How Rachel Shelley and podDIVA Make Lyrical Audio Stories for Queer Women
podDIVA, the new podcast companion to the United Kingdom’s revered magazine DIVA. Weekly podcast episodes rotate between breaking down the magazine’s print issues with the “DIVA Debrief,” interviews with queer luminaries in “DIVA Dialogues,” and Q&A advice episodes on all things queer with “Dear DIVA.” PodDIVA is a work of love from the LGBTQ+ folks who make the magazine and podcast producer and cohost Rachel Shelley, who learned early in her acting career the importance of doing the work as an ally.
Yes, it’s that Rachel Shelley, who starred as lesbian heiress Helena Peabody on The L Word seasons 2-6, then surprised podcast audiences in 2020 when she produced fellow L Word stars Leisha Hailey and Katherine Moennig’s podcast, PANTS.“DIVA would like to be and is at the moment the world’s leading brand for LGBTQI+ women and nonbinary people,” Shelley says. “What we’re hoping is that by being digital, we can reach people who can’t get hold of…DIVA magazine [or] any other publication.
But they can listen in, and we can see the numbers. People are listening in…all these different countries.”“One of the things that we’re very keen to do is, obviously, be hand in hand with the magazine.
Every time you interview someone, you might get however much footage you have or recording that you have, and you have to squish that down,” she says. “There’s a lot that just gets left behind.
