Rebecca Auman & Theo Balcomb

Rebecca Auman is the host of Voices in the River, a podcast created by Theo Balcomb, who produces the show with help from Sara McCrea.

Why ‘Voices in the River?’ Is there one river you’re thinking about?
Theo: When we were trying to come up with a title, I had generated a list of ideas, and none of them felt right. But then one day early on, as we were talking, Rebecca said, “I think it’s Voices in the River.” And I said okay. I don’t tend to be that attached to names in general, though—when I had my first child, I wanted to just name her “baby”. Titles feel somewhat arbitrary to me. 

Rebecca: She wanted to name her daughter “baby”, and she named her news podcast “The Daily.” So “Voices in the River” was a bit of a stretch. 

Theo: I just don’t think titles are that important. But now I love ours. It makes clear that it’s not a show only about Rebecca; it evokes a feeling, a mood, an environment, a scene. 

Rebecca: Once a week, I go down to the Eno River in North Carolina, where I live, and I sit on the banks. I try to listen really carefully to the sound the water makes, and over time that place has become very special and spiritual to me. And I love the metaphor of a river to describe a flow of collective energy. That’s what we want the show to be: a flow of women’s stories about how intuitive knowledge has altered their lives. 

What are you hoping to do with the podcast?
Rebecca: We’re interested in disrupting patriarchal narratives about women and power by telling stories of intuition and magick. We want to make space for narratives of inner wisdom, which patriarchy has feminized and dismissed throughout history. 

Theo: From the beginning, we didn’t care about getting the biggest name—we care more about gathering a collective of stories rather than centering personality or fame. Even when we host recognizable guests, Rebecca is far more interested in their stories and experiences than their professional identities. In our episode with healer and multimedia artist SaraJo Berman, Rebecca didn’t ask “Who are you? What do you do? What is your job?”; she said “Tell me about the things you have chosen to do in the world.” 

Rebecca: Exactly. We care less about who the voices are and more about what the voices have to say.

Theo: To me, the show is really about carving out a space for these magical experiences so many of us have and keep secret because we worry they make us strange. In the strangeness of those stories, there is so much wonder and delight. 

Tell us about how you two met.
Rebecca: Emi Kolawole (Guest on Season 1 Episode 2) and I had a weekend in Wilmington, NC. I remember it clearly. We were sitting at Indochine eating Pad Thai, and Emi said, “I think you should meet my friend Theo.”

Theo: Emi is the kind of friend who, when she tells you to do something, you do it. Even if you have no idea why. She introduced us, and I was happy to chat but knew nothing about what Rebecca did. I knew something was up when Rebecca signed her email “With love and magick.” When the two of us met on Zoom for the first time, she asked if she could read cards for me, and that was the beginning.

What was the moment that the idea for this podcast clicked? Can you remember?
Theo: I knew from the first time I met Rebecca that any project we did together would be unlike any other. When we started the show, I was really interested in taking the rigor and responsibility I applied to my journalistic work at NPR and The New York Times to these subjects that are often treated as trivial. Could I apply the same tools of production I had developed at these news outlets to stories about magick and witchcraft? 

In our first taping, with guest Amy Gorely, I was in my usual producer mode, trying to prompt Rebecca with follow up questions and keep the conversation more or less on track. At one point, I was typing out a question, and Rebecca said it, verbatim, before I could even share it with her. 

Rebecca: I could feel that was the question you wanted me to ask! 

Theo: That was a moment that helped me understand not just Rebecca’s powers as a witch, but also what this show could be. We could make something as thoughtful and as poignant as the news I was making before, and we could do that by listening to our own intuitions. We could lead from our hearts, not our heads, and this would be powerful. 

Rebecca: Storytelling is a process of design, and stories can be designed by both the head and the heart. 

Theo: Also, when we led from the heart, there was so much fun. I mean, we could ask the question: “So how do you get to the place that you can take off your clothes and dance naked under the moonlight?” It was silly and joyous!

Rebecca: That wasn’t silly!! That was very serious. 

Theo: Right, but you don’t hear someone ask about naked moonlight dancing on Morning Edition. 

Rebecca: Or me talking with a guest about her playing a flute to a patch of cabbages. 

I know you have an untraditional production schedule. Tell us about it!
Rebecca: For the first season, we released thirteen episodes (a lucky number) about twice a month. We’re a completely independent show, and we didn’t want to rush these episodes. For this new season, we decided to tap into the cycles of the moon—we are still publishing twice a month, but now we are releasing episodes on each new moon and full moon, to celebrate those rhythms.

Theo, I heard Rebecca say that you are a translator, bridge between worlds, a midwife. Is that always the role of the producer? What is a producer?
Theo: For this show especially, the producer as translator description is right on. Rebecca is so gifted at what she does, and it is my role to help carry her message to listeners who wouldn’t necessarily understand her practices. For a show like this, a big part of my role as a producer is to help it become more accessible. 

When it comes to the production of the show, I’m paying such close attention to when there’s pauses, when there’s breathing, when there’s awkwardness. We never want to  skip over the emotion that audio can capture. 

Rebecca: A great producer is a net. And at the end, Theo will often come in with a question that gets to the heart of the conversation. There’s a third space that’s created together.

I know the theme is different. How is the pace and rhythm different than other shows?
Theo: I make use of pretty heavy scoring in the show. I’m interested in creating moments within the stories that you wouldn’t necessarily think of as big or important, but to our guest they really are. In a lot of our episodes, our guests talk about their dreams for the future. I love using heightened production to bring those dreamscapes alive, inviting the listener to inhabit those dreams with them. I also let these moments and scenes breathe as much as possible.

A friend of mine gave me some feedback early on in the first season that the first episodes sounded very neat, maybe a little too clipped or tight. Once we started to give the show more space, it really opened up. Coming from a more traditional news background, I think I had to free myself from wanting to make it too perfect. We have to make room for the pacing of emotional experience. Some of the things we talk about on the show—we’re used to dismissing them, and they could feel trite. In our conversation with Katherine May, Rebecca and Katherine talk about the power of saying “I am enough.” If I pulled that out of its context, or if we went to that part of the conversation too soon, it would make me roll my eyes. If it comes out of nowhere, it feels disingenuous. A statement that profound has to be earned through the pacing. At that point in the conversation, the message is able to really get through to people because of the time and care we’ve taken in preparing the listener for it. 

This season you opened a channel for listener support. Can you tell me about that decision?
Rebecca: We’re a completely independent (and unfunded) show, and it is really important for us to keep these conversations unmuddled by advertisements. Theo puts a tremendous amount of work into the podcast, shaping the conversation, scoring each beat, and making sure that we are putting something beautiful and accessible into the world. 

This season, we decided to ask for listener donations of $33, partially because it’s a lucky number for me—you can read why and support the show here. Sara McCrea, a producer we work with on the show, also pointed out that $33 is about how much you would pay for a hardcover book, and we like to think of the 13 episodes in this season as being in a bound anthology, in conversation with one another. The show will stay free; we’re not going to put up a paywall. But as we’re trying to keep the show and our ambitions for it going, listener support is such a meaningful lifeline. 

What is the best way to listen to Voices in the River? Alone? In the dark? On a walk? Candlelight?
Rebecca: I see this show as an opening—a portal—for listeners to hear their own voices. So we would hope you listen to the show in a place that is supportive to you. We hear from a lot of listeners who put on the show in their “twilight hours,” those transitional times before they go to bed, as they have their coffee, or when they get home from work. I love that these conversations can help with those shifts. 

Theo: And, of course, we start every episode (and production meeting!) by lighting a candle, so I think that’s a great way to bury deep into listening, by candlelight.

Thanks, Rebecca and Theo!