When Erica Heilman heard about the death by suicide of 17-year-old Finn Rooney, she initially recoiled from telling the story. It was too raw. But Heilman, an independent podcaster and the creator of Rumble Strip, lives by the credo, “good conversation takes its time.” So she patiently waited and continued talking with Rooney’s mother. The story that evolved was not about suicide. It was about how the family and the Hardwick community grieved and healed together. The podcast that she crafted is called “Finn and the Bell.” It is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of love and loss.

Last week, Heilman won a Peabody Award for the podcast, the highest award in broadcast journalism. 

“A Peabody is like an Oscar wrapped in an Emmy inside a Pulitzer,” said Stephen Colbert, a multiple Peabody Award winner.

Heilman’s award is notable because she is an independent producer who, as she likes to say, makes podcasts in her closet. Rumble Strip, which she founded in 2013, is a one-woman operation. That’s not the typical profile of her fellow Peabody winners this year, who include longtime host of NPR’s Fresh Air Terry Gross, former CBS anchor Dan Rather, and other well-known media figures and institutions.

Heilman has a history of punching above her weight. Rumble Strip was named the No. 1 podcast of 2020 by The Atlantic, ahead of podcasts produced by the Washington Post and the New Yorker, to name a few.

Heilman is a self-taught podcaster. She was born in Vermont but left to study musical theater at the University of Michigan. She then landed an entry-level job at PBS' MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and continued to work as a freelance television producer around New York. That wasn’t paying the bills, so she moved back to Vermont and took a job as a private investigator. She began producing her distinctive Rumble Strip podcasts on the side, relying on listener donations to support it. Rumble Strip podcasts now air on Vermont Public Radio and at rumblestripvermont.com.

The Peabody Awards praised Heilman’s work on "Finn and the Bell" as “subtle, thoughtful, and gorgeous.” 

“Heilman’s important work serves as a reminder of what we stand to lose with the ongoing crisis in local news,” the Peabody Award announcement stated. “Local media institutions aren’t just responsible for holding the powerful accountable and shedding light on injustice; they’re also there to simply document life around them, to act as the institutional memory for the people they serve. They reflect communities back to themselves, forging the shared bond felt with each other through joys as much as tragedies.”

Heilman continually looks for ways to build community. Alongside her podcasting, her newest project is to help create a “mobile cultural center” in Hardwick called The Civic Standard.

Heilman wants her work to dignify the lives of ordinary people. 

“My hope is that … people I've talked to have felt seen,” she said.

“It makes me very happy to introduce Vermonters to each other who might never meet, where you can see yourself in that person,” Heilman said on The Vermont Conversation. “If I achieve that, I feel I've done something perhaps useful.”