I figure out how I came up with the rather lame name for my podcast.

I started podcasting about a year ago, just as it was catching on. I’ve released 28 podcasts episodes since then. I don’t record podcasts as often as I’d like to.

The other day I was looking for new podcasts to listen to and I realized that the name of my podcast — Maria Speaks — is pretty lame. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how I’d come up with it.

In preparing to write a short article about iTunes for my Mac OS X Companion Web site, which is part of this site, the answer stared me in the face. It was a NPR CD set that I’d copied into iTunes so I could get it in my iPod. Fresh Air with Terry Gross: “Writers Speak.” The CD set is a series of interviews with famous authors done by Terry Gross. (One of the authors — and I won’t say which one because that would be name-dropping — was my creative writing professor in college for two semesters. He hated it.)

I got the CD set right around the time I started podcasting, so it must have been on my mind. (This is one of the reasons I don’t read books about topics I need to write about; I’m afraid of what my mind might pick up in someone else’s book and spit out as mine.)

Anyway, I’d considered changing the name of the podcasts but decided that it’s actually a pretty good name. After all, it is me speaking. And I don’t speak about the same topic all the time, so it’s hard to pin a topic-based title on it.

But if you have a suggestion for a better name, don’t be shy. Use the comments link to suggest it.

As for the Fresh Air CD — it’s great and I highly recommend it.

[composed at the top of a mesa in the middle of nowhere with ecto]