Confession: I’m not much of a regular podcast listener.

It’s not because I don’t want to be. In fact I have a LONG list of podcasts I enjoy listening to and want to keep up with. But somehow it never seems to happen. You see, whenever I sit down, something pops into my head that I want to write about. And I can’t write and listen to other people at the same time. It’s frustrating.

The days are not long enough – that’s my problem. If Science could just find a way to add an extra couple of hours to each day (but in the evenings please, not longer mornings!) that would be great…

But sometimes I do find the time to appear on podcasts, and that’s always exciting!

This week I was a guest on The Classics Podcast, in an episode about Classics and illustration, which was a tremendous privilege (thank you for having me, Katrina – and for the mug!). My fellow guests were two of my Classics illustration heroes, Flora Kirk and Laura Jenkinson-Brown.

Flora (aka Flaroh) is one of the most well-known Classics illustrators working today. She has a wonderful shop – do check it out if you haven’t before! I always include items from it in my Christmas Gift Guide, partly as a hint that people could buy them for me…! She has a background in archaeology and museum work, and an amazing eye for detail, but it’s her vibrant colours that make her work so eye-catching. I finally met Flora last year, by sheer coincidence, at a book signing – we hadn’t met before, even though we’d been living only a few miles from each other for ages!

Some of the striking artwork featured on Flora’s website.

Laura (aka Jenks) has become famous for her Greek Myth Comix. She works as a teacher, and she draws as one too, using stick figures to explain concepts and illustrate stories. Her work is extremely useful as a teaching tool – but it’s also full of humour and clever quirks. I have to admit to owning one of her Iliad Chickens T-shirts myself! And she doesn’t stop at illustration. She’s currently working on a choose-your-own-adventure version of the Odyssey which is absolutely brilliant (I was lucky enough to test out an early version). I’ve only actually met Jenks once, at a conference a few years ago, but I’ve worked with her on a few things, and she’s an inspiration!

Some of the brilliant things available in Laura’s ‘Classics Nerds’ range (I’m saving up for the Minoan octopus jumper!).

At some point, of course, I realised that the three of us together are Laura, Flora and Cora. We should have our own children’s programme.

You can listen to our episode on Podcasters, on Spotify here, and also on Apple Podcasts; and you might enjoy some of the other episodes too, which include some really interesting interviews with people who’ve taken their interest in Classics in surprising directions!

Some other great podcasts and audio programmes have come out in the last couple of weeks. The BBC/OU radio series Human Intelligence, available on BBC Sounds, is shaping up to be excellent. Presented by author Naomi Alderman (who knows a lot about Classics herself!), it covers thinkers from different time periods and cultures, looking at how their ideas were shaped by their lives and personalities. There have already been a couple of great episodes on the ancient world: on Socrates, and on Diogenes (with a friend of mine, the great Rob Cromarty); but the other episodes are fascinating too.

Also on BBC Sounds, the brilliant Edith Hall was talking to Greg Jenner about Aristotle on You’re Dead To Me last week. Great fun, and well worth a listen!

There are, of course, LOADS of regular Classics podcasts, some of which have been running for a very long time. I don’t have time to round them all up for this post – but one I thought I’d mention here is The Partial Historians. Mostly they talk about Roman history (in amazing detail!), but I also thoroughly enjoyed their recent special episode featuring Joel Christensen talking about his new book Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things, which looks very interesting indeed!

You could also check out the podcast It’s All Greek (and Latin) To Me, with episodes which give the stories behind famous quotations, myths and names from ancient literature. Being a literature person myself, this one is right up my street!

So if you have time, or (unlike me) the ability to multitask, why not put on a podcast and learn something new?