Insights from recent episode analysis
Audience Interest
Podcast Focus
Publishing Consistency
Platform Reach
Insights are generated by CastFox AI using publicly available data, episode content, and proprietary models.
Most discussed topics
Brands & references
Est. Listeners
Based on iTunes & Spotify (publisher stats).
- Per-Episode Audience
Est. listeners per new episode within ~30 days
10,001 - 25,000 - Monthly Reach
Unique listeners across all episodes (30 days)
25,001 - 75,000 - Active Followers
Loyal subscribers who consistently listen
5,001 - 15,000
Market Insights
Platform Distribution
Reach across major podcast platforms, updated hourly
Total Followers
—
Total Plays
—
Total Reviews
—
* Data sourced directly from platform APIs and aggregated hourly across all major podcast directories.
On the show
From 1 epsHost
Recent guests
No guests detected in recent episodes.
Recent episodes
Episode 63: A Tribute to Rick Wallach
Apr 8, 2026
47m 38s
Episode 62: Part Two--Can the Panel Redeem THE COUNSELOR?
Mar 26, 2026
1h 22m 09s
Episode 61: Part One of Seeking Guidance for THE COUNSELOR
Dec 16, 2025
1h 07m 01s
Episode 60: Riding Shotgun on THE PASSENGER with Lydia Cooper and Brent Cline
Oct 13, 2025
1h 56m 23s
Episode 59: The Big Screen Beckons--McCarthy's Screenplays with Stacey Peebles
Sep 23, 2025
1h 28m 21s
Social Links & Contact
Official channels & resources
Official Website
Login
RSS Feed
Login
| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/8/26 | Episode 63: A Tribute to Rick Wallach✨ | Cormac McCarthyliterary studies+3 | — | Cormac McCarthy SocietyUniversity of Miami+2 | — | Rick WallachCormac McCarthy Society+3 | — | 47m 38s | |
| 3/26/26 | ![]() Episode 62: Part Two--Can the Panel Redeem THE COUNSELOR? | After a long break in which your intrepid host has contended with everything from eye surgery to accreditation, the second part of the panel discussion on The Counselor is finally here. Returning for the second part of his first appearance on the podcast is Dr. Russell Hillier, whose consideration of the screenplay first sparked my interest in examining the text again. He is Professor of English at Providence College, Rhode Island. He is the author of two books, Milton’s Messiah (Oxford... | 1h 22m 09s | ||||||
| 12/16/25 | ![]() Episode 61: Part One of Seeking Guidance for THE COUNSELOR | Full disclosure time here on the READING MCCARTHY podcast. When Ridley Scott’s film The Counselor arrived in theaters with its very own shiny McCarthy screenplay, I was underwhelmed. We’d been waiting for over half a decade for The Passenger and had no idea we’d be almost another ten years waiting for that project (and of course we had no concept of Stella Maris at the time). I found interesting elements in the film but didn’t think it held together. But people smarter than me (su... | 1h 07m 01s | ||||||
| 10/13/25 | ![]() Episode 60: Riding Shotgun on THE PASSENGER with Lydia Cooper and Brent Cline | For the podcast's 60th episode we are finally able to develop a lengthy and thorough discussion of The Passenger, McCarthy's penultimate novel from 2022. I'm joined by two returning guests of the podcast: Dr. Lydia Cooper is a professor of American literature and director of the core curriculum at Seattle University. Her specializations include Native American literature, Western and southwestern literature, and gender studies, and of course Cormac McCarthy. Her most recent book is Corm... | 1h 56m 23s | ||||||
| 9/23/25 | ![]() Episode 59: The Big Screen Beckons--McCarthy's Screenplays with Stacey Peebles | Episode 60 of READING McCARTHY sees the return of one of my favorite guests, Dr. Stacey Peebles. In addition to her many other roles described below, she is the preeminent expert on McCarthy’s work in screenplays. Please join us for a consideration of his various screenplays, both produced (The Counselor) and unproduced (Cities of the Plain, No Country for Old Men, Men and Whales) as well as a brief discussion of the film adaptations of his work thus far. Stacey Peebles is the HW... | 1h 28m 21s | ||||||
| 6/5/25 | ![]() Episode 58: Staying off the Tracks of THE SUNSET LIMITED with Dianne Luce | The 58th episode brings back the excellent Dr. Dianne Luce to discuss with us McCarthy’s 2006 play The Sunset Limited (or is it a novel in dramatic form?). Produced first by the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in May of 2006, it later went on to open in New York. Dianne Luce saw it in Chicago during that opening run and we’ve both seen the Tommy Lee Jones directed film version which aired on HBO in 2011. The play shows two men, a cynical, atheist white professor and an evangelical ... | 1h 17m 45s | ||||||
| 2/12/25 | ![]() Episode 57: The Wittliff with Lead Archivist Katie Salzmann | This past December your not-so-intrepid host was able to make a pilgrimage to San Marcos, Texas, to visit the Wittliff Collection in the Alkek Library at Texas State University and plumb its treasure trove of McCarthy archives. My guest in this episode is Katie Salzmann, who has been Lead Archivist at The Wittliff Collections at Texas State since 2004. Prior to that, she worked with literary and historical manuscript collections at Southern Illinois University and Howard University. She... | 43m 46s | ||||||
| 1/1/25 | ![]() Episode 56: The Brothers Elmore Flip a Coin with No Country for Old Men | This episode has a history that winds like a West Texas border road. My guests are the Brothers Elmore, and we originally recorded it in April but one of the tracks went bad. So finally at the end of our collective academic semesters, we once again discussed No Country for Old Men, speculating about its origins, its commentary on neo-liberalism, the film adaptation, and how some critics tried to read the author through the novel. Twin brothers, the Elmores collaborate on the... | 56m 23s | ||||||
| 11/18/24 | ![]() Episode 55: Writer Ron Rash on McCarthy's Work and Influence | Episode 55 is a discussion with award winning novelist, short story writer, poet, and big-time McCarthy fan, Ron Rash. Ron attended Gardner Webb University in Boiling Rock NC and then earned his master’s in English at Clemson University. He is a writing and English faculty member at Western Carolina in Cullowhee, NC, where he serves as the John and Dorothy Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Cultural Studies. Ron has won many (I mean, many) honors and awards, inclu... | 42m 23s | ||||||
| 10/21/24 | ![]() Episode 54: Following McCarthy's Tracks with Austin Smith | This episode of READING MCCARTHY welcomes to the podcast for the first time Austin Smith. Austin studied history and literature at the University of Georgia. He has worked as a photographer and a professional adventure photographer, following the art into aviation, mountaineering, and motorcycle racing. He now leads a human resources consulting business in Denver, Colorado. A couple of years ago he hooked up an Airstream fifth wheel RV to his truck and, armed with a load of McCarthy nov... | 1h 02m 36s | ||||||
Want analysis for the episodes below?Free for Pro Submit a request, we'll have your selected episodes analyzed within an hour. Free, at no cost to you, for Pro users. | |||||||||
| 8/2/24 | ![]() Episode 53: Rambling Down THE ROAD with Bryan Vescio | This 53rd episode of READING MCCARTHY takes a long ramble down THE ROAD, McCarthy’s 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of a father and son enduring life in a harrowing, ashen landscape after some undisclosed apocalypse. For this discussion I’m glad to welcome back guest Dr. Bryan Vescio. Professor and Chair of English at High Point University in North Carolina, Dr. Vescio has previously joined us for discussions on Suttree and Cities of the Plain, among others. He is the author of the 2014 boo... | 1h 12m 20s | ||||||
| 6/24/24 | ![]() Episode 52: McCarthy and Hemingway | Episode 52 is a round table considering the impact of Ernest Hemingway’s writing on the works of Cormac McCarthy. Joining us for this discussion are Dr. Olivia Carr Edenfield, Professor of English at Georgia Southern University. She is a founding member of the Society for the Study of the American Short Story and Director of the American Literature Association. She has recently published a defense of the mother in The Road in the CMJ. Dr. Bren... | 1h 38m 07s | ||||||
| 5/4/24 | ![]() Episode 51: Teaching McCarthy Round Table | Although the fact often goes unacknowledged, it is a truth that sometimes an author’s residence within and endurance in the canon is a result of how that author is perceived and taught in the academy. Most literary scholars are also professors and teachers. For this episode of Reading McCarthy I round up some of the usual suspects for a panel discussion upon teaching the works of McCarthy to students. The guests include Stacey Peebles, Chair of the English program, Director ... | 1h 27m 44s | ||||||
| 4/5/24 | ![]() Episode 50: Barreling through No Country for Old Men with Rick Wallach | The guest for our 50th episode is the OG himself, the redoubtable RICK WALLACH, who joins us for a rousing discussion of No Country for Old Men. Somehow both Batman and Godzilla are referenced as we consider both the novel and the Coen Bros. film. Rick Wallach has recently retired from teaching English at the University of Miami. He is a founder of the Cormac McCarthy society, the senior and primary editor of the Cormac McCarthy Society casebook series, and editor of the two... | 1h 10m 02s | ||||||
| 1/16/24 | ![]() Episode 49: a Filibuster Panel on the BORDER TRILOGY | In this episode we head across the border one more time for a consideration of the Border Trilogy as a whole. How does knowing how the story begins and ends change how we read any of the different parts? My guests on this filibuster over the border include Dr. Nell Sullivan, a Kentuckian who earned her BA in English from Vanderbilt University and earned her PhD from Rice University. She is currently Professor of English at University of Houston-Downtown, where she teaches co... | 1h 16m 45s | ||||||
| 12/16/23 | ![]() Episode 48: Tearing Down the Walls of THE STONEMASON with Nick Monk | The guest for this episode is Dr. Nick Monk, who joins me for a consideration of perhaps McCarthy’s most idiosyncratic work. The 90s were an exciting time for McCarthy fans. In 92 he published the award winning All the Pretty Horses, followed two years later by the next installment in the Border Trilogy, The Crossing. Before he would go on to close out the trilogy in 98, however, in 1995 he also published a strange and fascinating play, The Stonemason. The play is about the Telfai... | 1h 03m 05s | ||||||
| 11/14/23 | ![]() Episode 47: McCarthy and Disability with Brent Cline | Episode 47 of READING MCCARTHY considers the author’s references to and uses of disability in its many forms. My guest DR BRENT CLINE. He has published articles and chapters involving disability on Walker Percy, James Agee, and Daniel Keyes. His review of The Passenger/Stella Maris was published with The University Bookman. He teaches a seminar on McCarthy every two years. As always, readers should beware: there be spoilers here. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performe... | 1h 09m 50s | ||||||
| 10/3/23 | ![]() Episode 46: Crossing the CITIES OF THE PLAIN with Bryan Vescio | In this episode we ride to the end of the road in the last episode of the Border Trilogy, CITIES ON THE PLAIN. My guest for this foray is Dr. Bryan Vescio, Professor and Chair of English at High Point University in North Carolina. A guest on former episodes on faith and Suttree, Dr. Vescio is the author of the 2014 book Reconstruction in Literary Studies: An Informalist Approach, as well as numerous articles on American authors including Mark Twain, William Faulkner, John Steinbec... | 1h 05m 58s | ||||||
| 9/11/23 | ![]() Episode 45: Tribute to McCarthy Part 3 | This is our final of 3 tribute episodes in the wake of Cormac McCarthy's passing this past June. Guests on this final tribute episode include: Dr. Steven Frye, professor and chair of English at California State University in Bakersfield. Steve has just stepped down as President of the Cormac McCarthy Society. He is the author of Understanding Cormac McCarthy (Univ. of South Carolina Press) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Cormac McCarthy, and Cambridge UP’s Cormac Mc... | 1h 33m 02s | ||||||
| 8/16/23 | ![]() Episode 44: Tribute to Cormac, part the second. | In the wake of Cormac McCarthy's passing on June 13, 2023, a number of excellent tributes and discussion pieces were published. In this second of three tribute episode, we've asked for permission for the authors to read some of those tributes to McCarthy here on the podcast and we have also solicited a couple of others. The guests this episode include: Stacey Peebles, Chair of the English program, Director of Film Studies, and the Marlene and David Grissom Professor o... | 1h 01m 14s | ||||||
| 7/29/23 | ![]() Episode 43: Tribute to McCarthy, Part the First | On June 13, 2023, we lost a literary giant. Cormac McCarthy, the greatest writer of our time (in this podcast's completely unbiased opinion) passed away in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his home these past couple of decades. E-mails and queries started pouring in, mostly asking, "are you going to do a special tribute podcast? And the answer to that, is yes. Episode 43 is the first of 3 planned tribute episodes to McCarthy. Joining us for this first panel is a roundup of ... | 1h 37m 51s | ||||||
| 6/19/23 | ![]() Episode 42: Fly them, Cormac. 16 Responses to "What is your favorite McCarthy novel, and why?" | Like the rest of the world I learned this past Tuesday, June 13th, that Cormac McCarthy had passed away at the age of 89. This episode had already been recorded, but I thought it would still serve as an initial and quick response to the need to offer a tribute: it's a compilation of the responses to the question What's your favorite McCarthy novel, and why? from the podcast's first 16 guests. The guests responding to the "favorite book and why" question this episode are: &nb... | 1h 18m 00s | ||||||
| 5/31/23 | ![]() Episode 41: Over the Border Again with the Bros. Elmore: Part 2 on THE CROSSING | Episode 41 is our second excursion over the border as the Brothers Elmore and I finish our conversation about THE CROSSING. Returning as the guests are twin scholars Jonathan and Rick Elmore. That's right, twins. Jonathan Elmore is Associate Professor of English at Savannah State University and the Managing Editor of Watchung Review.. He is the editor of Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction: Narrative in an Era of Loss (Lexington) and co-author of An Introduction to African... | 38m 40s | ||||||
| 5/12/23 | ![]() Episode 40: A rough ride into THE CROSSING with Jonathan and Rick Elmore PART I | Episode 40 is a long ride through rough country as we dig into The CROSSING, McCarthy's masterful middle volume in the Border Trilogy. My guests today are twin scholars Jonathan and Rick Elmore. That's right, twins. Jonathan Elmore is Associate Professor of English at Savannah State University and the Managing Editor of Watchung Review.. He is the editor of Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction: Narrative in an Era of Loss (Lexington) and co-author of An Introduction to Afri... | 1h 04m 38s | ||||||
| 4/27/23 | ![]() Episode 39: Riding into the Evening Reddit in the West with Joe Parslow | Cormac still types his novels on an Olivetti typewriter and your host can't figure out Facebook. So for Episode 39 we bring in some expert help in the form of a lively discussion with Redditor supreme Joe Parslow. He has moderated the Cormac McCarthy subreddit for over a decade and has seen it grow from its first post in April 2012 to its current position as the largest online community devoted to the works of Cormac McCarthy. In March 2023 the membership of the subreddit ap... | 1h 13m 27s | ||||||
Showing 25 of 63
Sponsor Intelligence
Sign in to see which brands sponsor this podcast, their ad offers, and promo codes.
Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.
Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.

