I began The Past and The Curious after dreaming and planning through most of 2016. I love history and I love music and I wanted to reach people, especially the young, with great stories from our shared past. My plan was two-fold: a podcast of free audio content and hopefully, some illustrated storybooks.
There was not a quality history podcast designed with kids in mind.
I knew my passions could make a difference in someone's life and bring a bit of joy to a world that could really use it. So I convinced some friends and we launched with our first episode in October 2016 and have steadily released an episode each month. I'm amazed that as of February 2017 The Past and The Curious is already averaging nearly 500 listens each month!
If you haven't listened yet, it's great fun. Episodes are broken into bite-sized chunks, easy to listen to, and equally engaging for adults and kids. To us it's about cultural literacy: we believe everyone should know about Nelly Bly, Henry "Box" Brown, or P.T. Barnum, and everyone should have the opportunity to hear music from the Great American Songbook and the American Folk cannon. So we create something special, and we mix it all together with our own unusual approach. The history comes in the form of music, quizzes, stories and more. It's like a modern-day variety show, except deceptively educational!
The future is bright: our iTunes reviews are stellar (though we could use more), we got a sponsor to help defray our operational costs, we've been featured on some great "Best Of" lists, and we've recently joined a growing and powerful affiliate group called Kids Listen, which boasts amazing kid-friendly podcasts such as the acclaimed science show "Tumble" and the adventure-based serial-story program "The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian."
We have some high goals - to reach a wider and larger audience is most important. If we succeed in that, it should make things easier to find a market for the picture books we create, the album we aim to release, and who knows what else?
You can help us!
- Please spread the word. That's how we'll succeed.
- Subscribe on iTunes, or your preferred listening platform. It's free.
- Leave reviews in iTunes! That's how we'll climb in the ratings, which will help us get noticed by more people.
- Consider becoming a patron on our Patreon page. It's easy and can be as low as $1 a month with no commitment. We'd LOVE your support. It's a cool platform, if you're unfamiliar - you might find other creators you love and wish to support.
Be sure to listen to The Past and The Curious on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, Soundcloud and more!
2017 is widely projected to be the best year for podcasts yet, and with your help we can position ourselves to be on the forefront of creating quality programming for curious young minds (and old ones too).
Thanks,
Mick Sullivan
P.S. As for the storybooks.... we're still working on that. Good things are coming, but it's a step at a time.