Amplifying Queer Joy Through Storytelling

This is our third episode of the Queer Love Podcast, and I decided to do something a little different. Previously I’ve chatted with authors of essays that we’ve published. In case you haven’t already, make sure you can listen to Episode 1 with QLP co-editorMichael Narkunski and Episode 2 with Charley Soderbergh and Jeanée Ledoux if you haven’t already. For this episode, I invited Xandra McMahon, creator of How We Met: A Queer Love Archive, to discuss the first season of her podcast. Plus, she also took part in our QLP questionnaire, so we’ll talk about what that was like and go deeper into some of the answers.Xandra is a journalist and podcast producer and, as she explains, she fell in love with audio storytelling in college, and has been lucky enough to turn it into a career. She's worked in the public radio world, spent years making hyperlocal daily news podcasts, and nowadays produces podcasts for higher education institutions. How We Met: A Queer Love Archive launched in January and shares the real-life love stories of queer couples. She’s currently on hiatus but hopes to begin working on Season 2 this summer and hopes you’ll contact her if you’d like to be considered for a segment.I had the privilege of being on the finale episode of the first season with my husband, and I wanted to chat with Xandra since our project goals—specifically, as she states, “to amplify queer joy and serve as a historical record for queer people’s experiences, across generations, through the lens of love”—align in so many distinct ways. We had a great conversation about “the wisdom” she’s gleaned from hearing so many people share their love stories and what she hopes to achieve going forward. You can listen to How We Met anywhere you find podcasts and follow it on Instagram as well!Thanks for reading and listening and supporting us on our mission!The Queer Love Project is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Queer Love Project at queerloveproject.substack.com/subscribe