Melburnians love a good podcast. With hundreds to choose from, Melbourne’s podcasts are great to listen to while travelling on our trains, trams or buses; sitting by the Yarra on a summer day; or trapped indoors as the four seasons go by outside. And as a City of Literature, naturally, many of these podcasts are about books, writing and the arts.

The topics and formats of Melbourne’s podcasts vary.

  • There’s a whole trove of podcasts full of great advice for writers and creatives including Starving ArtistThe First Time, and Jacky Winter Gives You The Business.
  • For busy folks and lovers of book clubs, there’s a bunch of book-club style podcasts featuring author interviews, such as Literary Canon Ball,  The Garret, Literati Glitterati and Kill Your Darlings. Terry Pratchett fans even have a chance to geek out together on Pratchat.
  • Panel shows with regular special writerly guests include SisteriaUnladylike, and Better Words.
  • Even our libraries have podcasts with Desert Island Books and Dear Reader being but two of the examples.
  • Or podcasts that delve into storytelling in creative ways, such as LIMINAL’s Shifting Subjects podcast that explores what it means to be Asian-Australian; or Emerging Writers’ Festival’s Vignettes, where different writers tell stories centred around a specific theme each episode.
  • Last but not least, the Melbourne City of Literature Office partnered with Broadwaves to create the podcast Tramlines, designed to be listened to on specific tramlines! Each story is written by a different Victorian writer and makes use of the location, the time and the ambient sounds to complement your tram journey.

The Australian Podcast Awards (hosted in Melbourne in 2018) celebrates outstanding podcasts, and podcasts from Melbourne often make the cut. In fact, podcasts from Melbourne have picked up awards from a number of prizes. These include:

Melbourne is also home to great community radio stations, whose broadcasts are often podcasted for later listening, or are available to stream online. These stations provide local content, with shows aimed at different communities. These stations play an important part in the Melbourne community, as well as acting as a great training ground for the next generation of audio creators. Our community stations include:

FBi radio, in association with SYN and RRR, present All The Best – a storytelling podcast.

If you’d like to start listening to podcasts but you’re not sure where to begin, the Australian Audio Guide brings all the best ones together in one place. Broadwave is also a great resource both for those listening to and creating podcasts and audio.