Nancy Updike
Contributors List
Nancy's one of the original producers of our show and has done some amazing stories for the show, most notably in episodes 46, 164, and 266. Her writing in the third episode of our TV show is mindblowingly good.
1: New Beginnings
Our program's very first broadcast.
13: Love
Explorations of the dream of true love ... and the difficulties with achieving and maintaining that dream.
25: Basketball
A set of documentary stories, radio essays and monologues about basketball, the Chicago Bulls, and their grip on Chicagoans' hearts and lives during the NBA Playoffs.
46: Sissies
Though being gay no longer has much of a stigma in some parts of the country, being a sissy still does — even among gay men. In this show we have a number of surprising and unusual stories of sissies, their families, and why people still...
57: Delivery
Stories about the delivery business and the people in it. UPS men, bike messengers, FedEx dispatchers. Includes a new radio play by David Sedaris, in which we give him one sound effects record and this assignment: His radio play can only...
59: Fire
Stories about people who are not afraid of fire, though perhaps they should be.
86: How to Take Money from Strangers
Three stories of how to get money from strangers. In every story, the money is made by people who make the strangers feel good about themselves and about their nation.
110: Mapping
Five ways of mapping the world. One story about people who make maps the traditional way — by drawing things we can see. And other stories about people who map the world using smell, sound, touch, and taste. The world redrawn by the five...
141: Invisible Worlds
Stories of people who are trying to make invisible worlds visible, and what happens when you make them visible.
143: Sentencing
We've all heard occasional news stories about how some of the drug laws enacted in the last 15 years may have gone too far. First time offenders get locked up for decades. Judges—even Republican appointees—say that mandatory minimum...
149: Bedside Diplomacy
In the hospital, we give up our normal schedule and sleep patterns; we give up our normal food and clothing; we're in a place that has its own rules and its own language and its own customs.
155: Hoaxing Yourself
Stories of people who tell a lie and then believe the lie more than anyone else does. In other words: Stories about people pulling hoaxes...on themselves.
164: Crime Scene
Every crime scene hides a story. In this week's show, we hear about crime scenes and the stories they tell.
169: Pursuit of Happiness
We as a nation declared our independence based on, among other things, the right to pursue our happiness. But what does it mean, over two centuries later, to grow up in a country with an inalienable right to pursue happiness? Stories of...
172: 24 Hours at the Golden Apple
The This American Life producers document one day in a Chicago diner called The Golden Apple, starting at 5 a.m. and going until 5 a.m. the next morning. We hear from the waitress who has worked the graveyard shift for over two decades,...
182: Cringe
Stories that make us cringe, and an investigation into just what, exactly, makes some stories capable of forcing this physical reaction out of us when other stories don't. We hear tales of personal humiliation, romance gone wrong, and...
200: Hearts and Minds
Of all the wars to win, perhaps the propaganda war is the hardest. In this show, we bring you stories of propaganda wars past and present, by those who fought them and those who survived them.
217: Give It to Them
It's been two years since the Mideast peace process collapsed, two years in which each side has done terrible things to the other side. We wanted to understand what that has done to people living in Israel and the West Bank, and to see if...
238: Lost in Translation
Stories of what can and cannot be translated. A short, non-athletic, bespectacled East Asian studies major who couldn't make his high school basketball team finds himself in the NBA as the personal translator for the first-ever Chinese pro...
251: Brother's Keeper
Biblical fables ripped from today's headlines. In his ongoing effort to write his own version of the Bible, Jonathan Goldstein retells the story of Cain and Abel. Finally we hear Cain's side of the story. Plus: neighbors in a small town...
266: I'm From the Private Sector and I'm Here to Help
Today's show is devoted to just one story. Contributing editor Nancy Updike went to Iraq to try to figure out what it's like to be a private citizen working in the middle of a war zone.
327: By Proxy
Stories of proxy fights, proxy arguments, and proxy situations of all kinds.
333: The Center for Lessons Learned
Four years into the Iraq War, what have we learned? Soldiers, civilians, Iraqis, and Americans talk—and sometimes yell—about what they've learned in the last few years...including how to stay alive and why the aftermath of a war can be the...
340: The Devil in Me
Stories of people trying to exorcize their inner demons.
361: Fear of Sleep
Mike Birbiglia got used to strange things happening to him when he slept—until something happened that almost killed him. Mike's story is included in his new book Sleepwalk With Me. This and other reasons to fear sleep, including bedbugs...
362: Got You Pegged
Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, and suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter—and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of making snap judgments about others.
367: Ground Game
This American Life goes to Pennsylvania, a battleground within a battleground, to figure out why, and how, John McCain and Barack Obama both think they can win there. And we get to know the ordinary people who've become the candidates'...
370: Ruining It for the Rest of Us
Stories of people who ruin things for everyone else...or who are accused of that. Like the San Diego parents who didn't vaccinate their child for measles.
372: The Inauguration Show
On the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration, we sent reporters out all over the country to talk to people about how they're feeling about this new president. Do they believe things will change? Do they think there'll be changes in their own...
386: Fine Print
Stories where the fine print changes everything, whether you read it or not.
388: Rest Stop
Nine radio producers. Two days. One rest stop on the New York State Thruway. In this show, we'll bring you stories of people who are just passing through, and people who are at the rest stop every day—working. One of them has worked there...
395: Middle of the Night
Stories of people who are up while the rest of us are sleeping—some for work, some for play, and some for a free sandwich. Including the story of a woman walking alone at night, who encounters another woman walking alone at night, for the...
396: #1 Party School
This year, The Princeton Review named Penn State the #1 Party School in America. It's a rotating crown—last year it was University of Florida, before that it was West Virginia University. So we wondered: what's it like to be at the country...
400: Stories Pitched by Our Parents
For our 400th show, we try something harder than anything we've ever tried in the previous 399. We take the random ideas that members of our own families have told us at weddings and family gatherings would be "perfect for the show"...and...
402: Save the Day
Stories about one person single-handedly taking charge of a situation gone wrong—including one man's mission to rescue two kids who were kidnapped by alleged murderers and taken to Mexico, and another about a professor's mission to...
407: The Bridge
We bring you stories of bridges from three different countries, including one in China that's famous for its massive size and its high suicide rate. One takes it upon himself to patrol the bridge, looking for jumpers. You can read entries...
416: Iraq After Us
Operation Iraqi Freedom is over. And the next chapter of Iraq is being written now. But what actually happened there the last seven years? Producer Nancy Updike and reporter Larry Kaplow spent a month in Iraq talking to Iraqis and...
428: Oh You Shouldn't Have
Stories about the perils of giving and receiving gifts: Ones that go over spectacularly well in spite of being in poor taste, and ones that flop even with the best intentions. Including what happens when—surprise!—your whole...
429: Will They Know Me Back Home?
Stories of people who've grown so accustomed to wartime that the lives they've left behind no longer make sense. Including a US battalion going home on leave after 15 months of deployment, and an Iraqi translator's story of life after the...
433: Fine Print 2011
Stories where the fine print changes everything, whether you read it or not.
442: Thugs
Like a lot of Mexican towns, Florencia has had its share of problems dealing with drug gangs. That is until recently, when new narcos rolled into town telling residents that they were there to liberate them. They promised that people would...
