When Miguel Esteban was 14 years old, he got an idea to make his own science fiction magazine. He wanted Octavia Butler to write a piece for it. So he picked up the phone to ask her.
Special thanks to Terry Gross and Fresh Air, which is produced at NPR member station WHYY and distributed by NPR. Quotes reprinted with permission of the Octavia E. Butler Estate.
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Writer Andrew Leland talks with Phoebe about slowly losing his eyesight. He was diagnosed with the degenerative eye disease Retinitis pigmentosa when he was in high school. "It was like, 'I'm going out in the woods with my friends at night. And oddly enough, I'm bad at it.'"
Andrew Leland’s memoir, The Country of the Blind, A Memoir at the End of Sight, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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At the End of Sight

Octavia and Miguel

One Saturday night in the 90s, Patrick Makuakāne and about 15 other hula dancers showed up to a club in San Francisco they called Old Dreamland. "It didn’t feel like taking risks. Because no one was there to tell me 'what the hell are you doing?'"
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Hula with Teeth

Nurse BokHee is in the background of every season of "Grey’s Anatomy." She’s become one of the show’s most beloved characters – but she's only had a few lines.
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Nurse BokHee

Gabrielle Gatto works at one of the most famous cemeteries in the country. Recently, she recorded a day in her life for the podcast Finally! A Show, for an episode called “Finally! A Show about a Crematorium Worker at Green-Wood Cemetery.” 
Criminal listeners might recognize one of the voices in this episode - Lynda Thompson-Lindsay - who runs the Lawrence H. Woodward Funeral Home. You can hear our conversation with her in our episode One Troy. 
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A Day at the Crematory

The synthesizer was invented in the 1890s. But for people to really start using it, it took half a century, a musician named Wendy Carlos, and an album called Switched-On Bach.
Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan of Switched On Pop tell Phoebe why Wendy Carlos is “the most significant figure in 20th century music that the least people know about.”
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Switched-On

The night sky is getting brighter almost everywhere in the world. We visit a place that is trying to stay dark.
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To Know the Dark

Folk singer Peggy Seeger and her partner, Irene Pyper-Scott, live on different continents. Peggy has written dozens of poems and songs for Irene, and one for the man she spent 33 years with before that – Ewan MacColl. “He loved me the way I loved Irene.”
Ewan MacColl wrote the famous love song – “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” – about Peggy in 1957.
Peggy Seeger’s book is First Time Ever: A Memoir.
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You Can't Promise to Love Forever

McGillin’s Olde Ale House is the oldest bar in Philadelphia, and it also claims to be the most romantic place in the city. The Philadelphia Inquirer says: “McGillin’s has matchmaking magic.”
Special thanks to Andrew Stelzer. 
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The Most Romantic Place in Philadelphia

Curtis was one of the first nationally-syndicated comic strips with a mostly-Black cast of characters. Ray Billingsley has been drawing it for newspapers every day for the past 35 years.
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At the Drawing Board

When comic Maria Bamford made her OkCupid profile with the username Hogbook, she says Scott Marvel Cassidy was one of the only people who contacted her. His username was Lazer Eyes.
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I'm Alright

Kyo Maclear remembers when she took a DNA test, the kit came with a piece of paper with terms and conditions that read, “You may discover unanticipated facts about yourself or your family when using our services that you may not have the ability to change.”
Kyo Maclear’s book is Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets.
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A Family Secret

When Charlotte Cushman arrived in England, she was heartbroken. But she began looking for work as an actor. There was one part she really wanted: Romeo.
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Charlotte as Romeo

In 2016, scientist Angus Davison got an email about a rare, left-coiling snail. He began a quest to find it a mate.
This episode was first released in 2018.
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One in a Million

If you visit Italy, you might come across a street, or a park, or a school, or even a chain of coffee shops named after a 7-year-old American named Nicholas Green. This is the reason why.
We're on tour this month! We’re telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there! 
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The Nicholas Effect

One day, as a student at the University of Florida, Kourtney LaPlant was reading the student newspaper. “And there was this little tiny ad in the paper about, hey, we’re looking for new mascots. And I was like, why not?”
We're going back on tour this month! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there! 
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Albert and Alberta

When Valorie Lee Schaefer was asked to write a book about puberty for kids, her first thought was, “Why me?” But as she got to work on it, she realized, “Every girl thinks that they're a freak of nature.” 
A new, updated edition of The Care and Keeping of You is out now. 
We're going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there! 
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The Care and Keeping of You

When twin rovers named Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars twenty years ago, they were only supposed to last 90 Martian days. But years passed, they were still alive, and engineers kept taking care of them. “I remember telling myself, ‘Please don’t die, Opportunity. Please don’t die.’”
We're going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there!
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Tau = 10.8

An experiment in living together, forever.
This episode was originally released in 2018.
We're going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there!
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How to Live Forever

In 2015, Brad Ryan called up his 85-year-old grandmother to see if she wanted to join him on a road trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. “She just said, ‘What time are you picking me up?’”
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Let’s Give It a Whirl

Growing up, Ashton Edwards spent hours watching videos of famous ballerinas. Ashton loved the ballet “Swan Lake” – especially the role of the Swan Queen. But they noticed that only female dancers danced that role, and got to dance on pointe. 
One day, years later, they decided to put on a pair of pointe shoes anyway.
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The Pointe Shoes

In its early days, the magazine Mademoiselle positioned itself as “the magazine for smart young women.” It published work by Truman Capote, Albert Camus, and Flannery O’Connor. Each summer, the magazine selected 20 women from colleges around the country to come to New York and work as guest editors. For housing, they were put up in a women-only hotel at East 63rd and Lexington Avenue: The Barbizon Hotel. Historian Paulina Bren says: “The Barbizon was a sanctuary."

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The Barbizon Hotel 

After Jean Westcott's first "Jeopardy!" audition, she waited 18 months to find out if she'd be on the show. She didn't get called, so she auditioned again. And again. She kept auditioning for over 20 years.
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The Contestant

Jules Hirsh had his first bar mitzvah when he was 13 years old, in 1946. Seventy years later, he celebrated a second one, at 83 - and then his wife, Julianne, decided to have a second bat mitzvah too. “It's a marker of, well, here I am. I've lived this long and so I'm here before you, saying that.”
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Here I Am

“It's all about finding the place that makes you happy, finding the life that makes you happy, and not worrying that other people make different choices.”
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Beatrix Potter and Her Sheep 

In the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle, it's perfectly good to sound bad.
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A Really Terrible Orchestra

We go searching for wolves in Yellowstone National Park, and learn about the dramatic and surprisingly relatable relationship between a powerful young wolf and the small, elderly wolf who had raised him.
This month, we're bringing you two of our favorite episodes – two stories about the same family of wolves in Yellowstone. One is a love story. And one is a crime story. For the crime story, check out Episode 232 of Criminal. It’s called "Wolf 10."
Rick McIntyre’s book is The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone’s Underdog. 
This episode was originally released in 2020.
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The Wolves

For a long time, beekeepers have told bees their news. They’ve told their bees about weddings, and when people they know have died. It’s said that if they don’t, the bees will leave their hives, or stop making honey, or die.
Sometimes, like after Queen Elizabeth II died, beekeepers draped hives in black ribbon. Sometimes they’d shift their hives slightly to the right. “This movement would signal to the bees that the universe had changed, ever so slightly.”
Helen Jukes’ book is A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings: A Year of Keeping Bees, and Tammy Horn Potter’s is Bees in America: How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation.
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Telling the Bees

In 1984, Yla Eason’s three-year-old son told her he couldn’t be a superhero because he wasn’t white like his He-Man action figures. So she looked for a Black action figure for him. When she couldn’t find one anywhere, she decided to make one herself.
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Sun-Man

Mark Kuhn grew up in Iowa in a family of corn farmers. When he was 10 years old, he heard a BBC broadcast of the Wimbledon finals. He couldn’t stop thinking about it — he would daydream about tennis while doing his chores. And one day, he got an idea. “I’m looking at this cattle feedlot when I realized, ‘This is just about the right size for a tennis court.’”
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Wimbledon in a Cornfield

Brown’s Barbershop in Athens, Georgia, has been in business for more than 60 years. 
One day, Everett Long went in for a haircut. Fred Smith was getting his hair cut in the next chair. All of a sudden, Everett’s barber said: “I think you should meet.” 
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At Brown’s Barbershop

“Our Sydney. Died Sept 4, 1902. Born a dog. Lived like a gentleman.”
A story about the oldest pet cemetery in the country.
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Fajita, Tamale, Clarence, and Blague

When Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić broke up, they had a hard time dividing up their belongings – there were items that felt too painful for either of them to keep. 
“We were kind of imagining the space where these objects could have their own life, and where they could keep the memory of that love, which is no longer there, somehow ignited, living.”
If you’d like to send something to the Museum of Broken Relationships, you can find out how on their website.
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Museum of Broken Relationships

“He loves the clouds, the wind, the sky. He wants you to love them too.” Meteorologist Tom Skilling has been forecasting on TV in Chicago for the past 45 years, and has been called the “undisputed king of Chicago weather.”
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The Weatherman

Growing up, Albert Samaha knew his uncle Spanky Rigor had been a musician in the Philippines. Spanky had helped start a band called VST &amp; Company in the 1970s. But it wasn’t until Albert was an adult that he realized how famous Spanky really was.
Albert Samaha’s book is Concepcion and you can find more photos of VST here.
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Punch the Moon

A story about two golden retrievers.
Aynsley Floyd’s short film about Sampson and Baylor is called The Mountain Dogs. You can watch it here.
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Sampson and Baylor

Alex Borovenskiy and Anabell Ramires run a theater in Kyiv, Ukraine. It's called ProEnglish Theatre, and was used as a bomb shelter during World War II. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Alex and Anabell decided to leave their apartment and go to the theater, where they hoped they might be safe. Then a neighbor showed up and asked if she could join them. “This is how it all started. People started coming and coming and coming.”
You can watch The Book of Sirens on ProEnglish Theatre’s Facebook page.
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The Shelter

As a kid, Josh Dela Cruz used to watch Blue’s Clues with his little sister. The show was entirely animated except for a single human - Steve - who talked to the audience and asked for their help to solve puzzles. In 2018, after years of Blue's Clues being off the air, Josh heard the show was looking for a new host.
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"The show is coming back!" 

Five years ago, on Valentine's Day, we started a show about the ways we’re connected to each other. Today, we’re catching up with some of the people we’ve met.
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How Have You Been?

When Bill Russell joined the NBA in the 1950s, he was the only Black player on the Celtics. He went on to win 11 championships, more than any player in basketball history. When President Barack Obama awarded him the Medal of Freedom in 2011, he said: “Bill Russell stood up for the rights and dignity of all men.” Today, former NBA player Spencer Haywood remembers his coach and friend.
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Bill Russell, King of the Court

A woman becomes a best-selling novelist by writing more than 100 books about her first romance.
Find out more about Brenda Jackson’s books here.
This episode contains adult material.
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Always Tomorrow

In 1983, Nelson Sullivan picked up a video camera and started filming everything – going to nightclubs in New York City, shopping at the grocery store, even waiting for a flight at the airport. "He became the narrator of his own life story.”
Special thanks to Kino Library for for letting us share audio from Nelson Sullivan’s videos. You can watch more of Nelson Sullivan’s work on YouTube.
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Nelson’s Camera

Delia Ephron has worked on some of the most famous romantic comedies of all time – like Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail – alongside her sister, Nora Ephron. In You’ve Got Mail, two people fall in love over email. Decades after writing that screenplay, Delia Ephron found herself in the middle of a very similar story. “I really did think I’d fallen into my own romantic comedy.”
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You've Got Mail

Last November, George Linnane found himself at the bottom of a hole, deep inside a cave. He was badly injured after falling more than two stories. And the only people who could rescue him were his friends in the caving community. "If somebody is in trouble, we all know that we're the only ones who can get them out."
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The Rescue

Grace Young remembers her parents were obsessed with food growing up — they went shopping every day for groceries and every night they cooked traditional Cantonese dishes for dinner. She started to learn to cook when she was young, but not from her parents. She learned from Julia Child. “She was a little jolly. She was always in a good mood. I was fascinated by what she was cooking. None of it was familiar to me. I didn’t know what a soufflé was or brioche or croissants, but she was just so appealing to me.”
Today, Grace is known as the Stir Fry Guru, and she’s written three cookbooks about Chinese cooking.
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Grace and Julia

Meredith Goldstein started giving her mother dating advice when she was a teenager, and today she offers people advice as the author of the Love Letters column for The Boston Globe. She says: “My favorite letters are breakup letters because it doesn't matter who you are – if you have been dumped, it is awful."
Meredith Goldstein’s podcast is Love Letters. 
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Desperate In Rockland

Michael Packard makes a living fishing off the coast of Cape Cod. He catches mostly tuna and mackerel. He drags for clams. And for three months every summer, he dives for lobsters. "It's an extremely dangerous profession. I think about it a lot, but I try not to. I can't dwell on it,” he told us. “You know, this is what I love. It's a different world down there. It’s a whole different world." Last summer, he had an astonishing encounter with a whale. Two weeks later he was back in the water. 
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In the Mouth of the Whale

When Margaret Dugan was 17, she ate lunch most days at a place called Little Venice where a young Domenico DeMarco would sing while he made pizza. “He would always be singing. And he had a beautiful voice,” she told us. Eventually, he asked her out on a date. At their wedding in 1965, she had no idea she was marrying the man who’d later be called “The Godfather of Pizza.” Today, a look at the man and the marriage behind the famous Di Fara Pizza. 
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The Pizza Maker

As a teenager, Kendra James had a crush on the actor Orlando Bloom. She decorated her room with pictures of him, she wrote stories imagining a romance with him, and she joined a message board dedicated entirely to him. 
One day, someone on the message board had an idea to make contact with Orlando Bloom himself. 
Kendra James’s book is Admissions: A Memoir Of Surviving Boarding School.
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A Crush

Evan Woodard explores the city of Baltimore from underneath. He searches for things buried underground—things that some people might consider trash. We decided to go to Baltimore and join him on a dig.
Take our survey: vox.com/podsurvey
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Beneath the City

Nnenna and Phil met on a friend’s front porch in Carrboro, North Carolina in 1978. “It felt like I was meeting someone that I had known, but forgot that I knew,” she says. “It just was magic.” 
You can listen to Nnenna’s podcast, Great Grief, here.
We need your help. We are conducting a short audience survey to help plan for our future and hear from you. To participate, head to vox.com/podsurvey, and thank you!
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The Freelons

A few months ago, Frank Dumas won his 4th grade class spelling bee. And then he just kept winning.
We need your help. We are conducting a short audience survey to help plan for our future and hear from you. To participate, head to vox.com/podsurvey, and thank you!
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Frank Goes to the Spelling Bee

Many years ago, Cathy Raven decided to build herself a small house on a large piece of land in rural Montana. She’s said, “I saw myself alone in the furthest future that I could imagine.”
Then a red fox began to arrive, at the same time every day. 
Cathy Raven’s book is The Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship.
We need your help. We are conducting a short audience survey to help plan for our future and hear from you. To participate, head to vox.com/podsurvey, and thank you!
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The Visitor

When artist Wilfrid Wood was looking for new people to draw, he got an idea - and put a call out for models on Grindr. When Theo Adamson saw Wilfrid's profile, he says “it just caught me in the right moment as being up for trying something new.”
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Seeing and Being Seen

There’s a strange book from 1934 called Cain’s Jawbone that's "not for the faint-hearted.” It’s part puzzle, part murder mystery. And it’s only been solved three times.
You can find the book here.

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Cain's Jawbone

Dillon Helbig is 8 years old. He's been writing books since he was 5. One day, he decided he wanted to see his book on the shelf in a library.
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The Adventures of Dillon Helbig

Dessa spent the better part of two decades in love with the same person. They’d broken up and gotten back together over and over again. And even once they were broken up for good, she couldn’t give up hope that they still had a future. She says she felt kind of stuck. And so she started planning an experiment—part science project, part art project—to try to fall out of love.
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The Brain in Love

In 2015, Kate Bowler was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. She was 35. “The chronic nature of what I had really lent itself to people wanting to openly explain why I was suffering. Was it something I ate? Was it something I did spiritually? Like, who’s at fault here? You know, maybe everything doesn’t happen for a reason.”
Today, she says, “One of the only things that really cuts through all the noise is surprising and ridiculous joy.”
She’s the author of Everything Happens For A Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved and No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear).
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Finding Joy

“On the last day of the world, I would want to plant a tree.”
A story about people coming together, willing to try something.
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Grandfather of the Forest

"I began to think: ‘Oh, my gosh. Everyone was against me dropping out of college, marrying a complete stranger, and moving to New York. Perhaps they may have been on to something.’”
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Can I Speak to David? 

Tami is a sharpie, and Ed is her cap. After all these years, marriage has left an indelible mark.
Listeners of this show know that from the very beginning, we’ve wanted to highlight unconventional stories of love. Oftentimes, not romantic love. What we have for you today is one of the strangest and funniest conversations we’ve heard in a long time.
Everything is Alive is hosted and created by Ian Chillag. You can find more episodes at https://www.everythingisalive.com/. 
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Tami & Ed, Sharpie

"History was dependent upon people like me remembering." A conversation with Betty Reid Soskin, shortly before her 100th birthday.
Betty Reid Soskin’s book is Sign My Name to Freedom.
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What Gets Told

When Shigeru Yabu was a little boy he made a new friend in an unexpected place. “That bird walked up my arm all the way to my shoulder, and we looked at each other, eye to eye.”
Shigeru Yabu’s book is Hello Maggie!
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The Magpie of Heart Mountain

In October of 2006, a press conference was held at a hospital in Denver. During the press conference, a man asked if anyone watching could tell him who he was, or how he got there. Because he didn’t know.
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My Penny

On today's episode: Home recordings, people recording their friends, neighbors, and strangers — for a look at how we live, and who we are, by listening closely. Featuring a 5-year-old Sofia Coppola, and Patti Smith before she recorded her first album.
Lost &amp; Found Sound is the work of Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, also known as The Kitchen Sisters. No one makes radio like the Kitchen Sisters. As Tom Waits put it, “Lost &amp; Found Sound is beyond description.”
You can find more of the Kitchen Sisters' recordings at http://www.kitchensisters.org/.
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Lost and Found

On August 28th, 2000, Danny Stewart got on the subway to meet his boyfriend Pete Mercurio for dinner in New York City. As he was exiting the station, he noticed something on the ground. It looked like a baby doll wrapped in a shirt. And then he saw the doll's legs move.
Pete Mercurio's book is Our Subway Baby.
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On the Way to Dinner

One day in the spring of 1986, a woman in Hot Springs, Arkansas named Ruth Coker Burks was visiting a friend in the hospital. She noticed a door down the hall that had a red tarp over it, and the nurses were avoiding the room. So she decided to sneak in.
Ruth Coker Burks’ book is All The Young Men.
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Among the Oak Trees

Our favorite story, for anyone who might be feeling a little lost.
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Something Large and Wild

In June of 2020, a 72-year-old man in the UK named Gerald Stratford posted a photograph of himself in his garden on Twitter. He wrote, “Just giving my onions their daily inspection, a crucial time now for veg.” The tweet, like many of Gerald Stratford’s tweets, went viral. Gerald told us he never expected so many people to like his tweets about his garden, but that he just tries to be nice and polite and so far, people like it.
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Cheers

When Carlos Acosta was a kid, he wanted to be the next Michael Jackson. He spent all his time break-dancing in the streets of Havana. Until one day, when his father decided to put Carlos in a ballet class.
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The Dancer

Early one morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small town of Clearwater, Florida. The caller said he’d seen something strange at the beach. Residents woke up that morning to find an odd set of footprints in the sand, and a rumor began circulating that Clearwater Beach had a sea monster.
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The Clearwater Monster

There’s an old story on Cape Cod about a woman named Maria Hallett who fell in love with a pirate. According to legend, when he died at sea, she became so heartbroken that she started walking along the cliffs in storms and cursing other ships. The story goes that she believed that if she had lost the person she loved to the sea, everyone else should too. She became known as “The Sea Witch of Billingsgate,” and her story has haunted Cape Cod for the last 300 years.
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He Left in a Storm, He’ll Return in a Storm

Bernard Kinsey met Shirley Pooler in 1963, when they were both students at Florida A&amp;M University, after a protest to integrate the movie theaters in Tallahassee. Years later, when their son Khalil was born, Bernard and Shirley made a plan — they wanted him to understand where he came from, and where his ancestors came from. So they decided to become detectives, uncovering the history of the Black experience in America.
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The Kinseys

Meet a woman who decided to devote her life to the wild birds of New York City, and a Los Angeles man who formed a once-in-a-lifetime friendship.
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City Birds

In June of 2016, Dion Leonard attempted one of the toughest races in the world—155 miles through the Gobi Desert. At the start of day two, he looked down and saw a little brown dog chewing on his shoes. Dion and the little dog were about to embark on an adventure that would change both of their lives. 
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Gobi

The B-15 iceberg in Antarctica was the largest iceberg in recorded history. Explorer Jill Heinerth wanted to see what it looked like from the inside. She assembled a team of the most accomplished divers in the world, and they traveled for 12 days through the rough waters of the Southern Ocean. Attempting to dive into cracks in the iceberg, her life was in very real danger three times. And the third time, she would be saved by an animal so small, so transparent, that you can see its heart beating right through its skin. Jill Heinerth’s book is Into the Planet. 
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Into the Ice

When Drew Lanham was a child, he used to lie down in a field and play dead, just so he could get a glimpse of vultures flying over him. He made binoculars out of toilet paper rolls, and wings out of cardboard. He loved birds. But when he went to college, he says "I was trying to live up to the expectations of others who said, ‘you're a black kid who's good at math and science.’” So he studied engineering, and was miserable. And then, one day he heard the call of a Prairie Warbler.
Drew Lanham’s book is The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature.
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Prairie Warbler

When Kayleigh Davis saw Kyler Bourgeous' profile on a dating app, she liked that he loved the outdoors as much as she did. But what really stood out is that he said he'd survived a bison attack. So, Kayleigh messaged him, and asked to hear the story. And then, something impossible happened.
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Antelope Island

Michael Hingson was on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He says the first indication that something was wrong was the sound of a muffled explosion. Then the building began to tilt, and he felt the floor drop like an elevator. But Michael Hingson didn’t panic because his guide dog, Roselle, was calm.
Michael Hingson's book is Thunder Dog. 
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Roselle and Michael

We go searching for wolves in Yellowstone, and learn about the dramatic and surprisingly relatable relationship between a powerful young wolf and the small, elderly wolf who had raised him.
We’re trying something new. Two stories about the same family of wolves in Yellowstone. One is a love story, and one is a crime story. For the crime story, check out Episode 137 of Criminal. It’s called Wolf 10. apple.co/2JBu7uR
Rick McIntyre's book is The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone's Underdog.
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One day Franco Magnani picked up a paintbrush.
You can see some of Franco’s paintings on his website.
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The Memory Artist

At 43, Anna Bonavita had given up on finding love. But sometimes it’s worth the wait.
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Anna and Massimo

We visit a place where the “black sheep” of the Guggenheim family went to be free.
Francine Prose’s book is Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern.
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Everything Floats

We visit an ancient place where cats have taken over.
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Silvia and the Cats

We visit a city in Northern Italy where everyone decided to stay quiet to save something beautiful.
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The Town That Stayed Quiet

We visit a place where it's good to be ugly. With Club dei Brutti's permission, we've created an Ugly Club pin for This is Love listeners. Get yours here (https://cottonbureau.com/products/ugly-club-pin) or pick one up at the club's HQ in Piobbico.
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Ugly Club

More than 40 years ago, a man moved to an abandoned mining town to be alone. He says that there are days in the winter "when it's so quiet that the noisiest thing is the snow hitting your jacket."
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How to Be Alone

In 1983, Susan Rogers moved thousands of miles from home to work with her favorite artist in the world: Prince. "He was unlike any human I'd ever known,” she says. A story about making remarkable things, together.
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Nothing Compares to You

The story of a color marked by effort and desire.
For more, check out Carol Mavor's book, Blue Mythologies.
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Blue

A story about moving at your own pace.
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A woman finds a mysterious message in a bottle, and becomes consumed with finding out who wrote it and why.
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Message in a Bottle

An experiment in living together, forever.
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"People wanted to put him up for sainthood because he married me, like he'd made the ultimate sacrifice."
Special thanks to Pop Up Magazine.
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What Are We Going To Do

Nino and Drew kept their relationship a secret for more than 40 years. And then, they decided to do something that forced them into the spotlight.
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A Private Life

This episode was released in March of 2018. 
In June of 2020, Van Nolintha stepped down from his roles at Bida Manda and Brewery Bhavana, following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward staff, and negligence in addressing staff allegations of abuse against Bida Manda and Brewery Bhavana management. An investigation is pending. 
A story about finding your way home.
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Eight Thousand Miles

A woman becomes a best-selling novelist by writing 120 books about her first romance.
This episode contains adult material.
Selected books by Brenda Jackson: Tonight and Forever (formerly Always Tomorrow)
Cupid’s Bow
Strictly Business
Fire and Desire
Slow Burn
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An unconventional love story about a teenager, the Pacific Ocean, and an encounter with something wild. 
Grayson, by Lynne Cox
Lynne's latest is Swimming in the Sink.
You can find more about Lynne at her website: http://www.lynnecox.com/
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In 1971, David Alexander went for a run in Central Park and started talking to a stranger. For our first episode of This Is Love, a story about what's possible when we bet everything on each other.
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The Run

Here's a little preview of what we’re making over on Criminal Plus! We’re having a lot of fun making these bonus episodes. In each one, Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer and I take your questions and talk about what’s happening behind the scenes – and anything else that comes up. Recently we’ve talked about the only time I’ve ever stopped an interview, unusual gift ideas, Lauren’s love of sheet cakes, how to fall asleep, and some unwelcome guests in my studio.
When you sign up for Criminal Plus, you’ll also get ad-free listening on all of the shows we make, access to an exclusive merch store, and more. If you sign up as a Premium member, you’ll also get to attend virtual live events.
Learn more and sign up at thisiscriminal.com/plus. Thanks for your support!
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Jiminy Crickets

We’re coming up on 10 years of our other show, Criminal. In the past decade, we've loved taking the show all over the country - including the time I ate a bad oyster in San Francisco and almost didn't make it on stage. It means a lot to us, to be together with you in person - so we're excited to be doing it again soon.
This February, we'll be coming to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Paul, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C, and Raleigh. We're also coming to London and Dublin - we'll announce those tour dates soon.
Tickets for our 10th anniversary live show go on sale tomorrow at 10 am local time, including meet and greet tickets where you can come backstage and say hi. If you sign up for Criminal Plus, you can access presale tickets now. Visit thisiscriminal.com/live to learn more and get your tickets - we can't wait to see you there.
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