each week where some listeners out there are going, oh, they sound exactly like me. Those are exactly the kind of books I love.

So I hope it makes people feel seen, to feel less alone. I also really hope it gives inspiration for their reading lives. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Oh, it does. I'm sure of that. Speaking personally. 

So we don't have time to go through the rest of your structured questions from a typical episode and from this episode, but suffice to say you offered four books to Barbara at the end and she and Adrienne both thought— 

Anne Bogel

That's cause I couldn't help myself. We say it's just three, but sometimes I slide an extra one in. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

I heard that. I heard that. And she and and her daughter both thought that they would be great fits. It's kind of uncanny, it’s sort of like those personality quizzes you see on social media. Are you this, that—answer this question and, and then you get an answer back that fits you perfectly. 

As much as I really am dying to know how you do this, I'm not gonna ask you that. I'm holding myself back because we have to get—maybe we'll have time at the end. We have to get to this live panel discussion.

Anne Bogel

Well, I can give you the short answer. I'm not a linear thinker, which serves me ill in any number of ways, but when it comes to making connections that others find difficult to see in patterns in people's reading lives, it's great. And I've read a ton. That's the short answer. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

You've read a ton. Obviously. 

Anne Bogel

I've been practicing for this podcast since I was eight years old. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Oh, I love it. I love it.

So what I wanted to say about this live literary discussion at a book festival is that it was maybe more like burlesque. 

Anne Bogel

Well, I didn't know that going in. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

No, that's pretty clear. So we're gonna have some fun playing a couple of clips from it.

This is the second episode that you gave me, and as I said, to start out with, I asked for either an episode that you loved or an episode that was particularly challenging to make. Why did you choose Episode 354: Book Club Favorites: LIVE from Bookmarks! as an episode to share with me.?

Anne Bogel

Well, it didn't occur to me at first because this is a live event. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I mean, the duties of being a moderator at an event like this where—the four authors in question that you're about to hear were completely lovely, but moderators will get together and talk about managing the demands, the egos, the bruised feelings—that the agendas of the individuals on the panel. And it's very easy for one or two people to dominate the conversation. And with the variety of authors, all of whom I love their work, had so much respect for, I really wanted everyone on the panel. So—and there were four authors, as you'll hear—to walk away feeling like I got to talk about my book. I got to charm the audience, they all got equal playing time.

And I think good panel moderation is something that is invisible if you do it well. Oh, but if you do it poorly, there's a whole room of disappointed people who won't hesitate to let you know. So my goal was for the conversation to be seamless, to be balanced, and I really wanted to invite these authors to tell stories that they didn't often get to tell and to show sides of themselves that people never asked them about.

And also, you have to come at that sideways. You can't just say, tell me a story that nobody's ever asked you about before! You have to choose the right questions, and you have to do it all in a confined period of time without overexplaining. So it feels natural. I wanted it to feel a little bit like a party, so I wanted to work hard in advance so it felt easy in the moment, or at least felt easy if you were in the audience.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Yeah. I'm shaking my head because moderating even sometimes just two people is hard. And then you add three, four people. And the more famous they are, the more notable they are, sometimes the more difficult it is to balance it and to balance the needs of the audience against the needs of the panelists—or on a podcast, your guests—is also really challenging. 

Let's give a little bit more context for who was there. These authors are TJ Klune, Andrew Sean Greer, Brendan Slocumb, and Tia Williams. So tell us just a tiny bit about each one of them. They're quite notable. And then I'm gonna play a clip to, to start us off. 

Anne Bogel

I'd be delighted. Well, all these authors were gathered together in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at the Bookmarks NC Festival of Books and Authors, which happens every September. It's an amazing event. And they all had new or new in paperback books. So let's see. TJ Klune is the author of the House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door, Andrew Sean Greer won the Pulitzer for Less, and he was back for his new book, Less Is Lost. Brendan Slocumb is the author of The Violin Conspiracy, a North Carolina author, and Tia Williams wrote Seven Days in June, a romance with depth, as we talk about in the episode. And none of them had met in person before, and you just never know what the chemistry is going to be like when you bring people together. But we were about to find out. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Okay. So there was no dress rehearsal for this. 

Anne Bogel

Oh, no. Not at all. No, this was all cold. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Not at all. Okay. 

Anne Bogel

We'd emailed a little bit in advance, where I said, okay, this is what I'm planning to ask. These are my goals for the conversation. But we hadn't been in the same room.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Okay, great. So let me play a clip just to start us off. 

Clip from What Should I Read Next?

Anne Bogel: We are leaning in today to the idea of book club favorites, so I'd love you to think in your minds, what is the kind of novel that I can't wait to talk to my friends about? That I really want to stay too late and have another glass of wine—or whatever you drink at book club—and talk a little more about the book? What makes you think, oh my gosh, I have to talk to a reader about this book? Those are the things we're going to talk about today. I don't wanna jinx anything, but we are recording this panel and it will air as an episode of What Should I Read Next? Say a little prayer, send your good vibes into the universe. You can hear this again. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

I left that last bit in because first of all, your audience loves you. Obviously they're excited that it would turn into a podcast, but I also, just—as a podcast host and producer, saying good vibes into the universe for audio is always a good idea, isn't it? 

Anne Bogel

And you will also hear that not knowing what the content was about to be, I did make the promise out loud that we would air this as an episode.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Oh, okay. Okay. We'll have to talk about whether you had a discussion afterwards about whether to publish it or not. Obviously you did decide to, or we wouldn't be talking about it right now.

The topic book club favorites was already chosen when you were invited to moderate. 

Anne Bogel

But I love the idea of book club favorites. I lead a book club where we really lean into choosing discussable novels and ones that make readers feel like they found something new. When it was called book club favorites, I thought, oh, we have to keep that. I pictured the kinds of stories that you just couldn't wait to talk to your friends about, or as you heard me say, that make you say, pour me another glass of something, I have more to say. 

Another reason I liked it is that readers love to hear, not just about the books that the authors they love write, but who they are as people. And if we were talking about book club favorites, that was widely interpretable. So we could talk about the books that these authors enjoyed, or what they'd heard as feedback, or some memorable experiences they had had with book clubs, either as a participant or author, guest.

So I really like the flexibility of that theme. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

It's nice to have a theme, and it's certainly hardly unusual for a conference session to have a theme. But you are pretty specific in each podcast episode, too, and sometimes, I know as a producer, that that comes after the fact. But it seems to me that the more specific one can be when you start out a conversation—you have a destination in mind, a central question you're asking for a conversation—that it tends to work better. Do you think about a destination for each conversation?

Anne Bogel

I absolutely do, and I hear you. I do think there's a lot of value sometimes in chasing those rabbit trails and seeing where they may take you. But I also feel like even to the most experienced authors, speakers, podcasters, that specificity is a gift.

Because when someone can say anything, when you just give them a blank slate, oh, that can be paralyzing. But if you're very specific, you tend to get the specifics back in return. And I find that that's often where the most interesting tidbits lie. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

I could go down so many paths here, but I'll stick to where we're headed. So you did a little bit more fun intro, and the audience is already laughing along with you. They were primed, I think; that was a great audience from the get go. And you seem really comfortable with this crowd. And then you posed the first question, along the lines of what we were just talking about.

Clip from What Should I Read Next?

Anne Bogel: Okay. Let's do this. So we're gonna jump in real quick. 60 seconds each. Just tell me about a memorable book club experience, whether it's something that you experienced as a peer or something that you participated in as an author or heard a story about later. ’Cause you hear good stories when you write books that people talk about in book club.

Man: I got this one. I'll, I'll start it off. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So, so why did you decide to start with that question? Which is a very interesting question to these great writers?

Anne Bogel

Elaine, I thought they might have good stories. I also wanted something interesting, something engaging, that would get people talking right off the bat and would allow them all to introduce themselves to the audience really quickly so everyone could have a voice in the first five minutes of the conversation. That doesn't happen at some panels. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

That was a great question to get people to talk about their experiences and I think it led to places that I don't think that you expected.

Anne Bogel

That's true. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

And the authors started playing a game of can you top this? And I would say that Tia Williams, who was the fourth author to speak, Tia Williams describes her books as a little steamy—I would say she won that game. So let's listen. This is the longest clip I'm playing this episode, but I promise you it's worth it. 

Clip from What Should I Read Next?

Tia Williams: We don't wanna hear that scene. And then she was like—she goes into this long thing about how she was reading about this love story between Jenna and Eric and she's like, I love my husband, but not like that. And so I brought it in bed with us. And I read him this specific scene and we had sex like you would not believe.

Man: Oh my God.

Tia Williams: And I was like…cute. Like that's great. Like what—? Then another woman in the club at the table was like, I think my husband needs to hear you read that because I love my husband too, but it doesn't pop off like it does in your book. So she called her husband and I read this scene. 

Man: Oh no. 

Tia Williams: And I was like, we should be—we should get paid for this. How do I monetize the reading of sex scenes to husbands that don't know how to put it down? That's all I got.

Anne Bogel: Okay. Two things. I'm not sure I can go on. You read it? 

Tia Williams: I did. Yeah. Well, because also you know how shameless authors are, we're trying to promote our stuff. If this is what you wanna hear, I'm gonna give it to you. 

Man: Okay. But I gotta ask, did you read it monotone or did you just give it your all when you're— 

Tia Williams: No, I gave it my all.

Man: I'm sorry. 

Anne Bogel: We will not have a show of hands for how many of the audience members wish this could change direction right now. But, but…

Elaine Appleton Grant

So just take me to that moment on stage. Give me the experience for you, what that was like. 

Anne Bogel

Oh, well, there are pictures on Instagram, we’re at What Should I Read Next?, and you can see me flung against the lectern. Oh, this whole scene is unfolding in a church. That was the main venue for the Bookmarks Literary Festival. Just with my head, in my arm, hiding my face from the audience. And you can see TJ with his head in his hands. Brendan is covering his eyes. It's a moment. 

And the audience was very close to us, and so we could see people wiping away tears. TJ Klune made people cry with his discussions of how reading generates empathy and makes people feel seen, but people also laughed until they cried. It was—mm-hmm. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

One of the things I wanted to talk about is the difference between hosting a podcast episode and hosting a live event, because I was really struck by the difference between your manner as a host in the podcast and how you were on stage. And so the way I as a listener experience you as a podcast host is very personal. It's like there's only one person in the room for you, or in the case of the episode we heard before, two. Very present. Kind of quiet. It's like you're holding that guest in your hand carefully. It's very lovely, but it's intimate. Sometimes you're a little hushed.

And then on stage, you're this big personality and everybody loved you, and you were thinking on your feet. To be able to say, okay, how many audience members wish it had not gone in this direction was hilarious.

Anne Bogel

I have no recollection of saying that, but I could see audience members with their face in their hands, and I didn't think for a moment anybody wished that they were not in that room. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Oh, clearly, yeah, clearly. It was obviously a very funny line. 

So how do you think about the differences, because I think a lot of podcast hosts are also moderators, speakers, actors? They like the stage and the mic, but they're really different.

Anne Bogel

Mm-hmm. That's interesting. I have a fair amount of experience doing both. So we've been doing What Should I Read Next for a long time. I also shepherd the Modern Mrs. Darcy book club, where most of our events are on Zoom and have been since 2016—but we bring in authors and our community of readers together on a regular basis.

And it's so interesting to hear you talk about the intimacy of the two person conversation, because many times our guests have never been on a podcast before. And they'll hop on and they'll say, I'm so nervous to talk to you and—we talk about a lot of Taylor Swift songs, a lot of what do you enjoy for breakfast? What are you usually doing when you listen to What Should I Read Next? What are you usually doing right now when you're not podcasting? We just have a lot of chit chat. But I also say this is just two book lovers sitting down for coffee. Just picture us at your favorite coffee shop. We're leaning across the table and we get to talk about something we both love. This is going to be great.

But the visual for something like a panel discussion in a room of hundreds of readers is not two people at a table leaning over their lattes. It's more like a big come on in, the water is warm. Big mama, shepherding, embracing, there is room here for all of us and we're gonna have a ball.

They're both very positive kinds of energy, but very different. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Yeah. How do you. How do you feel on stage? I mean, it sounded like you were having a blast, and that that's part of what makes it appealing, is that you yourself are having so much fun. 

Anne Bogel

I mean, you have to take it seriously, but you also have to enjoy it or it's not fun for everybody else. Or at least that's what I think.

There has been a fair amount of exposure therapy involved in all of the hosting in any context that I have done. Yeah, just doing it over and over and over again helps so much. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So, back to this particular panel. I get this question a lot. Did you give the guests an idea of what was gonna happen? Did you give them the questions beforehand? Or did they come in just knowing the general topic?

Anne Bogel

I do think it's helpful if guests know the structure—and when I say guests, I'm talking about the authors on the panel. I wanted everybody to be prepared with the story and to have time to think about it, so nobody felt caught up short, especially since it was going to be the first thing I was asking you.

And since I asked for a little popcorn, I think I described it as popcorn style, they wouldn't have too long to think while everybody else was talking. So I asked for a sixty second story about something that happened in book club, and I also asked for a couple of book recommendations that you thought would be great to talk about in a book club, or that you had enjoyed talking about in a book club yourself.

And then I said, generally we're going to lean into the discussability, the delight of chatting with other readers about books. And there's one other thing I told them. Oh, that they all write books that make readers go, oh, I can't wait to talk to my friends about this. So let's talk about writing those books. But I think that's as specific as it got. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Sometimes what I hear in a very good podcast episode, or in this case a live event, is…it's like listening to orchestra music or something. Any kind of piece of music, where there's a range in the dynamics, you're not getting the same emotion all the way through. Right? You're laughing. As you said, we laughed, we cried, we laughed until we cried. There are serious moments. There are softer moments, there are hilarious moments. Some people orchestrate that intentionally, and then other people, it just—it's something that's happened over time. You're asking good questions and you're leaning in and it happens. Are you aware of that dynamic? 

Anne Bogel

Oh, aware of it, yes. And hopeful of it, yes. But you can't force something to happen. You can only set the stage as best you can and pray that it unfolds in that manner. But you're so right. Something else that comes to mind is an episode we're not talking about today where, tears are shed about the refugee camps in Cambodia and then there is swearing in that episode that we had to bleep but didn't for the first few hours we released the episode. It was a terrible accident. But that was about a YA book that made the guest really mad. That episode is so memorable, I think to me, because it does have that emotional range. 

And I was saying for this panel, the live panel at Bookmarks NC, that readers were crying tears of compassion and empathy and also just dying of laughter about these stories of reading sex scenes over the phone to to readers’ husbands.

It's the whole human experience. That's what you get in the reading life. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Exactly. Exactly. And I think it's the whole thing that you get in the podcasting life. I mean, there's a lot of similarity here because we are at heart talking about stories, no matter what. Can you think of something that you did in this panel when you were writing questions ahead of time and sort of planning it out, where you were saying, all right, let's set the stage to get that whole human experience?

Anne Bogel

I was very conscious of setting the stage as a whole. This is what I hope to showcase in your work. This is what I hope the listener's experience will be like. And these are the topics I wish to hit. And I feel like when you're talking about visiting the highs and lows, it can feel overdone to say, tell me a really sad story, or tell me a really funny story. You can't just tell somebody to be funny or lighthearted, but I'd like to think that we create a casing that allows for the range and then make people feel safe to explore that. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

We talk a lot. I find that this topic comes up quite often, making people feel safe. So what have you learned about ways to fairly quickly make someone feel safe who, as you said, has never been on a podcast before? You're probably never gonna talk to them again. You don't know each other. 

Anne Bogel

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We talk a lot on our team about hospitality. It's taken me a long time as a podcast host to understand this is really a thing, ’cause I'm just a person who loves to read, sitting behind a microphone in my slippers.

Right now, I am wearing actual clothes and actual makeup, as you can see, Elaine. But I'm sitting here in my slippers. And I just love to read and my job happens to be podcasting. But it's easy, I think, to be intimidated by the people who make the stuff we love. So I do feel like we consciously cultivate an atmosphere of hospitality and try really hard to make guests feel welcome, whether that's about how we email them, how we invite them to be on the show, the materials we send them, the things we do to make sure they feel comfortable with the audio. They know we have a history, like we tell them, we make our guests sound good. Don't worry if you sneeze, if you start talking and realize that you have no idea what's coming next—I usually fumble a few things. I would love to say I did it on purpose to put them at ease, Elaine, but it's not true. I just fumble things and then they hear, oh, she's just Anne. She's just a reader. It's fine. But I think establishing that you are two peers having a conversation, even if one of you is a professional podcaster and the other is a professional something else is really important, and just honoring everybody's humanity in the conversation. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

I love that. And you are the first person who's actually used the word hospitality, but you're probably familiar with Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering?

Anne Bogel

Oh, I love Priya Parker. Mm-hmm. We've talked about The Art of Gathering on the show, and I'm sure I was thinking about Priya Parker when I sent those emails early in advance to the panelists. Let's talk about why we're here and what we want to do. And in the introduction to the panel, I said, hey readers, this is why we're here today. This is what is going to happen. We're glad you're here. Let's go. 

Priya Parker really helped me think about what it means to host a gathering like that. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Right. Knowing why you're pulling that gathering together, why you're hosting it in the first place. 

Anne Bogel

Mm-hmm. And not just in your mind, but letting everyone who is there know. If you've been to Zoom meetings in the pandemic that were not good, a lot of times it's because you get on Zoom and nobody says, hi, we're glad you're here. This is what we're doing today. It can feel silly at first to name your purpose, but like, what is this podcast? What is it here for? What do we hope you take away? Those can be really important things to state, and it's easy to take them for granted and let them remain unspoken. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So you've been doing this for quite a long time, as we talked about since, early 2016. Almost 360 episodes. You also have a blog. You're running a business. You do live events, you have a Patreon. It goes on and on and on. It always sounds like an almost impossibly busy schedule. Podcast producers and hosts ask me about burnout quite often. What has kept you going? 

Anne Bogel

Oh, well, first of all, I chose a topic I loved and would never tire of, so that's huge. I will always be a reader. I feel like saying you'll always or never do anything is a bold claim, but I think it's safe to say I'll always be a reader. And we do have a firm structure, but that is endlessly flexible, offers variety until the end of time. And also—and this is more true now than it was when I started—I have a robust and amazing team. So I am the host, but I have a ton of just top notch supports. And when I say more true, our people who are great in 2016, there just weren't as many of them. So we've brought on even more team members to help me do what I do, to get our listeners everything they need, and just to make the work a pleasure. Because as nice as it is to be able to work at home in my slippers, talking about books, it gets lonely. And just to have a group of people committed to a common purpose who get to do this work together is such a gift and makes it continue to be possible. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcasting is a team sport if you can afford it. And if you can't afford it, you have to find other ways. 

Okay. Let's do the lightning round and then I wanna ask you about holiday gifts.

Anne Bogel

Oh, lightning rounds are so fun. They always make me think I should have one. But I don't, so I get to have fun with yours. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Oh, good. Wonderful. How has hosting this podcast changed you in a way that you didn't expect? 

Anne Bogel

Oh gosh. Okay. So I'm an INFP on Myers-Briggs, a type 9 on the Enneagram, not one who throws my weight around at all. And I feel like so much of podcasting has been a continuous journey in realizing that ultimately, I have to make the decisions about what the show is going to be. Nobody's going to give me permission. Nobody's going to give me the definitive answer. It is up to me, which is a little bit terrifying, but also liberating and something that I just continue to need to learn.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Tell me a quick story about when that came home to you, viscerally. 

Anne Bogel

Oh gosh. You know, it might have been when we decided to go longer in the conversation than the initial 18 minutes. Just like gimme the books, quick, quick, quick. But I do have this moment where I remember just sitting at my computer with my jaw open going, there's no one to ask for permission. Because I think I saw running through my head, who do I email to ask if I can? And then realize, oh honey, bless your heart. It's just you. It's just you. This is your job and you have to own it.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Right? The good news is you're the boss and the bad news is you're the boss. 

Anne Bogel

Exactly. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

What do you know now about being a host that you wished you'd known years ago? 

Anne Bogel

That providing structure for the guest is a gift. And we touched on this during the conversation already, but I think at first I thought that being the kindest and most welcoming host meant to just leave the room open for wherever someone wanted to explore in the conversation. But I didn't realize how many different types of conversationalists there were. I didn't realize how often people just talk when they're nervous. And I didn't realize how—we were talking in the panelist conversation—that a specific question can generate so much more interesting answers and also can feel so much more comfortable on the guest's end than just a tell me anything. That's been a journey.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Who's your dream guest for sound judgment, Anne? 

Anne Bogel

I would love to hear Kelsey McKinney from Normal Gossip. I think her show is in many ways so much like ours. Just telling regular people's stories that do not sound regular. This is not the kind of thing I'd listen to every week or while I'm making dinner, but when I had a road trip recently and just, I was not in the mood for literary fiction or something serious, I just wanted somebody to entertain me while all the highway was looking exactly the same, this was the ticket. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Sounds great. That sounds like a lot of fun. Anne, one last question for you, and that is, can you recommend a couple of books as gifts for podcast hosts, producers, writers, and other creators. 

Anne Bogel

Oh gosh. Well, we have to say Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering. Obviously, I first found that book, I think from Beth Silvers, who you hosted on the show, from Pantsuit Politics. I said, Beth, I need to run better meetings. Do you have a resource? And to my very great surprise, she recommended Priya Parker. But I think about that book every time I sit down at the computer to log onto Zoom or sit down with a podcast guest. It's an amazing book to think about the why of what you're doing, and what a gift it can be to your guests to be clear about the purpose of what you are doing together.

A book that was recommended to me ages ago was Out On the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel, with a foreword by Ira Glass. Now this is interesting in that it's a graphic novel memoir book about making good stories and getting good tape. Here, I have it here, for the video.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Ah, that's great. And hang on a second. You can see my card. I thought it would be totally marked up. I haven't looked at it in a long time, but it is a fantastic book and it's a great book for anybody interested in audio storytelling of any kind, and probably storytelling of any kind. 

Anne Bogel

I think that's a great one, and since we're talking about books you may be interested in getting, I'm sorry to say this one will not be available until after the holidays, but Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers, has a literary novel coming out that mixes in true crime, and her protagonist is a professor turned podcast host who's investigating a murder that happened 20 years before at a New England boarding school, and I know many podcasters are really going to enjoy that angle. It is called, I Have Some Questions For You, and it comes out in February. That's by Rebecca Makkai. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

I cannot wait to read that, and that is the one that surprises me the most. So thank you for that. That's a great recommendation. 

Anne Bogel

It's my pleasure. I'm only sorry you need to wait. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

And thank you so much. This has been just a delight and I plan to continue listening for as long as you make these episodes. 

Anne Bogel

Oh, I enjoyed it so much. Thank you for having me, Elaine.

Elaine Appleton Grant

At the end of every episode, I give you just a few of the many takeaways from these conversations. Here are some from today. You'll find more in the show notes.

1. We may not think of it this way, but the word host comes from the word hospitality. Anne takes that literally. She and her team practice hospitality consciously. They do everything they can to make their guests feel welcome and at ease. That hospitality starts with the way they invite guests, to how they prepare them, to the ways in which Anne calms their nerves at the start of an interview. The result of such care shows in the relationship she builds with her guests, and as a consequence, with devoted listeners.
2. Anne practices hospitality in the manner that author Priya Parker describes in her book The Art of Gathering, and that means understanding and explaining the purpose of that gathering or interview at the very beginning. It can feel silly at first to name your purpose, she said, but it helps you and your guest immensely to say, what is our purpose in being here today in having this conversation? What do we hope you take away from this? Don't let these important guideposts remain unspoken.
3. You're not the same host in a quiet studio as you are in front of a live audience, or at least you shouldn't be. Before you host an episode or a live event, visualize how you want the audience to feel. As Anne says, the visual for a conversation with a single guest might be two people at a table leaning over their lattes, but the visual for a panel discussion in a room of hundreds of readers is big. And as she put it, come on in, the water is warm. Big mama is shepherding, there's room here for all of us, and we're gonna have a ball. They're both positive kinds of energy, she said, but they're very different. 
4. Hosting a great round table takes a different kind of expertise than hosting a conversation with a single person. It requires deft moderation, an ability to think like an orchestra conductor—and sometimes a tightrope walker—along with a diplomacy to manage several egos. Anne plans ahead to give guests equal time and to ensure a lively flow of conversation. She also thinks about how to inspire guests to tell stories that they haven't told before by artfully asking for specifics—like in her case, a memorable experience at a book club. And remember, sometimes that first story sets the tone for all the rest. Next time you're gonna do a round table, practice first.

That's all for today. What fun that was. Anne Bogel, you can come back anytime! 

Thanks so much for listening to Sound Judgment, as always. For more takeaways and a list of the books and recommends as gifts for podcast hosts and producers, see our show notes on your podcast app. We'll also list the books in our Sound Judgment newsletter.

What? You don't get the Sound Judgment newsletter? Sign up for it! It'll be a nice little holiday gift to yourself in your inbox every couple of weeks. It's full of advice to help you become the best, most creative host and producer you can be. We'll put a link to subscribe in the show notes, or head on over to podcast allies.com. 

Sound Judgment is produced by me, Elaine Appleton Grant, sound designed by Andrew Parrella. Our gorgeous cover art is by Sarah Edgell. Project management and all the things by the wonderful Tina Bassir. 

The holidays are upon us, and that's always a good time to take a pause from podcasting. This is our last episode in December. We'll be back in January with a great new season, which includes a luminous conversation with the dynamite Glynn Washington of Snap Judgment. While you're waiting, follow us and give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. It's one of the best ways of supporting our show, and I promise I will consider it a holiday gift.

In the meantime, remember Anne's advice and practice hospitality at your table and behind your mic. Happy holidays.