PODCAST · society
Head On Fire
by Don Martin
In Head On Fire Don Martin (author of Where Did Everybody Go? & Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire) goes on a search for answers to life’s biggest and smallest questions. What is the purpose of anger? Is there a solution for loneliness? How do you write a hit pop song? Don asks experts in fields you didn't even know existed questions you didn't even know you wanted the answers to. Join Don every other Tuesday for brand new episodes, or catch the full video on YouTube! Find Don on social media @byDonMartin everywhere or if you'd like to appear on the show email [email protected].
Episodes
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The 2025 Tear Down with V Spehar of Under the Desk News
2025 has been the most decade-iest of years. The highs, the lows, the tech innovations, the stories that both captured our hearts and the stories that made us step outside and seek grass expeditiously. It's a lot for one person to remember. Thankfully, I don't have to do it alone! V Spehar of…
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Where Did Everybody Go? with Abby Cox
Abby Cox joins me as my conversation partner for the digital launch party celebrating the release of my new audiobook Where Did Everybody Go? Why we're lonely, but not alone. We dive into the subjects of loneliness, underwater basket weaving, and my favorite abandoned malls. Get more of Abby Cox...
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How do you make food disability friendly and delicious? with Carolyn of Epicurious Expeditions
Carolyn, the creator behind Epicurious Expeditions, makes cooking accessible to everyone. Motivated by her own recovery from an injury, she develops inclusive, disability-friendly recipes that minimize standing and chopping, often using simple appliances like air fryers and crockpots. Join us as...
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Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire (with Nadira Goffe)
Nadira Goffe is a very serious journalist. She's a staff culture writer at Slate who does Real Journalism™️ about Serious Subjects™️. But every now and then she does very silly stuff like talk to me about witches and Appalachia and witches in Appalachia. Nadira turned the tables on me in an...
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What does a City Planner do? with Shari Phippen
In my continuing quest to highlight professions that are overlooked or misunderstood, I'd like to introduce you to Shari Phippen. She has decades of experience as a city planner, which is one of the most important roles in determining where we live, how we live, and what we can do while we live...
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Jennifer Hale discusses the Voice Actors' strike, creative jobs, and becoming Verity Vox
Jennifer Hale stopped back by the podcast to discuss the nearly yearlong Voice Actors’ strike, forging your own creative career, and becoming Verity Vox. Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire is available now from your library or favorite bookseller. https://bydonmartin.com/verity-vox-1 Pre-order...
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Why do we love superheroes? with Ernie Carothers (BlerdWithoutFear)
Superheroes dominate cinema and pop culture, and they have for a while now. Sure, there's been a shift in movie theater attendance post-COVID pandemic, but people still show up for superheroes. I wondered why, so I asked an expert on the subject why he thinks caped crusaders and teams of mutant...
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What's the difference between a content creator and an influencer? with Franchesca Ramsey
The internet has become a place where we all perform for one another, where authenticity is both something to aspire to and something to be wary of. I sat down with Franchesca "Chescaleigh" Ramsey to discuss the role of the content creator, how it differs from an influencer, and what it means to...
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What even is pop culture anymore? with Nadira Goffe
If you are someone who has complained that every new piece of media is a sequel, prequel, remake, reboot, or a studio banking on pre-existing IP (intellectual property) to bring in audiences, this is the episode for you. We are kicking off 2025 with Nadira Goffe, a staff writer at Slate, who…
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Burn 2024 Down! with Robyn Valentine
Grab your wieners, your marshmallows, your bad haircuts, and toss them all on the funeral pyre of 2024. Robyn Valentine, co-host of the Coffee & Cauldrons podcast and author of Magickal Tarot & The Apprentice Witch, joins me to review the highs, lows, personal triumphs, and things we'd love to...
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What is German Christmas Folklore? with Ella Harrison
Ella Harrison is the author of The Book of Spells. She has a degree in anthropology and uses her social media platform to educate and entertain audiences on the topics of folklore, folk magic, and the history of holiday traditions. If you've ever wondered about figures like Krampus or Perchta…
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Is all politics local? with Gregory Royal Pratt
They say all politics is local, but that's difficult to believe when every single topic of conversation at our dinner table seems to have national stakes. From the books on our kids' shelves to who reads those books to them to the statues in our parks to who is allowed in our parks, every issue...
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What's really in our food? with Erin the Food Science Babe
Thanks to the Make America Healthy Again movement, there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation on the rise about food, "chemicals", and whether what we eat is safe. Thankfully, Erin the Food Science Babe is here to help. Subscribe to Erin's channel here:...
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How do you walk the Witches' Road in real life? with Thorn Mooney, Courtney Weber, and Mawiyah Bomani
The mantel of the witch is one that has been worn by people for all sorts of reasons. There are those who don the black hat for political purposes, as a feminist symbol, or a way for those who find themselves on the margins of society in one way or another to reach for the power they otherwise...
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Why do we politicize hurricanes? with Dr. Sam Montano
Dr. Sam Montano is no stranger to combating conspiracy theories regarding emergency management. She’s been doing it since Hurricane Katrina. She holds a BS in Psychology, as well as Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Emergency Management and teaches the subject at Massachusetts Maritime Academy.…
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What is expertise? with AJ Jacobs
A.J. Jacobs is a New York Times bestselling author known for his immersive, year-long experiments, including The Year of Living Biblically, The Know-It-All, and his latest book, The Year of Living Constitutionally. Email: [email protected] Social links: Instagram:...
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What can rejection teach you? with Victoria Aveyard
By all accounts Victoria Aveyard is both an outlier and also as close to the Hollywood version of becoming an author as it gets. While the average age for a debut novelist is around 36, Victoria’s debut novel—Red Queen—was published shortly after graduating from college and went on to become a...
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Is everywhere really queer? with Charlie Sprinkman
Charlie Sprinkman developed the app Everywhere Is Queer, which is quickly becoming one of the best, most comprehensive lists of queer owned and operated businesses. Whether you’re looking for a travel agent, a craft store, a bakery, or a horse ranch, the Everywhere is Queer app is helping people...
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What is language? with Danny Hieber, PhD
Danny Hieber earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his B.A. in linguistics and philosophy from the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Prior to and during graduate school he worked for Rosetta Stone’s Endangered Language Program to…
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What is a storyboard artist? with Chris Copeland
Chris Copeland has worked on some of your favorite things. Invincible, The Witcher, Young Justice, and he made his directorial debut for Dreamworks on the series Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. He’s had a long career that began here in Chicago as a nerd who loved superheroes and now gets to…
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Why are MLMs a scam? with Roberta Blevins
Roberta Blevins left the MLM world in 2017 and spent all of her time since then educating the public on the dangers involved in joining these barely legal pyramid schemes. She was a key witness in the case against Lularoe and was featured in the documentary LuLaRich which showcased how the…
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How do you take satire seriously? with Clare Brown
Clare Brown is a satirist and author of the new audiobook New Nigeria County. Her social media platform is famous for flipping gender and racial stereotypes while both educating and inviting her audience to laugh. Email: [email protected] Social links: Instagram:...
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How do you bring characters to life? with Jennifer Hale
Even if you don’t play video games, Jennifer Hale is still probably one of your favorite actors…you just didn’t know it. As of this recording she is just shy of 500 acting credits on IMDb including numerous roles in the Star Wars universe, Mortal Kombat, DC, Marvel, Disney. Even Biker Mice from...
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What's the danger of censorship? with Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Maggie Tokuda-Hall is a children’s and young adult author who writes stories that help kids of all types see themselves on the page as the main character. She also writes books that help parents and kids have age appropriate conversations about the world we live in. One of those books, Love In…
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What is memory? with Dr. Althea Need Kaminske
Dr. Althea Need Kaminske is a cognitive psychologist who teaches at the Indiana University school of medicine interested in the application of human memory research to educational settings. She also helps run The Learning Scientists, an international group of cognitive psychologists who engage in...
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What can dolls tell us about ourselves? with Matthew Keith
Matthew Keith is a Barbie collector, photographer, and doll expert whose work has been featured in The Los Angeles Time, NewNowNext, and on a social media feed near you. Find him at https://www.dollsonthebrain.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter:...
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How do you make cars less scary? with Chaya Milchtein, the Mechanic Shop Femme
Chaya Milchtein is known to the internet as the Mechanic Shop Femme. She uses her platform and her new book Mechanic Shop Femme’s Guide to Car Ownership— to make every facet of car ownership less terrifying—from the day you decide to purchase to doing your own regular maintenance and care—and…
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What's it like being Out in the NFL? with Kevin Maxen
Kevin Maxen is a strength and conditioning coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He’s also the first male coach in major American men’s professional sports to publicly come out as gay. I sat down to talk to him about what it takes to train some of the world’s best athletes, divorcing yourself from...
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How do you fall in love with poetry? with Dr. Maya C. Popa
Dr. Maya C. Popa is a poetry educator, a poetry critic, and a poet in her own right. She is the poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, a professor of poetry at NYU, and her most recent collection, titled Wound is the origin of wonder, was named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of Poetry and...
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What makes good sex advice? with Dan Savage
Dan Savage has done a lot of things in his life. He founded both the It Gets Better project and the Hump porn festival. He popularized the Campsite Rule of relationships. He made Rick Santorum’s name a dirty word. And he’s been one of the country’s foremost sex, dating, and relationship advice...
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Are we cleaning everything wrong? with Melissa Pateras
With spring right around the corner, many people are thinking about cleaning their homes and turning to social media for tips and tricks only to suddenly learn we all seem to be doing everything wrong. That's where Melissa Pateras, the lesbian queen of Laundrytok and author of the new book A…
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Why is drag important? with Jinkx Monsoon
Jinkx Monsoon (she/her) is a two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner, Broadway breakout star, and soon to be villain on the beloved British sci-fi series Doctor Who coming to Disney+ in 2024. The self-proclaimed “internationally tolerated” drag icon has taken over the entertainment industry as an...
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Why is math a drag? with Kyne Santos
Kyne Santos uses social media to teach math subjects that range from simple addition and subtraction to more esoteric concepts about impossible objects or quantum mechanics. And he does it in drag. Because sometimes Kyne puts on a wig, drops the surname and becomes the Canadian Drag Race…
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Burn 2023 down! with Meg Elison
2023 was great and terrible. There were technological marvels, horrible television, phenomenal movies, brilliant books, and more author drama than you ever thought possible. Come around the dumpster fire as Meg Elison and I build the year its funeral pyre. Social links: Instagram:...
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What is comedy? with Bonnie Klopfer
Bonnie Klopfer is an actress and comedian whose videos have been loved by millions of people around the world. She’s a stand up regular in LA and makes content online about finding the funny in mundane things, including a breakout series of shorts about product packaging. Find her here:...
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Can anger make us better? with Dr. Heather Lench
We are often told to ignore anger, to repress anger, that anger has no value in a polite society. Anger gets us in trouble. Anger removes our ability to think rationally. Anger is always bad all of the time and we should never, ever feel it. Or, at least, that's what we've been told. Some...
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Why are editors so scary? with Hannah Robinson
Hannah Robinson has been an editor at some of publishing’s biggest houses. HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster—where we met—and now Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette. She primarily works with non-fiction, which is a massive slice of the publishing pie that seems to get all but…
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What makes a good critic? with Jerry Saltz
Jerry Saltz is one of the last real critics, the kind of critic that matters, whose voice is held in high esteem both by the art world and by the artists who make the world go round. He’s been the senior art critic for New York Magazine since 2006. He also happens to be one of, if not the most,...
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Can you become a witch in a year? with Diana Helmuth
My guest today is Diana Helmuth. She is an award-winning author of a book about hiking who decided to take a page, or several, out of the books of people who I look up to: AJ Jacobs, Mary Roach, Elizabeth Gilbert. Authors who spent time approaching a field as a complete novice in order to learn...
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Why is food so hard? with Alicia Simpson
Alicia Simpson is a registered dietitian and the Executive Director for Pea Pod Nutrition, a nonprofit dedicated to the nutritional health of Georgia families. She holds a Master’s degree in Nutrition from Georgia State University and a PhD in public policy. For years she worked as a professor...
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Should we be afraid of fungus? with Dr. Leslie Holland
From best-selling novels like "Mexican Gothic" to blockbuster media hits like "The Last of Us," it seems like everyone is buzzing about fungi these days. Think of it as your houseplant's weirder, spongier, and creepier cousin. Fungi have a significant role in decomposition, which adds to their...
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What does the ocean sound like? with Dr. HEATHER SPENCE
When you think about what the ocean sounds like, what does your brain conjure up? Maybe the gentle ebbing and flowing of tides? Maybe you think of marine life? Perhaps the songs of whales or that clicking sound dolphins make. But what about the snapping of air bubbles created by thousands of…
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Can drag queens and gospel music mix? with Flamy Grant
Matthew Blake, better known as Flamy Grant, is a shame slaying, hip swaying drag queen from the Bible Belt who also happens to be a gospel singer. Her debut album Bible Belt Baby came out in 2022 and largely flew under the radar until she came under fire from a conservative preacher that decided…
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How do you get to Hot City? with Bonnie McKee
Bonnie McKee is a singer, songwriter, director, actor, and world class DIYer. She's written numerous number 1 hits for artists like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Cher, and Katy Perry. She's also a pop star in her own right, having released the album Trouble, the EP…
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Can Dungeons & Dragons improve my mental health? with Dr. Megan Connell
As a lifelong geek I will preach the good word of all things niche and nerdy to anyone who will listen and even some who won’t. I’m the kind of person who strongly believes that a good story can change your entire outlook, that a well-crafted game can be a balm for the soul, and that superheroes...
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What is Gender Affirming Care? with Dr. Ashley Brandt
This show is all about overlooked or misunderstood fields, and in 2023 I can think of no more misunderstood field than that of gender affirming care. It is the boogeyman of every conservative talking head and your transphobic aunt’s Facebook feed. There is so much misinformation floating around...
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How do you find yourself when the world is watching? with David Archuleta
David Archuleta began winning singing contests while many of us were learning how to ride a bike. He won Star Search at the age of 12. When he was 16 he auditioned for American Idol, and by the time it was all over he’d come in second, got a recording contract, and was whirled into a studio to...
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Who can claim the Greek gods? with Angelo Nasios
We are in an era of remakes and reboots and revivals and retellings of stories that were just remade and rebooted and revived and retold less than a decade ago. An era of cinematic universes whose stories sometimes don’t feel like they go together, characters that seem to suddenly change in power...
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What is the draw of queer horror? with Ryan La Sala, author of The Honeys
Ryan La Sala is a bestselling, award winning author of multiple queer books. His horror novel, The Honeys, is a love letter to queer folks who thought Clueless and The Craft should have had a crossover film. It was named the best book of 2022 by NPR, New York, public library, school library,...
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What's with the WGA strike? with Joshua Conkel
The Writer's Guild of America is currently on strike in a union negotiation that has implications far beyond the city limits of Hollywood. Screenwriter Joshua Conkel (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Dead Boy Detectives) returns to discuss how streaming services are...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
In Head On Fire Don Martin (author of Where Did Everybody Go? & Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire) goes on a search for answers to life’s biggest and smallest questions.
What is the purpose of anger? Is there a solution for loneliness? How do you write a hit pop song? Don asks experts in fields you didn't even know existed questions you didn't even know you wanted the answers to.
Join Don every other Tuesday for brand new episodes, or catch the full video on YouTube!
Find Don on social media @byDonMartin everywhere or if you'd like to appear on the show email [email protected].
HOSTED BY
Don Martin
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Head On Fire have?
Head On Fire currently has 168 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Head On Fire about?
In Head On Fire Don Martin (author of Where Did Everybody Go? & Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire) goes on a search for answers to life’s biggest and smallest questions. What is the purpose of anger? Is there a solution for loneliness? How do you write a hit pop song? Don asks experts in fields...
How often does Head On Fire release new episodes?
Head On Fire publishes regularly with 168 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Head On Fire?
You can listen to Head On Fire on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Head On Fire?
Head On Fire is created and hosted by Don Martin.
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