Commonplace Podcast

About Commonplace Podcast

Intimate and compelling interviews by Rachel Zucker with poets and other artists. Become a Patron & support our growing podcast! www.patreon.com/commonplacepodcast

Publisher

Rachel Zucker

Category

arts · education · fiction

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

16 May 2016

Latest episode

26 Feb 2025

Latest episodes

132 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   26 Feb 2025

   Episode 132: The Hiatus Explained

   In this episode (originally aired as Hey, It’s Me #15: “It’s Okay”) Rachel talks with Mike Sakasagawa about why she’s putting Commonplace on a hiatus and how she feels about it.

2. 

   21 Jan 2025

   Episode 131: Reading Sabrina Orah Mark’s Happily

   Rachel speaks with Sabrina Orah Mark about Happily, her collection of essays on fairytales and motherhood which began as a monthly column in The Paris Review. Rachel and Sabrina speak one-on-one over Zoom and then, a few weeks later, at the live-virtual Reading with Rachel salon. Sabrina talks about the fire in her home, writing in the dark, writing in real time, writing about sacred things, the veil of surrealism, teaching outside the academy, writing about kids and parents as a form of protection and what it felt like to—finally—directly write what she really feels.

3. 

   18 Oct 2024

   Episode 130: Lois Conner

   Rachel talks to photographer and (her former) photography teacher Lois Conner about Conner’s path to becoming a photographer, working at the UN, her yearly trips to China, teaching, the challenges and delights of a two-decade-long project of photographing pregnant women and the work of organizing the vertical and horizontal large format (nude) portraits into a book—To Be—published by Artiere in 2024. Conner talks about teaching, about being a straight cis woman photographing nude women, the circle as an artistic format, how a technical mistake led to the appearance of the Venus of Willendorf in her darkroom on a very hot night in Pennsylvania, and much more. The two talk about one of Rachel’s favorite topics: the ethics of representing people in art, and how much Lois’s teaching and the medium of photography influenced Rachel’s development as a poet.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

886,982

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

215 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 61 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

59

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

67

Contact Commonplace Podcast

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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