Helen Zaltzman

Helen Zaltzman is an English podcaster, broadcaster and writer. She produces the linguistics podcast The Allusionist, the entertainment podcast Answer Me This!, and the Veronica Mars recap podcast Veronica Mars Investigations.

Zaltzman began the comedy podcast Answer Me This! with Olly Mann in 2007. The duo met in 2000 studying at St Catherine's College, Oxford. The podcast began in Zaltzman's living room in Crystal Palace, London, with assistance from Martin Austwick (a.k.a. "Martin the Sound Man"). In 2009, Zaltzman and Mann made history by being the first podcasters to be given their own national show on BBC Radio 5 Live, Web 2009 with Helen and Olly. They went on to present several other specials for BBC Radio 5 Live.

The podcast won a silver Sony Award in 2010 and gold in 2011, and in 2012 a European Podcast Award. It has been voted one of the Top 10 Comedy Podcasts in the World by The Guardian. It has received critical plaudits in numerous publications including Q, The Times, Time Out, and Radio Times. Due to the podcast's success, Faber and Faber published a companion book in November 2010.

In January 2015, Zaltzman launched a new linguistics podcast called The Allusionist. Zaltzman was the first British broadcaster on the Radiotopia podcast network. The Guardian describes the Allusionist as "an antidote to all the whither-life-and-how-to-understand-it podcasts". The Allusionist was iTunes UK's best new podcast of 2015. At the 2018 British Podcast Awards it was named ‘Smartest Podcast’ and Zaltzman was awarded ‘Podcast Champion’. The Allusionist left the Radiotopia network in October 2020.

In August 2019, Zaltzman launched an episode-by-episode recap podcast of the TV show Veronica Mars, with co-host Jenny Owen Youngs, musician and co-host of Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast.

Zaltzman is a regular on The Bugle podcast, hosted by her brother Andy, and has appeared on podcasts including The Bugle Presents... The Last Post, Jordan, Jesse, Go!, The Chuck Tingle Podcast, Hello from the Magic Tavern, Ologies, 99% Invisible, Potterless and ZigZag.

Mann and Zaltzman were internet correspondents on BBC Radio 5 Live's Saturday Edition and on Steve Wright in the Afternoon. She was a panellist on the third series of Charlie Brooker's So Wrong It's Right and won. She hosted the Radio 4 show Four Thought during 2016–2017. She has appeared on Woman's Hour, The News Quiz, The Richard Bacon Show, Transatlantic with Rory Bremner and Ian Collins's radio show, and was one of the contributors to discussions about the 2012 Olympics on BBC Radio Scotland. She has guested on podcasts, including The Guardian's Media Talk and Maximum Fun's International Waters, Potterless, Judge John Hodgman and guest-presented a special edition of the Radio Academy's Radio Talk.

Zaltzman was a judge in 2012 on the Sony Awards. In May 2013, Zaltzman began hosting a monthly podcast for Sound Women, an organisation which campaigns against sex discrimination in the radio industry. In September 2020, Zaltzman hosted the Duocon 2020 Livestream, a world-wide live conference for the language learning platform Duolingo.