Several years ago, my family and I took a trip into the mountains. We saw Helen, Georgia, a faux-Bavarian town inexplicably nestled among the southern Appalachian mountains. We visited The Gourd Museum featuring gourd-related artwork from around the world. We hiked in the rain, and saw a water fall, and generally had a lovely time. Along the way, my kids saw several billboards for Cabbage Patch’s Babyland General Hospital and were intrigued. We stopped by to see what it was all about. We were not prepared.
I wrote an essay about that experience and tried, unsuccessfully, to publish it. It moldered for about five years. Then, on a lark, I saw a call for submissions from Thrillist, sent it in, and to my great surprise they accepted it back in April.
You can read that article here: Nothing Could Prepare Me for the Bizarre ‘Live Birth’ Experience at Babyland Hospital.
Although, I still prefer my original title “The Bizarre Fertility Cult that is Babyland General Hospital”, I can understand why they felt the need to change it.
The article has been pretty generously received by quite a few folks. Longreads listed it in one of their top 2024 reads list with a delightful writeup to boot.
Out of the blue, The Atlas Obscura Podcast contacted me and asked if I’d be willing to talk about the experience on their show. Here is a picture of a painting the bookstore cat knocked down in the adjoining room as I tried to record.
We had a lovely time chatting. The podcast is out now, you can listen to it here.
I am delighted by the reception the article has gotten, of course. It’s just a bit surprising, I guess. I’ve been trying to write for about twenty years now, with pretty little to show for it in terms of publishing success. This article was rejected by every site and publication I could think of that might possibly want it (including Atlas Obscura itself, Ha). Then someone said yes. Suddenly people enjoy it. I’m happy, just a bit perplexed.
It was also a little odd to spend so much time talking about one experience I had five years ago. Albeit, a memorable one. The folks at Atlas Obscura were lovely and professional and very kind. The one bit of trivia is that I never actually spoke to the host at all. I had a great conversation with one of the producers (who I had assumed would host the show), but they went a different direction than I expected, pulling some coherence out of my rambling answers, and augmenting my description with some additional details and research of their own. It was great to see what it’s like to be a part of a “real” podcast, instead of the mediocre slap-dash, soapbox derby impression of a show my brother and I are doing. I was delightfully surprised, as I have been all along, from the beginning.
I’ll take it though. Hopefully, there will be more to come.
Subscribe to find out. 😉
About Joshua Rigsby
Joshua Rigsby runs an independent bookstore in a small southern town. His writing has been featured on Thrillist, Atlas Obscura, Southern California Public Radio, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Atlantic.
