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Episodes from RISK!
Fighting Back
This is a classic RISK! episode from January 2014, and it holds up with a particular kind of ferocity. (Content note: sexual assault) Ellie Jackson spent 12 years convincing herself she had moved on from being raped at a college party her freshman year. She'd built a careful system for managing intimacy, or avoiding it, and mostly it held. Then a routine visit to Planned Parenthood, a persistent social worker, and an accidental encounter with a Crest commercial undid all of it at once. (Content note: physical abuse, domestic violence, child abuse) Liz...
The Best of RISK! #34
Three stories so worth your time, from darkly funny to devastating. Our 34th compilation of some of our favorite recent stories shared on the podcast. (Content note: sexual assault) Fixxy starts a summer in Pittsburgh doing sex work for quick cash before a move to New York City. One night a client seems different, with an unusually easy request and a ride out to the suburbs. Things escalate in ways Fixxy never anticipated, leading to one of the more genuinely terrifying stories we’ve ever aired. In a completely different vibe, Kevin Allison tells the family legend he...
Impulsive
Three stories about snap decisions and what happens next: a classic RISK! episode from December 2013 that still hits hard. Lauren Cook found her date for a stranger's New Jersey wedding on Craigslist Casual Encounters. She showed up with a fake identity, a room full of people who knew nothing about her, and a night that kept escalating in directions she did not plan for. (Content note: gun violence) JJ grew up in 1980s Bushwick, Brooklyn, fought his way into Wesleyan and then Wall Street, but one afternoon a neighborhood confrontation pulled him back...
Males of the City: RISK! Reacts
Kevin hears Timothy Vaux's "Males of the City," a story from So Say We All, for the first time. In RISK! Reacts episodes, there's no preview, no prep, just Kevin listening along with you and sharing everything the story brings to his mind. The story: Timothy is a happily single gay man living in the heart of North Park, San Diego, where a buzzy Saturday night out ends with a casual wave to a stranger that sets off a chain of spontaneous, increasingly elaborate, and very adult events. The reaction: Kevin is instantly charmed, finding...
Presenting True Crime News: The Podcast
True Crime News: The Podcast is your weekly dose of real-time updates on the most gripping true crime stories, current cases, investigations, scams, and schemes. Host Ana Garcia is joined by crime experts, police officers, defense attorneys, and other leading authorities in their fields as they cover murders, scams, investigations, and unsolved crimes from across the country. Join us each week as we take you inside the biggest, most shocking, and most bizarre true crime cases. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy <...
Live From Philly 4!
First released in December 2013, this live RISK! episode from Philadelphia's First Person Arts pairs two storytellers with a lot to say about losing control and getting it back. Dawn Jewel Fraser's "Brasilado" follows a young American woman deep into an immersive year in Rio de Janeiro, learning Portuguese street by street from her chain-smoking instructor Marcy, until a late-night taxi ride home unravels spectacularly when Brazilian police find weed in her bag and mistake her for a drug trafficker. Then Katie Samson tells "The First Time Again," the story of rebuilding a...
Quid Pro Quo, Revisited
(Content note: child sexual abuse) In 2016, Ed G. got on stage at RISK! and told a story he'd never told anyone. Now, ten years later, Ophira Eisenberg sits down with him to go places that story couldn't: the FBI, the Pope, the survivors who found each other decades later, and the hard-won question of where shame really belongs. Ed's story begins in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where a boy abandoned by his violent father and drowning in poverty finds an unlikely lifeline in the local Catholic church. What the bishop who runs it asks for in return...
Where It Hurts
In this crossover episode with The Story Collider, Karen McCaffrey and Mary Cyn share stories that illustrate the importance of compassion in healthcare. 🎤Live Story: More than Survival by Karen McCaffrey (Content note: sexual assault, rape) After surviving rape and a traumatic hospital experience afterward, Karen transformed her pain into purpose. Decades later, she directed a sexual assault forensic examiner program, advocating for victims' rights and ensuring survivors receive trauma-informed care. 🎤Live Story: My Vagina Job by Mary Cyn Drawing on her own traumatic experiences with dismissive care, Mary transforms vulnerability into a...
Metamorphosis
Michael McFadden and Adrianne Frost share stories about evolving feelings about their bodies over time. 🎙️Radio Story: Growth by Michael McFadden Michael is a child swimming prodigy trapped in a grown man’s body who fails a humiliating puberty test, loses his athletic destiny, and ultimately redefines masculinity and self-worth beyond the pool and beyond his penis size. 🎤Live Story: Smoochin' and Fiddlin' by Adrianne Frost (Content note: child sexual abuse, self-harm) After surviving childhood sexual abuse and years of debilitating endometriosis, Adrianne equates beauty with value and spirals through painful sex and sel...
The Best of Coming of Age Stories #2
Byron Bowers and Amy Salloway share experiences from their formative years. A part of The Best of Coming of Age Stories series. 🎤🎙️💻Live Story: My Father's Son by Byron Bowers At 10, Byron goes to visit his dad's crack-addicted father near the projects. Four years later, Byron is selling crack, and he breaks down, wondering how he let his life become like his father’s. 🎤Live Story: Sister Act by Amy Salloway Amy understands as a child that her relationship with her mother isn’t loving. When her half-sister is born, her mom casts Abbie as...
Private Parts
Ria Spencer, Mindy Myers and Josh Connors share stories about learning to feel at home in your body. 🎤Live Story: The Only Girl by Ria Spencer Six-year-old Ria is diagnosed with severe cradle cap and must enter an all-male Arkansas barbershop to have her beloved locks shaved. It might have been traumatic, but the men were supportive and encouraging. 🎙️Radio Story: Ample Package by Mindy Myers Mindy orders therapeutic vaginal stretching dildos. When the package goes missing, she discovers one—nicknamed "The Rock"—was mistakenly delivered to a children's cooking class, where a stude...
Family Secrets
A Classic RISK! episode from our early years that first ran in November of 2013, when Kitty Hailey, Christine Lee and Josh Healey share stories of surprising family situations. 🎤🎙️💻Live Story: Rollin’ With Grandma by Josh Healey Josh's Grandma-in-law gets a pinched nerve and requires medical marijuana. The hilarity ensues of him buying pot for this little old lady and helping her to smoke it. 🎤🎙️💻Radio Story: Two Bowls by Christine Lee Christine gets the rare and risky opportunity to visit her family in North Korea. When she sees the poverty, the graciousness and the ext...