Jule Banville has got a thing for obituaries.
As a professor at the University of Montana School of Journalism, Banville teaches students audio journalism, feature writing — and how to write about dead people. Obituary writing is an art, and Banville captures just how beautiful the process of creating an obituary can be in her brand new podcast, The Obit Project.
On this week’s Notes from The Edge, Banville — who produced the excellent Montana podcast An Absurd Result in 2021 — tells the story of how a few years and a few glasses of wine ago, she and her former colleague at WNYC, Jad Abumrad, came up with a brilliant idea to make a podcast of audio obituaries. The Obit Project itself skirted death several times after studios interested in producing it folded. Industry be damned, Banville and Abumrad remained committed.
The podcast is a celebration of being alive, and several episodes are available now. It’s a show about dead people, yes, but also dead places, dead … elephants. And, at its heart, it’s about journalism.
And, hey, if you like The Western Edge and want us to live a long life, we need you to subscribe. You can get a subscription below via Substack, or if you want to make a donation that is out of Substack’s hands, there’s a button for that, too. We’re cool with either.
Thanks for listening.
