Introduction

THOMAS: Perspective. Point of view.

CHERYL: The pandemic. Representation. All of these are answers provided by d/Deaf and disabled podcasters to the question:

THOMAS: Why did you start a podcast?

QUDSIYA: It was the summer of 2020, and we were all sort of confined to our homes in the middle of a global crisis, a global pandemic. And I had been thinking a lot about my disability identity and what I could do to support a community that had been incredibly embracing of me as I sort of experienced vision loss and came to an embrace of my disability.

THOMAS: Welcome to POD Ask Us.

CHERYL: Isn’t it POD Access?

THOMAS: Can’t it be both?

CHERYL: Connecting d/Deaf and disabled podcasters to audiences and each other.

THOMAS: Ba-dum-dum bap-bah-dum.

CHERYL: [happy giggle]

THOMAS: That opening clip was Qudsiya Naqui from Down to the Struts.

CHERYL: OK, you told them who Qudsiya is, but do they know who we are?

THOMAS: Mm. Good point. [chuckles] I’m Cheryl Green, a brown skin Black man with a smooth-shaven bald head, full, neat salt-and-pepper beard, and I’m wearing dark shades and a button-up light blue short-sleeve shirt.

CHERYL: Uh, ok. If that’s the case, I’m Thomas Reid. I’m a white Ashkenazi Jewish woman with olive skin, a blob of lightly-salted curly brown hair, and silver-and-white cat-eye glasses. And I’ve got my blue-gray t-shirt on, and I’m ready to go!

THOMAS: Cool! Let’s get back to Qudsiya.

Why disabled podcasters got started

QUDSIYA: I’m a lawyer by training. I wanted to bring some of those skills and that expertise and background highlighting different issues that affect the disability community. I’m also a lover of podcasts and anything to do with audio content and audio books.

CHERYL: The pandemic gave lots of people time to think. Kennedy Healy from the Crip Crap podcast used the time to form a response.

KENNEDY: I think the media talked a lot about us, the most vulnerable populations, talking about helping out your neighbors, who needs protection. Why we should wear masks, why we should get vaccinated. But there wasn’t a lot of conversation where people were talking to us. I was tired of not seeing my disabled friends and disabled people in media.

MAXWELL: For three years I was listening to podcasts. I had been diagnosed with MS around that time, and I remember just being in bed a lot to help me get through the day.

THOMAS: That’s Maxwell Joy Moore from the podcast Power Not Pity.

MAXWELL: I remember sitting down and thinking, like, why don’t I hear the voices of disabled people of color in any of these podcasts that I listen to? Like, what about the Black Jamaican American, dark skin, trans, disabled perspective? I didn’t hear anyone who looked like me or talked like me. Maybe I should just create it because it deserves to be out there.

CHERYL: There are all sorts of reasons for starting a podcast. Providing information, taking space to provide additional perspective. Not all disability podcasts began during the pandemic.  But when you consider how the pandemic highlighted the inequities of people on the margins, often, that inspires those affected to respond.

THOMAS: But advocacy, activism is only one reason for starting a podcast.

CHERYL: Creative output, fiction or non-fiction writing.

THOMAS: Promoting a business.

CHERYL: Sharing a perspective.

THOMAS: No matter the reason, when it comes to our voices or the perspective of d/Deaf and disabled people, as Maxwell says:

MAXWELL: It deserves to be out there.

CHERYL: Thomas, you and I both started our own podcasts by ourselves. I still do mine completely solo, and I think that’s why I don’t get an episode out every month like I used to the first few years I was doing this.

THOMAS: That’s something I think about pretty often. While I don’t regret my beginnings, there’s a lot I’d do differently today. One of those things is to seek out other creatives in some way to team up with.

QUDSIYA: I went to Barnard College in New York City. And for the pandemic, they were trying to connect students with, like, remote or virtual opportunities. And so, I put together a proposal to see if anyone, any of these students was interested in working with me and volunteering and helping me set up the podcast.

CHERYL: Qudsiya really addressed her strengths and weaknesses. She knew she didn’t know how to edit audio and wasn’t interested in that part, so she found someone for that role.

QUDSIYA: And then I had one more friend. And she had been a journalist and was doing a master’s degree in linguistics and was like, let me help you design your social media and curate your social media. And I was like, great!

THOMAS: Wow! So even just talking about the idea with others could help find support.

CHERYL: Ugh! I wish POD Access was available when I was starting out. Besides sharing in the work, I know there are some real advantages to not going it alone. Kennedy from Crip Crap says for her and her podcast partner Justin, it goes beyond making content.

KENNEDY: We were friends, but we’ve gotten a lot closer through making this together. It’s fun to bounce off each other and bring in guests that we know or that one of us knows and meet new people. So, yeah, it’s just, it’s been a blast.

CHERYL: Fun?!!! Wait, creating a podcast can be fun?!

THOMAS: [chuckles]

Crip time, accessibility, and resources

THOMAS: Today so much of the talk around starting a podcast is focused on metrics and money, gaining listeners in order to secure financial support. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not the only thing. There’s some real-life factors for disabled creators to consider. For example, best practice around building a successful podcast stresses consistent and frequent publishing.

CHERYL: But for Endever* of the AAC Town podcast, which they co-created in 2020, well, that just doesn’t work for them.

ENDEVER*: [speaking via AAC device] Oh, gosh. Well, we definitely run on disabled time. Both of us tend to have quite busy schedules. And Sam’s assistant, who we fondly refer to as our tech department, only works a couple days a week. And then I tend to have these long absences every so often when I’m in hospital or other intensive treatment programs addressing my co-occurring conditions. So, between all that and coordinating schedules with our guests, I’d say it’s lucky if we’re able to get an episode out every three months.

CHERYL: Then three months it is! We’re talking about crip time here. That’s the beauty of crip time: getting things done at the pace that works for you and pausing if you need to pause.

THOMAS: Comparing our output to the top 100 podcasts on the market is probably not a good idea. Many of these podcasts have large teams of multiple producers, systems creating daily and weekly episodes. Sometimes that just doesn’t work for us.

MAXWELL: I would say that I am on a hiatus. Life is…life is lifin’! [laughs] And I’ve been dealing with a lot of like stuff around mental health, and my medications, they change all the time. It’s kind of a little bit up and down.

CHERYL: For Ajani AJ Murray, host and producer of a podcast that launched in 2024, Acting Up With AJ and Crew, the desire to produce a podcast has other real considerations.

AJ: I guess when I think about it, I have concerns around resources, money, and hands to help me do the podcast because I need someone to help me run the equipment, and I need an assistant or two. Because there’s lots of things that I wanna do, there’s lots of things that I know that I can do, I just need the hands. I just need somebody that has the time because I have all the time in the world. I just need my equipment to get working, and I need somebody with the equipment know-how.

THOMAS: For others like Qudsiya, there are more external concerns.

QUDSIYA: At first, I didn’t tell people at work about the podcast. It has nothing to do with work. I never mention my work. And then I started to become really active inside of my institution on disability issues. I helped co-found a disability awareness employee resource group. I started advocating for accessibility inside of my organization. And then in the course of all of that, it kind of like slipped out that I had this podcast, which turned out to be really a blessing. I’ve used it as a resource for my colleagues. I had my boss on the podcast to talk about a report that we did about access to civil courts. And everyone’s been really supportive and super on board.

THOMAS: Pairing your podcast with your job or some other aspect of your life could be quite beneficial.

CHERYL: That could be resources or even getting paid to produce the podcast.

THOMAS: It could be an opportunity to reach others in your company or industry, or brand yourself as an expert in the field, which could lead to other opportunities.

Considerations for different podcasts and access needs

CHERYL: Other things to consider: What are the financial costs of starting and maintaining a podcast?

THOMAS: The time to produce your podcast.

CHERYL: Accessible technology and equipment.

THOMAS: Reliable internet for recording, posting. Not all podcasts require the same commitments. Look at the difference between investigative and chat podcasts.

CHERYL: Yeah, investigative podcasts take multiple producers, researchers, and reporters. They have travel budgets, original music compositions. And a chat podcast may simply require recording people in one place or online. And for many of these, you may not have to do a ton of pre- or post-production.

THOMAS: What do you want your podcast to sound like? What’s the vibe? Are you okay sharing personal information? Is the podcast political?

CHERYL: What platform and medium works best for you and your audience and your topic?

ANTOINE: Each episodes are live. So, it gets to YouTube, it gets to Facebook, it gets to Twitter, different platforms.

THOMAS: That’s Antoine Hunter, host of Deaf Woke, a video-based ASL podcast he began during the pandemic.

ANTOINE: We find individuals who people don’t even know who they are. Like, one Deaf person makes cakes in her kitchen, you know? With four kids running around in the house. And then there’s Warren, Wawa Snipes who was in The Walking Dead, who was singing American Anthem, singing for the halftime Super Bowl. You know, he’s very famous. So, it’s a blessing, yes.

Wrap-up

CHERYL: That was just five of the d/Deaf and disabled podcasters we talked to, and in the coming episodes, we’ll introduce you to even more.

THOMAS: I wanna meet them all!

CHERYL: And if there’s anyone in the audience right now who hasn’t already filled out the survey to get in the POD Access library, they should do that right now.

THOMAS: That’s right! They can go to PODAccess.net to get listed on our upcoming library so they can…

CHERYL: Connect to each other and grow their audiences.

THOMAS: Tell us your podcast origin story. Go to PODAccess.net and hit the Contact Us button.

CHERYL: And you can upload a voice memo or write a message.

THOMAS: And you might just hear it,

CHERYL: read it,

THOMAS: or see it in a future episode of the podcast or on social media.

CHERYL: Tell a friend and an enemy to follow or subscribe to POD Access wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram @ThePodAccess. @ T h e P o d A c c e s s.

THOMAS: PODAccess.net.

CHERYL: Meow.