The stars also aligned when he discovered the radio program called <\/span>The Rest is History <\/span><\/i>with Paul Harvey. Harvey\u2019s drop-the-mic endings inspired Mahnke to be a compelling storyteller.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Soaking in all kinds of unsolved mysteries, Mahnke entered college during the start of <\/span>The X-Files.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fun growing up like that. I feel like\u2014especially as a kid\u2014you kind of have that curiosity about things you\u2019re maybe not meant to know about yet,\u201d <\/span><\/i>he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mahnke loves that he gets to celebrate \u201cthe outsiders\u201d in history, especially since he began podcasting feeling like an outsider himself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHistory is full of stories we don\u2019t teach in school\u2014stories we don\u2019t talk about all the time. Mostly because we don\u2019t have a tidy answer. The stories don\u2019t have a neat-and-clean explanation. They don\u2019t necessarily have a date, place, and significant importance attached to them. With folklore, there\u2019s a focus on preserving cultural traditions and recording significant events and people. There\u2019s also another area of folklore that\u2019s purely about managing ourselves in society,\u201d <\/span><\/i>Mahnke explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0When it comes to offering podcasting advice, Mahnke likens it to flying a kite. There\u2019s only so much you can control. You get to build a beautiful kite, and you can run around the park\u2026 but you can\u2019t control the wind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His advice?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prepare for when the wind shows up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

April 2020 Issue
\nAuthor: Leah Falyn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, Aaron Mahnke spent his evenings writing supernatural thriller novels with a splash of folklore (and a lowball glass of bourbon).\u00a0 With the intention of creating a free giveaway that would entice people to buy more of his books, Mahnke created a PDF document titled \u201cMy Five Favorite New England Myths.\u201d Just as he was about to export it, he suddenly felt it wasn\u2019t quite right\u2014reading a 10,000-word document would be frustrating on a phone screen. Instead, he thought audio versions of the historical stories would be more appealing. After running the idea by a friend, he was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[3082,3086,3085,434,3087,3083,3084,3088,2422],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n