Transom
By Transom
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Podcast Description
Transom.org is an experiment in channeling new work and voices to public radio through the internet, and for discussing that work, and encouraging more. Our podcast offers some tasty little audio morsels to go.
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
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1 |
The D-Word | At Transom, we are steady advocates of Slow Radio, un-rushed humanity-filled storytelling. In that spirit we present "The D-Word" by Ed Prosser. Yes, it's about Death. And about people who make their livings from death. The pace is slow. There is plenty of time, after all. When you feel like changing your rhythm, come listen. | 2/1/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Transom Story Workshop – Class of Fall 2011 | For seven weeks this fall, students from all over the US (plus Canada and Australia) came to Woods Hole to immerse themselves in radio. Come read about their experiences and listen to some of their work. | 12/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Invitation: PRPD Benediction by Jay Allison | Jay Allison's "benediction" from this year's Public Radio Program Directors Conference, with both a downloadable MP3 audio file and a PDF of the speech. | 10/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
Splash | Another in our series of Transom Donor Fund projects, “Splash” tells the story of surviving a suicide bridge jump. Producer Rich Halten says his feature occupies the space between journalism and art. | 7/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
About Born to Live with Jim Unrath | Studs Terkel's Prix Italia Award-winning piece, Born To Live is 50 years old this year. Transom's Sydney Lewis talked to Studs' collaborator Jim Unrath about the wonderful things that can happen when you don't know what you're doing. The piece holds up beautifully and is a testament to the creative process and wise funders. | 6/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
The Memory Palace | For his Transom feature, Nate DiMeo goes deeply into how and why he produces his podcast, The Memory Palace. If public radio could open its doors -- and why not, after all? --to passionate, unusual work like Nate's, one would love it a lot more. | 4/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
99% Invisible | The artist-driven podcast is a refreshing reminder of what's possible beyond the public radio standard issue. Transom will be featuring a few of these podcasts in the coming months, and our first is "99% Invisible" by Roman Mars. Roman creates lovely little form-is-content pieces about design. Come check out an episode and read Roman's encouraging notes about making creative work. | 3/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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8 |
Scene of the Crime | Paul Bieber is a private investigator. He searches for evidence in cases from insurance fraud to murder. Lately, he's decided to get into human rights investigations and went to Colombia to interview victims of paramilitary violence. This violence may have been funded by multinational corporations, a claim that Paul was beginning to investigate, and he wanted to tell the story for radio. | 11/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
Inside the Adoption Circle – A Transom Radio Special | "Inside the Adoption Circle" represents more of Transom's encouragement of Slow Radio. Without hurry, it wanders within the circle made by adopted children, by birth parents making an adoption plan for their children, and by parents adopting the children of others. Viki Merrick and Samantha Broun spent real time with the people they spoke to, and you can hear it. | 10/1/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
Polk Street Stories – A Transom Radio Special | Joey Plaster is an oral historian focusing on queer history in the Bay area. He spent over a year in 2008 and 2009, gathering the stories of the Polk Street neighborhood—on the street and alleyways, in the bars and churches, in apartments and shelters, in the missions and the clubs. Produced by Joey Plaster with Jay Allison. | 6/21/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
Finding Miles | This brave and intimate diary illuminates gender transition in an immediate way—from the mundane practical considerations to the fundamental identity transformation. Take some time to follow this path with Megan toward Miles. Produced by Sarah Reynolds with help from Jay Allison. | 6/7/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
Working With Studs – A Transom Radio Special | Transom Editor Sydney Lewis crafted this lovely eulogy to America's greatest listener and Transom's patron saint. In a seamless blend of documentary and reminiscence, Sydney and a crew of Studs’ co-workers bring great stories, along with wonderful previously-unheard tape of Studs himself. Produced by Sydney Lewis with help from Jay Allison and Viki Merrick. | 4/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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13 |
Matthew | Matthew wears a face-mask. He reveals through drawings and sound the story behind the mask. We don’t want to say too much about his story, because its strength is in the unraveling. From a production standpoint, the story couldn’t be simpler. But it will stick with you. Produced by Helena Keeffe with Matthew Blanchard. | 4/7/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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14 |
Kidnap Radio | Annie Correal's father was kidnapped in Colombia by guerillas and held in the jungle for months. He was rescued in a military raid. It was an amazing story, made more so by the fact that it was so common. There are thousands still missing down there, and there’s a radio station that broadcasts to them—messages from their loved ones. Annie went back to tell the story. Produced by Annie Correal with Jay Allison. | 1/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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15 |
Cat Lady | Transom sometimes provides a home for things that don’t fit anywhere else, things we’d like to hear out of the blue on public radio, but probably never will. Cat Lady is one of those. It’s a portrait, a reading, a vocal impression, a story, a performance. Produced by Joseph Keckler. | 12/23/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 16 | ExplicitVideoMortified’s “I Hate Drake” | This week we’re featuring the co-winner of our Self Portrait competition. It comes from the comedy collective “Mortified” who encourage people to read out loud the most embarrassing things they wrote as children. “I Hate Drake” is an hysterical and heartfelt entry from Will Nolan’s childhood diary about an archetypal bullying episode. Like most of the multi-media pieces on Transom, it’s story-driven and works fine without the images, but the animation deepens the story and makes it even funnier. Producer David Nadelberg says, “I had a specific visual aesthetic in mind for what a Mortified animation should look like. It should have the raggedy, moody, frenetic energy of a teen notebook. Innocent at the core but frayed on the surface. We called this aesthetic: punk meets Punky Brewster.” If you’re feeling a little battered by life today, take a few minutes to let “I Hate Drake” make you feel better. As ever, the producers will be at Transom to take your questions. | 8/17/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 17 | VideoMy Most Important Self Portrait | Last year, Transom and the FLIK International Film festival put out a call for multi-media self portraits. We have our two winners. Soon, we’ll be featuring “I Hate Drake” from Mortified, but right now Transom is hosting James Barany’s poignant and powerful piece about his own obesity called, “My Most Important Self Portrait.” The animated images of James’s body and the sounds of his voice work together in a dark and elegant duet. | 7/27/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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18 |
Tribal Radio | Jesse Hardman and Maura O'Connor recently drove around the southwestern United States visiting some of the 33 Native American reservations that have their own radio stations. They said it became clear that "radio, often dismissed as outdated for the Web 2.0 era, was the most essential medium of communication in Indian country." Airchecks from these stations sound alive and connected, peopled by a real range of characters. On Transom, Jesse and Maura put together a report, full of photos and audio, and we also created two radio pieces. One is an NPR-style news magazine piece. The other is a Transom-style collage. Listen to both. Tell us what you think. On our discussion board, we'll be joined by some of the staff of the tribal stations and they'd like to hear from you. | 6/19/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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19 |
Jennie’s Secret | An unusual veteran's story about a woman who posed as a man during the Civil War and went on to live most of her life as a man in the tiny town of Saunemin, Illinois. Over the years the town has been ambivalent about their most famous citizen and is struggling to figure out how to honor the memory of Jennie Hodgers/Albert Cashier. Produced by Linda Paul. | 5/18/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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20 |
Prostate Diaries | If this piece were about blood or bones or lungs, it would have aired on NPR. But because it is about the prostate, and includes a talking p***s, it presented problems for broadcast. There’s no equal time for body parts. Written by Jeff Metcalf, and performed by Paul Kiernan, recorded and produced by Scott Carrier and Larry Massett. | 2/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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21 |
Killer Whales | A gentle paean to the passion field biologists feel for their work, and, in this case, for whales. It also confronts the quandary that plagues both journalists and biologists: What if your quarry doesn't show up? How do you still tell its story? Produced by Ari Daniel Shapiro. | 1/22/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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22 |
After The Forgetting | This is a delicate story about love and dementia. It weaves memory and moments through the intertwined lives of Greg Sharrow, his mother Marj, and his husband Bob. Also, the producer has written usefully about the process of wrestling with a tricky emotional story. Produced by Erica Heilman. | 12/1/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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23 |
Curtis Fox | Curtis Fox produces podcasts for The New Yorker, The Poetry Foundation, Parents Magazine and others. He got his start in public radio and it still resonates in what he does. In this issue of The Transom Review, Curtis lays out his podcast philosophy, plays samples, and answers all sorts of practical questions too. Come download the PDF of Curtis’s dispatch from this edge of the multi-dimensional new world of audio distribution. | 11/24/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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24 |
Love & Radio | Somewhere between NPR and a shockumentary special on Fox is alt.NPR’s Love & Radio–a surreal journey into a confusing world of ex-lovers, ex-cult members, and fruit. Lots of fruit. Love & Radio is what Ira Glass might make if he showed up to work drunk. | 11/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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25 |
Dial-A-Stranger | Dial-A-Stranger takes questions from random strangers (like you), and poses them to other strangers (like you) on the telephone. It’s a source of communication, assistance and entertainment. It is a community project, an anthology, and a hobby. | 11/9/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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26 |
Studs Terkel 1912-2008 | Transom is again featuring Studs Terkel's Manifesto from 2001, his conversation with Sydney Lewis on radio, improvisation, fireside chats, ineptitude, jazz, Vox Humana, and dozens of other notions his mind leapt to. Studs remains an inspiration to us--always listening, sending out stories. When asked what his ideal broadcast day would be, he said, "I'd want the human voice. Expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real." Something Real. | 11/5/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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27 |
Frickin Circus | Part audio blog, part travel show, and part behind-the-scenes at the circus. | 10/27/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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28 |
Fake City, Real Dreams | Zak Rosen is a radio producer. Neil Greenberg is a map-maker. They're both from Detroit, but their hearts are in a different city, a city they think is possible--at least in the imagination and maybe in reality. The radio piece they made together treats this place as if it were real. It is a creative exercise that hints at a plausible future. Fake City, Real Dreams is unlike any "arts feature" you've heard before. | 8/27/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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29 |
How Are You Who You Are? | The Nadeaus were, to most eyes, an ideal family--enlightened, brilliant, prosperous. But then things turned upsidedown. In a remarkable series of events, Doug and Lynn Nadeau were forced to re-define their identities, to confirm the foundation of their love. Produced by Eric Winick. | 6/19/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 30 | VideoCreature Comforts | In case you haven't seen them already, we thought we'd post these animation gems. They are the work of our current Guests - the team behind Creature Comforts. All the voices come from interviews with real people. Watch. Enjoy. And then come join the conversation at Transom.org. | 2/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 31 | VideoCreature Comforts | In case you haven't seen them already, we thought we'd post these animation gems. They are the work of our current Guests - the team behind Creature Comforts. All the voices come from interviews with real people. Watch. Enjoy. And then come join the conversation at Transom.org. | 2/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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32 |
Creature Comforts part 2 (interview with Transom) | Transom is proud to welcome the creative team behind our favorite animated series, Creature Comforts. If you haven't seen it, get thee quickly to their Transom pages and catch up. This series comes from Aardman Animation in England (home of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, etc.), and is inhabited by claymation animals whose identities are derived from audio interviews with real people. There's a kinship between radio and animation, because we all imagine the source of voices we hear, and if our imaginations are free-ranging and whimsical, the voices might look like this. Kit Boss, Richard "Golly" Goleszowski, and Dan Sinclair talk to Transom's Samantha Broun. The conversation is transcribed, illustrated with audio/video, and is downloadable in MP3. There's also a "Making Of" video, and all sorts of background and technique, including interviewing. And you can ask questions. This is good stuff. You'll like it. | 2/20/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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33 |
Creature Comforts (interview with Transom) | Transom is proud to welcome the creative team behind our favorite animated series, Creature Comforts. If you haven't seen it, get thee quickly to their Transom pages and catch up. This series comes from Aardman Animation in England (home of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, etc.), and is inhabited by claymation animals whose identities are derived from audio interviews with real people. There's a kinship between radio and animation, because we all imagine the source of voices we hear, and if our imaginations are free-ranging and whimsical, the voices might look like this. Kit Boss, Richard "Golly" Goleszowski, and Dan Sinclair talk to Transom's Samantha Broun. The conversation is transcribed, illustrated with audio/video, and is downloadable in MP3. There's also a "Making Of" video, and all sorts of background and technique, including interviewing. And you can ask questions. This is good stuff. You'll like it. | 2/11/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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34 |
Running From Myself | Louis used to rob people on the street, but he stopped. Now, he's trying to reconcile the person he was with the person he is and wants to be. There's something about Louis' voice; it's both wise and callow. It feels like he has the answers while he's searching for them. Produced by Anthony Mascorro and Louis. | 2/9/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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35 |
An Evening of 75 Laughs with Jonathan Katz | Transom wants talented people to try public radio. When we first featured Jonathan Katz's audio work, he was making funny little pieces in his attic studio. Then, we helped him produce a fake call-in show , with his friends--David Cross, Sarah Silverman, Al Franken, David Mamet, et. al.--playing the callers. Now, we've produced a radio hour from Jonathan's stand-up performance at Jimmy Tingle's Off-Broadway Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It features Tom Snyder, Bill Braudis, Tom Leopold, H. Jon Benjamin and others. It also features lots of jokes about Multiple Sclerosis, a disease which Jonathan has had for many years. Don't worry, it's funny... funny enough that you didn't have to be there. Judge for yourself. | 11/27/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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36 |
Voice of Youth: The Night I Met Cornel West | In this piece Laquoia Simmons, a self described at risk teenager," meets and briefly interviews renowned academic and public intellectual Cornel West. In this insightful piece, Laquoia reflects on her trip to Sonoma State University, and discusses what it was like to be an 'at-risk' young woman meeting a writer who writes so much about the so-called 'at-risk' population. In this personal and intellectual piece, she talks about family, betrayal, humiliation, and inspiration. | 4/12/06 | Free | View In iTunes |
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37 |
Voice of Youth: This New Game | This piece addresses the recent phenomenon of "cutting" from the inside perspective of a teenager, Amanda Wells, who believes that no one is really getting at the heart of the problem or explaining what it feels like to cut your own body. In this sound collage, she focuses on the fundamental urge to self-mutilate and what it would take for someone to stop, while hinting at some secrets from her own life. | 3/27/06 | Free | View In iTunes |
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38 |
Voice of Youth: Our Name is Rogelio Bautista | A piece chronicling the life and death of 16 year old, Rogelio Bautista. | 3/13/06 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 39 | VideoTwenty One | "What would you do if somebody told you to make a movie about your life?" | 1/19/06 | Free | View In iTunes |
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40 |
The Tomato & the Big Apple | This high-concept trip follows a tomato from Florida to New York... and, well, sort of back again. | 10/16/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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41 |
“KROCK Lives!” | Adventures in bad-ass commercial rock radio studios too early in the morning. Jen Trynin shares a day in the life of a would be up & coming pop star. | 10/3/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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42 |
Girl Detectives | Sue Mell is an artist and writer and she's also been a stand-up comedian. This is her first radio piece. It's not funny. It's about the aftermath of a friend's murder, and the desire for resolution. | 9/26/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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43 |
Carrie’s Letters From Jail | Producer Mark Moran created this audio portrait of Carrie, a repeat criminal offender and prison inmate - all through her own reflections and letters written to loved ones while behind bars. | 9/7/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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44 |
Seafood Joint, Garbage & Stress Test | When we first received Hans' work, the editors didn't know what to make of it. Once they figured it out, they decided he was brilliant and "dangerously ambiguous." Listen to this excerpt called "Stress Test." | 8/29/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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45 |
Of a Piece | How do you maintain family traditions, or build new ones, after a divorce? Would an 8,000-piece jigsaw puzzle help? Michelle Orange thinks so. In fact, she'd even go 12,500. | 8/7/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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46 |
Jimmy and Jewel: A Love (?) Story | At his grandfather's funeral, a woman he'd never met gave Jason Rayles a rose. In his first piece for radio, he tries to find out who this woman was... and a little more about his grandfather. | 7/25/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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47 |
Buffalo Turkey Tail | Andy Raskin left his CEO job at his dotcom, and began taking his chances on telling some radio stories. This was his first. It's about his friendship with an old man named Hollister, a street person who introduces Andy to the conceptual delicacy, Turkey Tail, as well as other lessons. | 7/17/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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48 |
If You Were Thomas’ White Girlfriend | This story is about Thomas William, a young Sudanese immigrant in Maine, and what it might be like if you were his white girlfriend. The producer Terry Farish, in a lovely use of the subjunctive, describes some possibilities for bridging culture, language and worlds. For July 4th, an immigrant perspective on growing up and discovering one's self in the strange new world that surrounds you. | 7/4/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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49 |
The West Desert | A revived piece by independent producer Scott Carrier about an area outside of Salt Lake City, Utah that, over time, has become a main dumping ground for toxic materials and other poisons. His stance on the issue, as you might expect from Scott, is not what you would expect. | 6/27/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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50 |
Radio ~ Sound ~ Art | Sound art, audio art, radio art... it's probably old stuff to the crowd reading this discussion board, but to most Americans, it's pure arcana. Joan Schuman made this short feature piece in 2001 celebrating and bemoaning the state of Sound Art. Does public radio have a role to play in bringing this work forward? Is our hearing ultimately unchallenged by what the radio gives us? | 6/19/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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51 |
Knitting With Doghair | This piece, from the wonderfully eccentric Australian producer Natalie Kestecher, made its American debut on Transom in July, 2002. It plays at the boundary of documentary and imagination. Your task: decide which is which, and if it matters. | 6/13/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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52 |
The Imaginary Village | This piece is a two-fer. Producer Sandy Tolan came to us with an idea, and we asked only that he try something he hadn't tried before: find a new way of telling, not to think of it as fitting in with existing styles. He teamed up with new producer Melissa Robbins (Salt Institute graduate) and the two of them built this piece about home and loss with a style somewhere between journalism and impressionism, with delicate treatment of that international radio impediment, translated interviews. | 6/5/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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53 |
Deviation | A piece recorded in the woods at the time of full moon, produced with a folding and unraveling technique, full of forward motion. | 5/23/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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54 |
Darth Vader Impersonator Impersonator | To commemorate the final(?) chapter of George Lucas' epic sci-fi adventure, Transom is proud to present "Darth Vader Impersonator Impersonator," a show from our 2002 archives that explores the true nature of the dark side, its power over 32 year old men living with mom -- and why being known as "The Master-Vader" may not command the fearful respect you seek. | 5/16/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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55 |
Family Sentence | "My dad spent 23 years in prison. He started off as a Cuban Revolutionary and later ended up a convicted felon in the United States. We only talked once in the last 16 years. Then, out of the blue I got an email from him. He wrote, 'I'm home. Your biological father, Hector.' " | 3/9/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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56 |
Perfect Hearing | Nubar Alexanian is a Documentary Photographer, but this story could not be told well in pictures. It's about impaired hearing. And acceptance, and love, and endurance, and other messages hidden beneath the surface. | 3/9/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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57 |
Sweet Phil from Sugar Hill | A refugee from the Dot-Com bust makes her debut in long form radio. Full of clever production, it is the story of a large, difficult and remarkable personality, Phyllis Fletcher's father, and it's told with great care and no blame. | 2/7/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 57 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Wonderful show about life
This is a wonderful program about life. I enjoy listening to stories. Wonderfully structured program.
Great show!
I'm a big fan of storytelling radio shows and podcasts, and I'm glad I found this podcast. I was listening to a Scott carrier segment on 'this American life', and they mentioned Transom in the credits, so I decided to give it a listen. So glad I did...I just wish there was more!
Very high quality work
Fantastic series of radio documentaries, simple in design and execution has wide appeal and is accessible to all by all. Thank you Jay Allison.
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