A Year of Promoting The People Who Make the Things I Love: Jan 2–Linda Holmes
In 2022, I am going to spend some time each day promoting someone who makes the things I love. I started this series because I believe that we, myself included, spend so much time on social media dunking on people (however deserved) and not enough time lifting up people deserving of positive attention.
Today’s person is the illustrious writer and podcaster Linda Holmes.
I first discovered Holmes voice as a founding (and current) member of the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. In its current incarnation, every weekday you can listen to one or more of their “core four” hosts and a panel of interesting voices from around the country and world discuss a pop culture topic. Some days it will be a movie, tv show, album, book, etc. Other days the topic will be something like “Summer Movies of 2021.”
Along with Stephen Thompson, Glen Weldon, and Aisha Harris (Trey Graham is a host emeritus), Holmes is a vital part of the conversational style of the program. While I always love hearing what she likes about the current topic, it can be very fun to hear her description of something she doesn’t like.
Holmes’ gift for the written word and insightful appreciation of media makes her written journalism for NPR stand out as well. I particularly liked her Ted Lasso recaps, although I will read anything she writes.
She is also a novelist publishing her first book Evie Drake Starts Over in 2019. The book not surprisingly has excellent reviews and is currently an Editor’s Choice on Amazon. Her follow up novel Flying Solo is available for pre-order.
It’s hard to overstate how much I admire and appreciate Linda Holmes’ voice in the pop culture conversations that permeate our media today. The best word I can think of to describe everything she does is one that she frequently uses:
“Delightful.”
