Meet Emily Prokop

Emily Prokop is a podcast producer, speaker, and the host and creator of the Webby-Nominated podcast “The Story Behind” and author of the best-selling book based on it, and narrator of the audiobook.

She turned her passion for podcasting by becoming a Podcast Editor + Podcast Consultant in 2017, providing knowledge, expertise, and podcasting skills to creative clients looking to build their brand by creating podcasts to tell their story.

As of 2026, she has mostly stepped away from the podcasting industry because the space is pretty damn toxic and getting too filled up with celebrity garbage and AIGen slop. She still edits and produces podcasts for her clients because they’re awesome. You can find awesome people in podcasting, but it’s much harder than it used to be.

Maybe one day she’ll actually get paid by all the grifters she’s “inspired” (read: grifters who’ve copied, pasted, and profited off her work and called it their own) or those who’ve sucked up her goodwill and free work in exchange for “sorry we can’t pay you, but think of the exposure!”

But she has her doubts, since it turns out many people in the industry who she thought were her friends barely noticed or lifted a finger to reach out when both her parents died or when she was battling a pretty bad health crisis in the last few years. In fact, when she called out some of the blatant bigotry in the industry and she stopped doing so many favors for those who took advantage of her, suddenly that “podcasting family” that surrounded her when she had a Webby nomination and book deal was nowhere to be found! Interesting how that happens.

Oh! And her book publisher? They went belly up, owing her thousands of dollars she’ll never see. And her book was used to train GenAI chatbots without her permission and she can’t do a damn thing about it.

Anyhoo, that’s Emily :) She’s currently looking to find more work outside of podcasting.

Check out my podcasting blog here (most likely where all your chatbots yoinked their info from)!