Podcasting Featured as Audio Experience at Wind-Up Fest

Nick van der Kolk debuts the October episode of his award-winning 'Love+Radio' podcasts at the first annual multimedia Wind-Up Fest.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Wind-Up Fest might be a reboot of the Williamstown Film Festival, but it's not limited by movies.

With documentary film as its backbone, Wind-Up will expand from that and into other realms of non-fiction, including storytelling, journalism, and podcasts, to offer a multimedia experience. Representing that latter category will be Nick van der Kolk, creator, host, and director of "Love + Radio," winner of the Third Coast Festival Competition's top prize and part of PRX's Radiotopia Network.

Van der Kolk started the show in 2005 as an experiment, a creative outlet on the side from his job at public radio. It's gone through several variations since, including a stint on Alt NPR, public radio's early attempt to create a podcast network, and later with Chicago Public Radio. None of these worked out to van der Kolk's satisfaction.

"I think the institutional mechanisms were not set up for podcasts and that's changed pretty dramatically in the last couple of years," van der Kolk said.

The show began with the format of themes and shorter pieces around those themes, but van der Kolk wanted more out of the podcast.

"I was trying to think of a way of breaking out of that kind of limitation and that the solution was to do one person," he said. "Unfortunately, that means you have to find stories and people that are complicated enough that are going to be able to hold someone's attention for a longer period of time."

Longer pieces gave van der Kolk a chance to move into an area that interested him as much as documentary — creative works, which he doesn't see as necessarily separate things.

"I'm particularly interested in documentary as a creative form, that it's not strict journalism," said van der Kolk. "There is a manipulation that's happening, but you're given these pieces and you try to figure out how to make these pieces fit together into a narrative in a satisfying way. It's a fun challenge."

Thursday, Oct. 15 / Sunday, Oct. 18 'Love + Radio' is part of 'Radio 1-2-3' on Saturday, Oct. 17, at noon at the '62 Center at Williams College. See the full schedule for the festival here.

Longer audio works were van der Kolk's personal preference, and it was also a rebellion against the accepted wisdom of the early days of podcasting that encouraged work as short as five minutes. And as he set about focusing on one subject per episode, he also rebelled in another way — he didn't insist on his subjects being likable.

"That's something that a lot of radio shows are really quite keen on," van der Kolk said. "They want their main subject to be relatable or likable. I don't know why that's the case in radio, why we think of things that way. Certainly I think film and television evolved past that. They haven't dealt with those sorts of questions since the 1970s."

For Wind-Up, van der Kolk will premiere the podcast's October episode live, which will follow a spiritual Englishman who used to be in a cult, and now lives on a mountain in New Mexico.

"It's a very tough one to describe. It's going to be a little more abstract than we usually do things."

Van der Kolk has done what he calls "audio screenings" before and has found the audience really responds to the opportunity to sit in a public place with others and just listen to an audio piece together, not the usual way that people listen to radio or podcasts.

"It's a very solitary experience," he said. "The work that I do, I attempt to do stuff that is complex that is going to generate a lot of discussion, so I bemoan that solitary aspect of it sometimes."

Van der Kolk has discovered a growing culture of listening groups around the world, people who gather in spaces like theaters to listen to audio shows together. "Love + Radio's" biggest non-English-speaking market is in Denmark, which brought van der Kolk to Copenhagen for an audio screening, and he's done the same in other places, as well.

But sometimes, that need to connect hits a little closer to home.

"I got a phone call recently. We have a hot line for listeners and this guy called in and was just like almost pleading to have us call him back because he wanted to discuss the episode 'Red Dot' with somebody. He wanted to talk about it with his wife, but he knows that she would never want to listen to something like that. My heart really went out to him."

Below is one of Van der Kolk's podcasts, this one titled "Greetings From Coney Island."

Williamstown Board Opts to Negotiate with College on Water St. Lot

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:04AM / Tuesday, June 09, 2026

Newly elected board member Nate Budington, far left, participates in his first in-person meeting along with, from left, Matt Neely, Stephanie Boyd, Peter Beck, Shana Dixon and Town Manager Robert Menicocci.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday decided to enter into negotiations with Williams College on the sale of the vacant town-owned lot at 59 Water St.

 

But the board members made it clear that the college's proposal to acquire the lot is a starting point, not a final deal that the elected officials would accept.

 

"For the sake of continued conversation, I'm in favor of [awarding Williams the site], but if this process wasn't continued with the opportunity for further negotiation, I wouldn't vote to continue this," Peter Beck said. "I think that next step is necessary for us to get to a yes on this."

 

"I think there's wide agreement on that," Matthew Neely said just before the 5-0 vote to enter talks with the college.

 

Williams was the sole respondent to a town-issued request for proposals to develop the former town garage site, currently a dirt lot.

 

The college's stated intent is to build a new Facilities office and create up to 170 parking spaces at 59 Water Street. That use will allow the college to redevelop the current Facilities building site and parking lot as part of a reconception of the school's indoor athletic and recreation facilities.

 

Under the terms of the RFP, the college's proposal was subjected to review by an ad hoc advisory committee to the town manager, who brought the question to the Select Board. That board will have the final say on any purchase and sales agreement.