We’re marking the 20th birthday of podcasting in conversation with Erica Heilman, a prize practitioner. Here we are with Erica in Peacham, Vermont, settled in 1776 in the Northeast Kingdom, up toward Canada. We seek out Erica because she’s the great artist emerging in this young medium.

With Erica Heilman in Vermont.

People speak of podcasting as radio on the internet, but it’s really something else. It can feel like pen-paling with strangers, except that the human voice goes far and wide to the world. And Erica’s podcast Rumble Strip shows just how deep it can go. She gets regular Vermonters talking, and then she listens and edits their voices with an almost religious attention and care. What strikes her listeners is the ring of truth, first and last in her work.