I’ve always been attuned to movie scores. The way a piece of music can deepen a moment, shift an atmosphere, or quietly break your heart without a single word of dialogue. So I decided to do something a little different. I put together a special radio edition of Curiously, recorded live at the Dale Dorman Radio Studio at Massasoit Community College, dedicated entirely to movies scores. Not the obvious ones. Not Jurassic Park. Not Forrest Gump. I wanted to play the pieces that deserve more air time.

The playlist spans nearly 90 minutes and 18 tracks. You’ll hear Hans Zimmer’s thunderous submarine theme from Crimson Tide alongside Max Richter’s quietly devastating “On the Nature of Daylight,” which has appeared in more films than almost any other contemporary piece of music. You’ll hear Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score an afterlife waiting room for Soul, a Pixar film about a jazz musician. You’ll hear a horror movie that has absolutely no right being as overwhelming as it is. And you’ll hear a piece from the movie Tracks, the story of a woman who walked 2,000 miles alone across the Australian Outback, that helped inspire me to take my own solo journey across the United States by motorcycle, which you can watch at Outside Magazine.

In this special episode, you’ll hear scores from:

• Good Will Hunting, Her, Interstellar, and Arrival: films that use music to access what words can’t reach

• Oppenheimer and The Social Network, where the score captures the texture of a complicated mind at work

• Up, and dialogue-free opening sequence that quietly destroys you before the movie has really begun

• The Revenant and Blade Runner 2049, vast and hauntingly atmospheric

• Rudy, Crimson Tide, and Scent of a Woman: propulsive, elegant, and timelessly cinematic

• Hereditary: yes, a horror film made the list, and yes, it earns it

• Moneyball: the post-rock piece that plays us all the way out

💡 About Curiously: https://www.podpage.com/curiously/about/

📖 My books: https://www.dustingrinnell.com/bio

There’s an old idea that explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you come away understanding how it works, but the joke dies in the process. Naturally, I decided that was worth spending an hour on.

Jim Stallions is a Boston-based comedian you may know from the stage, from his TikTok account Great Face for Radio, or from being the guy in the room you can never quite predict. He joined me in the Dale Dorman Radio Studio at Massasoit Community College to talk about what makes people laugh, and why anyone would choose a life of standing in front of strangers and hoping they do.

We get into the origins of his comedy, the anatomy of a joke, and whether any of this can actually be taught. We also talk about bombing and why so much great comedy is built on something that hurts.

This is the radio edition of Curiously, recorded live in the studio.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Jim got into stand-up and what shaped his comedic sensibility

• What actually makes something funny

• The difference between being funny in life and crafting comedic material

• How to build a stand-up routine

• The jokes he wishes he’d written and the trends he’d happily retire

• Bombing, and why the useful bombs are the ones that change you

• What comedy is for, and why people still drive to a room to laugh with strangers

💡 Learn more about Jim Stallions: https://www.tiktok.com/@greatfaceforradio

💡 Take the podcast survey: www.curiouslypod.com/survey

💡 About Curiously: www.curiouslypod.com

Can writing be taught? It’s one of the oldest arguments in literary culture, and every year, thousands of writers bet their time, money, and creative confidence that the answer is yes. They enroll in MFA programs, bring their pages into classrooms, and submit themselves to a process called “workshop,” where their work gets dissected, debated, and handed back to them.

Of course, MFA writing programs exist for more than just fiction writers. You can pursue an MFA in poetry, creative nonfiction, literary journalism, graphic novels. But what actually happens inside these writing programs? How is craft taught? What does a workshop feel like from the inside? And what are the things nobody mentions in the admissions brochure?

To answer all of that, I invited two writers I met during my own MFA program—Samantha Cooke and Martin Smith, who writes under the name M. Earl Smith—to talk about everything. We cover the real value of MFA training, how workshops function at their best, and what the path toward publication actually looks like. We also get into the less glamorous side: the gatekeeping, the performative readings, the bureaucratic nonsense, and the moments that make you wonder what you signed up for.

Whether you’re considering an MFA yourself, already in one, or simply curious about what happens when a room full of writers tries to teach each other, this one’s for you.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What MFA programs in writing actually do, and what they can’t do

• How the workshop model works and why it’s both powerful and flawed

• The craft techniques and storytelling tools you develop along the way

• What the path to publication really looks like for MFA graduates

• The culture inside these programs: the good, the pretentious, the absurd

• Performative readings, academic politics, and other things nobody warned you about

• What Sam and Martin took away from the experience — and what they’d do differently

• Whether an MFA is worth the investment for a writer serious about their craft

💡 Learn more about Sam Cooke: https://samanthaelicooke.com/

💡 Learn more about Martin Smith (M. Earl Smith): https://www.mearlsmith.com/

💡 Take the podcast survey: www.curiouslypod.com/survey

When I was a kid, one of my favorite TV shows was The Magic School Bus. In one episode, Ms. Frizzle shrinks the class down and takes them inside the human body to learn about the immune system. I’ve never forgotten it. For years, I knew I wanted to write a story about people miniaturizing themselves with advanced technology and venturing into the body on a mission. Last year, I finally gave it a shot.

I imagined technology that reduces the space between subatomic particles, shrinking a person down to microscopic size so they can be injected into the bloodstream. Then I gave the premise some heart, because that’s my favorite kind of sci-fi. Two veteran body explorers, Abby and Jackson, were once partners in both business and life. Now they’re estranged. When Jackson disappears inside a billionaire’s brain during an illegal memory-erasure mission, Abby is the only one who can go in after him.

The story is called Micro, and it’s read here by voice actor Laura Neibaur, who responded to my casting call and brought this story to life with a dramatic yet understated performance that honors every nuance of the language. The story was beautifully scored by Brad Parsons of Train Sound Studio, a podcast production house.

Finally, I recorded my intro at Massasoit Community College as part of their Radio and Podcasting Certificate Program, a new chapter I’m grateful to be in.

💡 Learn more about Laura Neibaur’s work: https://www.lbneibaur.com/

💡 Learn more about Brad Parsons’ work: https://trainsoundstudio.com/

💡 Take the podcast survey: www.curiouslypod.com/survey

💡 About Curiously: www.curiouslypod.com

When we think of imagination, we assume it’s reserved for creatives: painters and poets, actors and musicians. But the truth is, we use our imagination almost constantly: anytime we reminisce, anticipate, plan, or daydream. Research suggests we spend between a quarter and half of our waking hours with our minds wandering elsewhere, away from what’s right in front of us. But why? And what’s actually happening in our brains when we drift?

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Adam Zeman, author of The Shape of Things Unseen: A New Science of Imagination, about how imagination shapes every aspect of human experience, from memory and planning to creativity and perception itself. Dr. Zeman is a UK-based neurologist whose book blends neuroscience with the humanities and the arts, drawing on evolutionary biology, child development, literature, and music to paint a picture of the imaginative mind. He examines William Blake’s visionary poetry, Mozart’s ability to hear entire concertos in his head, and the creative insights behind scientific breakthroughs like the discovery of benzene.

But Dr. Zeman also reveals imagination’s darker side. A wandering mind can be an unhappy mind—excessive rumination contributes to depression, and our ability to simulate future scenarios can trap us in anxiety. From psychosomatic illness to the placebo effect, imagination operates at every level of human consciousness, for better and worse.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why we spend between 25-50% of our waking hours with our minds wandering

• What happens in the brain when we daydream, reminisce, or imagine the future

• Aphantasia—the inability to visualize images—and what it reveals about imagination

• How some people experience vivid mental imagery while others have none

• Why perception might be a form of controlled hallucination shaped by expectation

• The creative process of writers and artists, from William Blake to Mozart

• How imagination contributes to scientific breakthroughs and problem-solving

• The darker side of imagination: rumination, anxiety, and depression

• The mysteries of psychosomatic illness and the placebo effect

• Why understanding imagination might be the key to understanding consciousness itself

When it comes to sleep, most of us know what to do, we just don’t do it. We know we should put our phones down, create a bedtime routine, and skip the late-day caffeine. Yet one in eight Americans has chronic insomnia, and over half report frequent sleep difficulties. So what’s the disconnect?

In this episode, I sit down with Morgan Adams, a certified sleep coach who spent years battling insomnia herself. After two breast cancer diagnoses forced her to take her health seriously, Morgan cracked the science of sleep and created her SleepEasy Method™, an approach that’s helped countless people escape the insomnia trap.

Together, we explore what’s really getting in the way of good sleep, the misconceptions that keep us stuck, and the practical, sustainable solutions that actually work, beyond the advice we’ve all heard a thousand times.

Learn more about Morgan Adams at https://www.morganadamswellness.com.

What can the dying teach us about living well? In this episode, I sit down with Micaelah Morrill, a death doula who helps people and families navigate the final chapter of life with grace and meaning. We met at a Death Café, an open forum where strangers talk honestly about mortality, loss, and what it means to make peace with death.

Our conversation explores what it’s like to sit beside the dying, the lessons we can learn from their most common regrets, and how confronting mortality can bring clarity to the way we live. If you’ve ever wondered how to live more intentionally—or how to find peace after loss—this one’s for you.

☕ Find a Death Café near you at https://deathcafe.com.

Beer has been part of the human story for millennia. It helped fuel debates in revolutionary taverns, followed soldiers to war, brought strangers together in colonial alehouses and modern taprooms. From the Founding Fathers’ home brews to today’s experimental IPAs, beer has been a constant companion to our species. But why? What is it about this fermented beverage that’s kept us coming back for ten thousand years?

In this episode, I step inside Boston’s Aeronaut Brewing Co. with head brewer Mark Bowers for a behind-the-scenes look at how great craft beer comes to life. Mark’s journey is fascinating. He’s a former PhD chemist who was in San Francisco during the mid-1960s birth of the craft brewing movement. He’s been brewing his own beer since he was a teenager, and after years working in R&D labs, he jumped at the chance to start brewing for Aeronaut in 2014, a brewery whose philosophy is “brewed with curiosity and backed by science.”

The spark for this episode came back in March when I visited The Alchemist Brewery in Vermont to drink Heady Topper, a legendary IPA that’s hard to come by in Boston. Sitting there, soaking it all in, I started thinking about the craft behind my favorite beers. That’s when I realized I needed to get a brewer on the show. I’ve been a fan of Aeronaut for years, so I reached out and Mark said yes immediately.

We had a wide-ranging conversation about the evolution of craft beer, the brewing process, the equipment and ingredients, prototype beers and wild experiments. And then we tasted everything, from lagers and IPAs to seltzers and sours.

What struck me most was a theme that kept bubbling up: beer is really about bringing people together. It’s about being social, having fun, discovering new flavors, and sometimes even sparking ideas and getting things done. As Edward Slingerland wrote in Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, alcohol “helps us be more creative. It helps us to be more communal. It helps us to cooperate on a large scale. So it solved a bunch of adaptive problems that we uniquely face as a species.”

Now, I know some younger drinkers are moving away from beer toward cannabis and other alternatives. And there’s nothing wrong with that; plenty of people report better sleep, more energy, and lower health risks when they cut back on alcohol. But I want to make a little case for enjoying beer, responsibly and in moderation, because it’s been part of our story since the beginning.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Mark’s journey from PhD chemist to brewmaster and how science shapes great beer

• The evolution of IPAs and why they’ve dominated craft brewing

• What happens behind the scenes at a modern brewery: equipment, techniques, experiments

• Aeronaut’s philosophy: “brewed with curiosity and backed by science”

• Why we sampled lagers, IPAs, seltzers, and sours (and what I learned)

• How beer has brought people together for ten thousand years

• The role of beer in American history, from colonial taverns to revolutionary debates

• Why alcohol may have helped us build civilization by making us more creative and communal

• The shift away from beer among younger drinkers and why moderation still matters

• What makes a great craft beer, and how to appreciate it beyond just the buzz

💡 Learn more about Aeronaut Brewing Co.: https://www.aeronautbrewing.com/about/our-story/

💡 Read Mark’s story from PhD to brewmaster: https://www.aeronautbrewing.com/meet-the-aeronauts-mark/

💡 About Curiously: https://www.curiouslypod.com/