Best Prairie Home Productions Podcasts (2025)

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What we learn from air travel 8:00

Play Pause

16d ago8:00

8:00

This all came crashing down last Monday night at JFK when I boarded a Delta flight to Seattle around 5 p.m. I consider JFK to be as close to a prison camp as I care to get. The Delta terminal is vast and crowded and ugly, endless lines at Ticketing, TSA agents whose badge entitles them to freely express hostility and contempt, miles of concourses l…

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S3E4 The Morris Model is helping a Minnesota prairie town go green and avoid partisan divides 40:13

20d ago40:13

40:13

Morris, Minnesota, a rural place on the edge of the prairie, is at the forefront of environmental sustainability. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits Morris to discover how its residents and local leaders have set aside partisan politics to build powerful, trusted partnerships to invest in clean energy and conservation practices that improve the town…

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S3E3 Hazard, Kentucky's civic renaissance is changing the narrative about Appalachia 43:03

1M ago43:03

43:03

Hazard, Kentucky, is overcoming the decline of its coal industry and the impact of the opioid epidemic, creating a vibrant downtown business district and renewed civic spirit. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits the Queen City of the Mountains to meet the people who decided downtown was worth fighting for and understand how they brought it back to li…

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S3E2 How Canton, North Carolina, is maintaining its identity and resilience after multiple disasters 40:01

2M ago40:01

40:01

A single natural disaster can change a community for generations. In the span of five years, Canton, North Carolina, experienced Tropical Storm Fred, Hurricane Helene, and a significant economic shock: the closure of its paper mill. The 115-year-old institution had employed more than a thousand people and was a source of pride for workers and their…

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S3E1 Restoring outdoor recreation in Old Fort, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene 40:19

2M ago40:19

40:19

Over the past several years, a set of partners in Old Fort, North Carolina, has been developing a network of elite mountain bike and hiking trails that was starting to put the town on the map. In September 2024, Hurricane Helene left the place in ruins, damaging homes, trails, and more than a dozen businesses that had opened as the outdoor recreati…

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Announcing season three of Reimagine Rural podcast 2:13

2M ago2:13

2:13

Season three of Reimagine Rural podcast launches soon with new episodes. Once again, host Tony Pipa is visiting small towns from coast to coast, talking to local people, capturing their stories of the changes unfolding in their hometowns, and exploring the implications and intersections with public policy. From disaster recovery in North Carolina t…

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My weekly walk to church and back 8:44

3M ago8:44

8:44

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for moreMy weekly walk to church and backThe Column: 04.04.25Garrison KeillorApr 4READ IN APPShareWe seem to be in a war against science and research, which is causing anxiety among us geezers grateful for anti-seizure meds that guard against us suddenly shaking uncontrollably on the street corner and strangers …

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The sweet day draws near 7:01

6M ago7:01

7:01

And now I worry, as old people do, about the kids I see who are growing up in the dreadful clutter of American life, the gizmos and social media bullying, and can they find delight as I did in skating on the frozen Mississippi and discovering Liebling and Jenny found listening to Prokofiev and Brahms. I pray for our kids to be lighthearted. The dar…

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The perils of pedestrianism 7:10

6M ago7:10

7:10

And so you have men on bikes racing through narrow gaps on jammed avenues with a backpack full of shrimp curry and pad thai, meanwhile an elderly man (me) on his way to the drugstore to pick up some Alka-Seltzer stands on the curb, peering into the darkness for some glimmer of light, some sign of motion, some clue as to approaching bicycles. This i…

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My plan for the next four years 7:44

6M ago7:44

7:44

Life is good once you master the art of Deletion. Every day my laptop is full of emails asking for money to do worthwhile, even noble, things, which, if I donated to them, I’d soon be living in a cardboard box in a vacant lot, and so I click on “Unsubscribe” and they go away for a while. Instead, I google “What is the prospect of international peac…

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Mother the queen of my heart 7:25

6M ago7:25

7:25

I was not a good son. A good son is one who visits his mother regularly and I was too busy to do that. I ran around a lot. Sometimes I traveled in fancy company. I was once in a movie directed by Robert Altman and financed, in part, by the Pohlad family. Carl Pohlad, the richest man in Minnesota, sat next to my mother at the premiere, and the two o…

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Living in the present, a day at a time 6:50

7M ago6:50

6:50

I live in the present. If I were to think about the future, I’d be alarmed about the utter demise of journalism and the self-degradation that many U.S. senators are eager to accept and the use of cryptocurrency to enrich the Chief Executive by tech tycoons kicking back 20% of their federal contracts, but instead I spend the day in my laboratory exp…

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It's never too late to be normal 7:26

7M ago7:26

7:26

The lust for world domination does not make for the good life. It’s the life of the male raccoon who battles for preeminence and winds up in a ditch being pecked at by crows. It’s not for sensible people. Be at peace, read books, cherish your friends, take walks, love life until the first coronary walks up and slugs you in the chest. Charisma is pu…

1
A wonderful night in Lubbock 6:51

7M ago6:51

6:51

I intend to enjoy defeat and go back and read Shakespeare, whom I wrote C-minus term papers about in college using terms like “well-structured,” “complex,” “buttery.” I’m going to travel to Dublin, Stockholm, Rome, where a person can become absorbed in the immediate surroundings, be engrossed in the moment. I want to hear The Marriage of Figaro aga…

1
A tale about close neighbors 7:50

8M ago7:50

7:50

I do not understand the neighbors, actually, such as why their summer house has LANDSCAPING and LAWN ORNAMENTS. A summer house is for relaxation, it isn’t to demonstrate craftmanship. You are supposed to sit on the porch and read Proust, you are not supposed to create a home that Proust would’ve envied.And I don’t understand why a copy of Foreign A…

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A man on the porch by the river 7:39

8M ago7:39

7:39

When I was 12, I was a teacher’s pet, so I was a target for playground bullies. A boy told me my teeth were green and rotten and I believed him and stopped smiling. And I believed that the Second Coming was imminent and though I was a Christian I wasn’t sure that God realized that. Brother Frank could preach a sermon that made me feel like a war cr…

1
A primer for my friends of middle-age 7:43

8M ago7:43

7:43

There is always an excuse for not exercising, a religious prohibition, some hereditary syndrome that makes you feel desperate when you breathe hard, an allergic reaction to your own perspiration, but these can be overcome with help. My excuse is that I hated high school phy-ed with a passion, the chin-ups, the rope climb, the running somersault, th…

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It's never too late for a revelation 8:02

8M ago8:02

8:02

My steak arrived and I hated it. It was tender to the point of being gelatinous. It was rare, not medium rare. It wasn’t chewy, as steak should be. It was sort of like eating raw liver. But when the waiter came by to ask if everything was okay, I said, not wanting to be a complainer or seem unworthy of this great delicacy, “It’s wonderful.” Other M…

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Happiness and the price of groceries 7:33

8M ago7:33

7:33

I like Trader Joe’s because the clientele is half my age or less and I stand with my cart in a long double line with college kids and mothers of tiny children and I listen to fragments of phone conversations that are fresh and fascinating to me. These people lean toward eagerness and curiosity with a streak of satire; my people tend toward dismay a…

1
A good weekend in Georgia 7:33

9M ago7:33

7:33

I’m grateful that, as a kid, I got to experience “visiting,” when the family got in the car and dropped in at someone’s house and sat around and visited. We kids sat quietly and listened to the elders reminisce about their childhoods, which could be a true revelation, hearing their different versions of history, who looked out the window of the sch…

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What US rural policy could look like in the Trump administration 19:23

9M ago19:23

19:23

As the Trump administration prepares to take power in Washington, Senior Fellow Tony Pipa, host of the Reimagine Rural podcast, looks at what has happened in rural policy under the Biden administration and what shifts in federal policy and emphasis might ensue under President Trump. No matter what changes come, Pipa notes, local communities will co…

1
Thank you for reading this 6:48

9M ago6:48

6:48

Cranberries are the heart of Thanksgiving dinner. You don’t want a gourmet dinner that distracts you from your life blessings, so you serve turkey, a profoundly average dish. Every turkey dinner is about as good as any other turkey dinner. Same with pumpkin pie. But cranberries are terribly exciting. They are the Robert Frost of fruits, the Flauber…

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A father speaks, after the day has passed 7:39

9M ago7:39

7:39

I’ve known some great fathers, my brother Philip for one, my nephews Will and Douglas, my friends Mark and Tony and Sandy and Fred. Patience is one of their virtues, optimism, a willingness to look the other way: in other words, a sense of humor. Had I been a postal clerk or a plumber, I’d’ve maybe been a better father but I got engrossed in show b…

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News from December 24, 1983 18:42

9M ago18:42

18:42

A little gift for our Garrison Keillor and Friends subscribers. In the Back Room (paid subscribers) you receive a monologue from the 80’s weekly.12.24.83It was bitterly cold in Lake Wobegon this week. Thirty below and cars wouldn't start. Everyone in Minnesota has jumper cables. Kids even get them in decorator colors as graduation gifts. If cars do…

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The astonishment of mornings on the river last week 7:38

9M ago7:38

7:38

I tell jokes because I remember a time in my life when I crowded into a booth at a bar with eight other guys and some guys leaning over us and we told jokes and now I don’t see people doing that anymore. It’s a guy responsibility — women are worriers, men are kidders — and I remember one afternoon, over rounds of beer and bumps, that we told 75 dif…

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News from December 18, 1982 19:15

10M ago19:15

19:15

Here is a little gift to our GK and Friends subscribers. (In the Back Room, the paid subscribers receive a monologue from the 80’s weekly)12.18.82Calm falls over LW the week before Christmas, yet there still are no Christmas lights on Main St. GK went back after school was done and went to Christmas Eve service with the eldest Ingqvist daughter (th…

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The story of my life, a brief version 7:30

10M ago7:30

7:30

My bio in 100 words is as follows: My parents were in love with each other, had six kids, I was third, an invisible child. I had no interest in crashing into people so didn’t play football or hockey and avoided brain damage. I dabbled in poetry and when I was 14, I read A.J. Liebling and decided to be a writer. I went into radio, which requires no …

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Floating down the canyon through the rapids 7:47

10M ago7:47

7:47

I accept the fact that I am a back issue, a relic, and that younger people have taken over. Eight years ago I played the Hollywood Bowl; a few weeks ago I played a 200-seater in Menomonie, Wisconsin. It was fun. People in the seats talked back to me. We hung out in the lobby afterward. I caught influenza from one of them. Do Taylor’s fans get to sh…

Prairie Home Productions Podcasts

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Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

1
Reimagine Rural

The Brookings Institution

1
What we learn from air travel 8:00

1
S3E4 The Morris Model is helping a Minnesota prairie town go green and avoid partisan divides 40:13

1
S3E3 Hazard, Kentucky's civic renaissance is changing the narrative about Appalachia 43:03

1
S3E2 How Canton, North Carolina, is maintaining its identity and resilience after multiple disasters 40:01

1
S3E1 Restoring outdoor recreation in Old Fort, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene 40:19

1
Announcing season three of Reimagine Rural podcast 2:13

1
My weekly walk to church and back 8:44

1
The sweet day draws near 7:01

1
The perils of pedestrianism 7:10

1
My plan for the next four years 7:44

1
Mother the queen of my heart 7:25

1
Living in the present, a day at a time 6:50

1
It's never too late to be normal 7:26

1
A wonderful night in Lubbock 6:51

1
A tale about close neighbors 7:50

1
A man on the porch by the river 7:39

1
A primer for my friends of middle-age 7:43

1
It's never too late for a revelation 8:02

1
Happiness and the price of groceries 7:33

1
A good weekend in Georgia 7:33

1
What US rural policy could look like in the Trump administration 19:23

1
Thank you for reading this 6:48

1
A father speaks, after the day has passed 7:39

1
News from December 24, 1983 18:42

1
The astonishment of mornings on the river last week 7:38

1
News from December 18, 1982 19:15

1
The story of my life, a brief version 7:30

1
Floating down the canyon through the rapids 7:47