BY ALEXANDRA COHL & BECKY KILIMNIK

Becky Kilimnik is the co-host and producer of the podcast Homespun Haints, an interview-style and storytelling podcast that celebrates the oral tradition of storytelling as an art form—with ghosts. Throughout its inception, Becky has also pulled from her other expertise as an artist and musician; she composes and plays all of the original music on the podcast and creates original artwork to accompany each episode. Now in their third season and with over 25,000 downloads, Becky and her co-host Diana Doty have cultivated a space where people can feel comfortable sharing and processing the paranormal experiences they have had.

Listen to: Korean Folklore, Death Days, and the Haunted Queens Apartment, or *Quarantined With A Ghost***

And, as someone who grew up in an Appalachian town and who has deep ties to the art of storytelling, Becky applies both her personal history and her Anthropology degree from Northwestern University to these interviews and in the pre- and post-production stages to really capture just how personal and unique these ghost stories can be. The podcast delights listeners in both expected and unexpected ways: fulfilling the desire for a creepy tale while also inviting laughter, self-reflection—and sometimes tears—with the stories that are told.

You’ve said before on your podcast (specifically the episode with professional storyteller Dr. Hannah Harvey) that “The tradition of storytelling as a celebrated art form is so uniquely Appalachian” and that “It doesn’t seem to have the same weight given to it culturally in other parts of the country.” I’d love to start there: What was the moment (or moments) where you really began to realize this and what were those major differences?

I spent the first part of my life in northeast Tennessee with only limited exposure to other parts of the world. When I turned seventeen, however, I moved to Chicago to go to college. My first year there, I slowly began to realize there were no storytelling festivals to attend, and no one talked about “storytelling” as a fun pastime. Of course, people there tell stories, just like people all over the world tell stories. And Chicago itself is an amazing hub for two very unique types of storytelling: improv comedy and jazz music. But, the cultural emphasis (which evolved from the combined traditions of Scottish, Irish, and African immigrants and Cherokee residents of the area) on non-scripted orality, practiced in front of a mirror, performed on stage or in front of peers, fluid and changing with every performance, for both the purposes of entertainment and sharing of knowledge, didn’t exist in the same form. And I found the same to be true in other places in America that I’ve lived as well.

Do you remember the first time you heard a ghost story? If so, what was it, and how do you feel like it started to shape who you are today?

I don’t think I could tell you the first ghost story I heard! Honestly, I think my mother was telling me ghost stories before I could even talk. I do remember the first time I heard a professional storyteller tell a ghost story, though. It was at a music workshop I was attending in Jonesborough, TN (I’ve been playing violin since I was four years old so I did a lot of these such workshops), and they hired a storyteller to entertain us during our first night there. I remember her handmade, brightly colored costume that hung off of her arms in twisted strips and how pieces of her costume would whip around her as she gestured.

I also remember the gasps of my little sister as the storyteller moved about the stage, telling us about the woman who ate her own body as she nearly died of hunger one cold winter night. In the story, the woman’s husband finally came back to their log cabin with a deer for dinner, but the woman, now nothing but an animated skeleton, leaped out from behind the cabin’s door and consumed him, too. And that was the end of the story.

At first, I hated the story because I wanted more. I wanted to know if the skeleton woman still wandered the mountains in search of food (of course she did!). I wanted to know what happened next and if the storyteller made the story up herself or pulled it from folklore. But then I realized that none of those things really mattered in a good oral story. The story often ends at the climax; there is no resolution. And the art of the story itself is not in the following of a traditional short story structure—the art is in how the story is told. The drama behind the storyteller’s movements and the inflections in her voice.

At that moment I was instantly in love with storytelling. The ability to entertain and enrapture large groups of people merely with words and gestures seemed like pure magic, and I knew it had to be something I incorporated into my life.

Tell me a little bit about the origin story of Homespun Haints; what prompted the idea for it, why you chose the format for the podcast that you did, and how you see it differing from other paranormal-based podcasts.

One of the first things I’ve always asked people when I meet them is “do you have a ghost story?” I’ve always been intrigued by the way people interpret events in their lives that they can’t quite explain. It makes us vulnerable and human, and no matter how people carry themselves, when they start to talk about a ghost encounter they’ve had, they reveal their soul to the world. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had an insatiable hunger for those stories and those moments.

I wanted to find a way to capture those points in time where the person telling their story bears their deepest fears to an audience and connects with their listeners in a profound way. I initially considered starting this project as a written blog, but then I remembered the storytelling traditions from my hometown, and I realized I had to do something that was linear (and oral), experienced moment by moment by the listener as the story unfolded. Podcasting presented itself as the perfect solution. Because of my musical background, I already had experience with recording and editing audio. The rest just took some planning and research.

I feel this podcast is different from other traditional paranormal podcasts because our primary focus is storytelling. Even though all of our stories must be ghost stories to fit with our brand, their magic comes not just from the events within the stories but also from how the story is told and how we react to those stories emotionally. We consider what we’re doing to be more of an art form than anything else.

Oftentimes, your episodes can be a mix of serious, spooky stories, along with dark (and sometimes light!) humor. Why is that approach so important to you and your co-host, Diana Doty? Why not go the “uber spooky” route?

Initially, we did think of going down the “uber spooky” route, but our personalities got in the way. We started throwing humor in because we couldn’t help ourselves! And I think that’s fine. It wasn’t a planned approach or branding initiative; it’s just who we are. Our listeners have told us that a lot of what they like about our show is how genuine we are behind the mics, and we enjoy just being ourselves—weird, spooky women who love to laugh.

Plus, a good story is always better if you access more than one emotion while listening to it. A scary story is just a scary story. But a story that makes you laugh, cry, and cover your head with a blanket is going to stay with you for a long time. We want to provide warmth, humor, and fear, and create a well-rounded experience for all of our listeners, no matter what their comfort level with the paranormal is.

You’ve also expressed that in mainstream American culture, the paranormal community (such as who is invited on these types of podcasts) can often times be very whitewashed. Why do you think that is, and what have been the ways that you’ve worked to change that on your own podcast?

If you go on a ghost tour or look up the famous ghosts at a historic site, the stories you’ll hear are disproportionately about rich white people. If you hear about a person of color, especially about an enslaved person, the story may be completely made up or altered to make it more palatable to a white audience. Though plenty of stories have been told in all communities throughout the ages, these sanitized, white-centric stories are the ones that have more often had the advantage of being written down and shared across different types of media.

As storytellers and story-preservers, Diana and I want to do whatever we can to preserve stories from all communities, especially communities that have had their stories lost in the past.

It’s been a little bit of a struggle, I’ll be honest. When we started the podcast, we turned to our friends and family to serve as guests for the show. And many of those people are in very professional jobs and were uncomfortable talking about their ghost stories in a public setting. Many of our guests from the start chose to come on only with our assurances that their anonymity would be protected. When we did start reaching outside of our own circle for guests, we wanted to be sensitive to the fact that, when we have a guest on our show, we know they are doing us a favor. We needed to have a large enough listener audience to provide significant value to our guests in exchange for their time. We promote whatever projects our guests are involved with on our show and in our show notes, so the larger our audience, the larger the value of that exposure is.

Now that we are large enough that we can provide that value, we’ve really set an initiative for this season to seek out more people of color to come onto our show and share stories with us. Part of that work is ensuring that we are creating a space where people of color and their voices will feel safe and respected, so we’re also very upfront with our guests about this initiative; that we want to share diverse viewpoints that much of our audience may not even have considered or know about.

Ghost stories are both entertainment and history, both of which are, unfortunately, very whitewashed in mainstream media and literature. If you’d like to learn a little more about this, I suggest watching the documentary Horror Noire on Shudder, which discusses the evolution of Black actors and characters in the horror fiction genre. Also, there is a great episode of A History of Ghosts called “The Whitewashed Ghost” that discusses the psychology behind the white-centric ghost tour.

LISTEN TO: Filipino Folklore: Manananggal, Engkanto, and Duwende, Oh My! or Sometimes There’s Just Ghosts, on Appalachian Storytelling

I know that you and your co-host really encourage people to share their truths on your podcast—that it isn’t a place to question people’s ghost stories but rather a place to affirm their experience of the world. In the many interviews you’ve conducted and the stories you’ve heard up to this point, what have you learned about the history of supernatural stories and their cultural significance? Has anything surprised you or contradicted what you believed when you first started this podcast?

Our biggest surprise has been how cathartic the storytelling experience can be for our guests! After telling us stories that they’ve kept pent up inside of themselves for years, many of our guests will burst into tears, thank us, tell us that talking to us is akin to therapy. We were not expecting that at all when we started out. We thought we were just going to be sharing some ghost stories; we didn’t realize how many people would benefit from having a place to dig deep into their own pasts, and share stories they didn’t realize they were hiding from. Our commitment to having a non-judgmental, safe space has really paid off in that regard!

Obviously, this isn’t the case for all of our guests. Some of them have told these same stories dozens of times before. But for those that haven’t, it speaks volumes about our culture’s attitude toward true supernatural experiences. Many guests tell us how they’ve experienced ostracization from society, ridicule from family members, even fear of losing their jobs, when they’ve revealed these stories to others. Which is sad when you consider how profound and life-changing some of these experiences have been for some of these people.

Again, this was something that really surprised me, as someone who grew up in an area where sharing ghost stories was just a way of life. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to share their story and should not be punished for seeing the world a little differently than their peers.

So, you do even more than co-host and produce the podcast. You also create original artwork, stop motion YouTube mini-stories, and the original music for each episode. Talk to me about the art first: for the episode artwork, what is the style, and how do you decide which piece out of the whole episode to express visually?

I would define my style as “quirky surrealism.” It’s not something I specifically developed; it’s just kind of what comes out of my hands. I began creating a piece of art for each episode because it seemed easier than hunting through stock photography sites for something that fit. I can’t tell you where inspiration for these things comes from—things just pop into my head and I try to replicate it. That’s how the initial pen and ink drawings started. I also began doing a few watercolor paintings as well because they were quick and easy and I could do them in color.

Toward the end of the second season, I started following some pop surrealism artists on Instagram (especially the paintings of Jesús Aguado @jm.aguado), and I became inspired by their work and wanted to try my hand at something similar. My first few works were a combination of oil pastel painting and drawing; pastel has always been my go-to medium for color, and I really enjoyed getting back into it. But, they’re messy and time-consuming, and my husband began grousing about the condition of our dining room as I was working. So, I thought I’d give acrylics a try. I’ve never used them before but I do remember watching my mother paint when I was a young girl, and I took to the medium right away. I’m really enjoying them and will probably stick with them for a while until I become bored and move onto something else.

As for what to express visually for each episode? I try to think of what piece of someone’s story would be the most visually impactful. When I picture the story, what do I see in my mind? And is it something I think I can pull off with a paintbrush? There’s not much more to it than that. The great thing about working with acrylics is that if I don’t like something that I started, I can always paint over it!

What about the YouTube channel? Why stop motion and how does this function as an extension of the podcast?

Our stories are home-grown (hence the “Homespun” in Homespun Haints) but they’re also on the bizarre side. Therefore, I’ve steered away from doing anything too polished visually for the aesthetic of the podcast—I want it to retain a little of that slapped-together feel.

I grew up in the eighties, when stop-motion animation was everywhere, from Claymation shows to special effects. For me, this technique always existed between the realistic and the strange. Plus, I do digital art all the time for my day job and it’s really relaxing to just stop and create with my hands.

Stop motion animation is also quirky, funny, and old-fashioned, just like many of the ghosts we talk about on the show. This style of animation also gives me a chance to create videos from hand-drawn components, just as the art that illustrates the episodes is hand-drawn. Every once in a while, I’ll accidentally get my thumb in a frame as I move pieces around and I just leave it. Those little mistakes just augment that homespun feel.

Now tell me about the music. What is the process behind creating the music for each episode and how does it impact the storytelling aspects of your podcast?

I have several pieces of music that I’ve composed, performed, and produced that I use and re-use throughout the episodes. I generally change it a little from season to season (the first season was piano, the second was digital music, the third is the organ and violin). I came up with the theme song when we first started the show by messing around on the keys; everything since then has been some sort of variation on that theme.

Now for the more detailed answer. I’m a classically trained violinist with strong ties to the bluegrass fiddling of my home area. After I moved to Chicago, I became bored with classical violin and fiddling and started performing with progressive rock and glam rock bands. For eight years, I played in every bar throughout the Hyde Park, Rogers Park and Wicker Park neighborhoods. One stipulation for me being able to play with these groups was I had to learn how to improvise. When you’re hungry, you’ll learn how to do anything. So, I spent nearly a decade refining my improvisation chops.

When I started the podcast, I had barely touched my violin for ten years. Hence, the piano. But quarantine altered everyone’s fate. I accidentally formed a band with some neighbors one drunken night, and before I knew what was happening, I was shredding on the old fiddle again. A few months later, I seem to have acquired a great deal of equipment, pedals, cables, and other strange musical items that just keep appearing in the living room. At one point, a Theremin even showed up.

Now, whenever we need new music for the podcast, I pull on those violin improvisation skills of yore. I’ll pull out my fiddle, go up to a mic, and mess around until something I like comes out. Then I create variations on that, and use editing software to mix, loop, overlap, and combine the tracks until it sounds like something that works with our show.

As for how it impacts the storytelling? I am committed to never using music to enhance or detract from our guests’ stories. Therefore, we only use it at the beginning, end, and interludes in the podcast. Music never flows over our guests’ words. I believe the story itself is enough and adding anything to it would be a disservice to the speaker’s words.

In the production, how do you manage to enhance the oral storytelling (with guests who may not always be natural storytellers) without stripping them of their individual voice?

This is a tough one, but something I’m quite proud of. In a heavy edit, I may move pieces of someone’s story around so that it flows a little better—for instance, if someone accidentally tells the end first, and then says “Oh I forgot to mention….” I may even add extra spaces in between sentences to build suspense if a guest is nervous and speaking quickly. I will often remove excessive filler words (uh, um, like, you know). But I never touch colloquial language. I would never alter an accent. And, we always give the guest the opportunity to listen to their episode before it airs.

Most guests, however, do not require heavy editing. We’ve found that most people, whether they realize it or not, are natural storytellers. Most of our job is just to help them be comfortable, help them figure out a good starting point, and then sit back as the story flows out of them.

What do you feel like folks outside of the paranormal community get wrong about it?

Oh, that’s a tough question. I think there may be the assumption that people who enjoy paranormal stories or who are involved with paranormal events, are a bunch of “scary devil-worshipping creeps.” But in actuality, every single person we have met has been an amazing human being. I think people who love this stuff are used to being on the outside; they have a lot of empathy for anyone else who is used to not fitting in. And they’re just the nicest people ever.

I think there’s also a belief that anyone who believes in ghosts is either completely ungrounded in reality or is trying to take advantage of gullible people (think common beliefs about fortune-tellers and palm-readers). My co-host, Diana, is a former physician with some pretty hefty scientific training under her belt, and our guests are down-to-earth people that just happen to have had some unexplainable experiences. When we’ve interviewed spiritual mediums (and we’ve had quite a few on the show), they are also very truthful about their abilities and their beliefs and have no intention of taking advantage of anyone. In general, we’ve found a great group of people, we’ve formed some strong friendships, and we’re so excited to be a part of such a warm and inviting community.