Origin Stories cover art

Origin Stories

Origin Stories

By: Campside Media
Listen for free

About this listen

Have you ever wondered exactly how your favorite movie or book –– or podcast, TV series, documentary film, or magazine article –– got made? Origin Stories has you covered. Each week, veteran journalist Matthew Shaer talks to a different writer or director about the creation of a work close to their own hearts (and to ours). Nothing is off the table: not the frustrations and the joys, not the setbacks and the successes. Intimate and incisive, instructive and eye-opening, Origin Stories is the ultimate podcast for anyone curious about the workings of the creative mind. New episodes every Wednesday!


To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.

© © Campside Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Art Entertainment & Performing Arts
Episodes
  • Mo Amer on Mo
    Feb 18 2026

    Mo Amer is a stand-up comedian, actor, and writer whose work blends raucous humor with serious conversations about borders, identity, and belonging. Born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents and raised in Houston, Amer began performing as a teenager before channeling his own family’s experience in the U.S. asylum system into Mo, the hit Netflix series he co-created, wrote, and starred in. Spanning two wildly funny and deeply moving seasons, Mo follows a lightly fictionalized version of Amer navigating family, work, and love while stuck in legal purgatory. In this episode, Amer talks to Matthew about concluding the series’ second season, building a show that’s both a meditation on belonging and a sharp commentary on what it means to be American right now, and carrying the emotional weight of telling a story so close to home. He reflects on the reaction from audiences who see themselves in Mo for the first time and from others encountering a character like him for the first time at all. “People walk up to me everywhere,” he says. “They feel seen.”


    To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joincampside.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠. Have a question, guest recommendation or just want to say hi? Email us at Originstories@campsidemedia.com

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Show More Show Less
    35 mins
  • David Greene on David Greene is Obsessed
    Feb 17 2026

    David Greene is a veteran journalist best known for his years as the co-host of All Things Considered on National Public Radio. Before taking the co-host's chair, he served as NPR's Moscow bureau chief, during which time he reported widely from regions as varied as Siberia and Chechnya. After leaving NPR, David co-founded Fearless Media, a production company focused on narrative journalism and audio storytelling. In this episode, he talks to Matthew about his new Campside show, "David Greene is Obsessed," which delves into the strange and wondrous fixations of guests like Paula Poundstone and David Arquette. You can find more of David Greene is Obsessed on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠.

    To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joincampside.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠. Have a question, guest recommendation or just want to say hi? Email us at Originstories@campsidemedia.com

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Show More Show Less
    43 mins
  • Lizzy Goodman on Meet Me In the Bathroom
    Feb 11 2026

    Lizzy Goodman is a longtime music journalist whose work has helped shape how the early-2000s indie rock era is understood and remembered. Over the past two decades, she’s written for Rolling Stone, Spin, New York Magazine, Nylon, and The New York Times Magazine, profiling artists from MIA to Conor Oberst to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She writes incisively about individual musicians and albums while situating them inside a larger cultural moment — part journalist, part historian. In this episode, she talks to Matthew about Meet Me in the Bathroom, her oral history of New York’s indie scene in the early 2000s, and the 2022 documentary inspired by the book. Goodman explains how she organized hundreds of interviews around events rather than timelines, treated New York City as the central character, and documented a scene where no one agrees on what actually happened. “It’s like filling out a crossword puzzle that’s moving,” she says. “I kind of built these individual narrative blocks and then you have to weave it all together.”In this episode, she talks to Matthew about Meet Me in the Bathroom, her oral history of New York’s indie scene in the early 2000s, and the 2022 documentary inspired by the book. Goodman explains how the project took shape voice by voice, why oral history was the only form that made sense for a scene with no single truth, and what it means to document a moment where memory, myth, and experience are constantly in conflict. “It’s like filling out a crossword puzzle that’s moving,” she says. “You’re building this narrative, and then you have to weave it all together.”

    To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠⁠joincampside.com⁠⁠. You can also find us on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠. Have a question, guest recommendation or just want to say hi? Email us at Originstories@campsidemedia.com

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Show More Show Less
    39 mins
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.