DANVERS, Mass. —  A little more than a year ago, Aaron Mahnke, a Danvers, Massachusetts resident who writes supernatural thrillers, was looking for a new way to share some scary New England lore. He was hoping, too, he could transition away from his day job and become a full-time author.

A friend suggested he turn his truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tales into a podcast.

Now, the 40-year-old has one of the one of the most popular podcasts in the nation.

“Lore” presently sits at No. 11 on the iTunes “Top Podcasts” chart.

The biweekly podcast draws 1.6 million monthly listeners. It’s also the winner of the iTunes “Best of 2015” award. 

“Lore” celebrated its one-year anniversary on March 18, and now has more than 30 episodes available for download.

A podcast, for those still unfamiliar with it, is a digital audio file that can be downloaded to a computer, music player or smartphone. Podcasts are usually available in episodes or installments. 

“In some ways, what I do is a modern campfire experience,” Mahnke said. “As kids, we would go sit around the campfire at youth camp and, literally, around a campfire, hear stories that would scare you. 

“And now, the light is the light of a phone, and people are seated everywhere around the world, but they are still gathering around a story every two weeks, which is really neat,” he said.

Listen to a “Lore” podcast extra:

A growing audience

The podcast is entirely written, produced and hosted by Mahnke, who lives in what used to be Salem Village, a place that played a prominent role in the 1692 Salem witchcraft hysteria. 

Mahnke said he can’t believe the podcast’s popularity. He hears stories of people holding listening parties, or couples having date nights in the dark to listen to a new episode every two weeks.

“Every time I put out a new episode, the audience size grows,” he said.

Mahnke, who worked for about a decade as a designer helping companies with their marketing materials, said “Lore” has become his full-time job.

It takes him 30 or more hours to write, produce and host one episode. For quality’s sake, he wants to keep the podcast biweekly. He spends just as much time handling email and merchandise orders —he sells “Lore” T-shirts and stickers — and business matters such as sponsorship negotiations, he said.

The tales he tells draw on folklore and legends, such as the Jersey Devil, a creature with bat-like wings that lives in the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey. Does he believe what he writes about?

“What I like to tell people is, I believe the stories — I believe that people had experiences, and they really believed they saw something,” he said.

Danvers inspiration

Mahnke, a native of Illinois, has lived in Danvers for about six years. The former Danvers State Hospital on Hathorne Hill, built as an insane asylum, has served as inspiration for one of his episodes. 

“What I found fascinating was the earlier history, even before the facility was built, what stood there,” he said. The hill was where John Hathorne, a leading judge during the Salem Witch Trials, once lived.

“What makes the North Shore really great for my material, and why a lot of episodes tend to land in New England, is because New England is almost like one end of a folklore bridge between here and Europe,” Mahnke said. The region served as an entry point for most Europeans settlers, and it became rich with folklore from those arriving. Plus there are stories from native Americans to draw upon as well.

“You can look at a global topic and find a common root here in New England that goes out deeper into the past into Europe, and into the future through the rest of continental America,” he said. “It becomes this hub, in a sense.” 

It’s an area that’s always interested him as a writer.

“The thing I liked to research the most was New England folktales, legends, stories that had for the most part been forgotten, things that had slipped away from the public mind,” said Mahnke.

He had wanted to write a short book about his five favorite New England myths, something he would give to people who signed up for his fiction newsletter email list. The idea was to grow the list, sell more books, and write full-time.

The book grew to 15,000 words. Mahnke, who is a fan of audiobooks, thought about recording the stories, so he recorded one and sent it to a friend.

“He said, ‘You should consider doing this as a podcast.’ That was the accidental moment. I did what I needed to do to make it happen — put it out — and it’s been podcast ever since,” Mahnke explained.

A dash of humor

There are points in each “Lore” episode in which Mahnke will joke about the dark subject matter at hand.

“The humor is there because it disarms people,” he said. “I don’t want to be a comedian on a stage, but I want to get people to laugh every now and then, because it lets them put down their guard, and then I can take them in a little bit deeper.”

Fans of the show need not worry about Mahnke running out of ideas anytime soon. He said he was looking at his list of topics the other day, and he has enough to go through the end of 2018. By that time, he says, he will have at least 50 more ideas to tackle.

Forman writes for the Salem (Massachusetts) News.