When Ross Showalter turned 18 and began dating hearing men, he found himself communicating with them on their terms: using spoken language. Years of speech lessons and lip-reading practice forced Ross, who is Deaf, to conform to a society that favors sound. All of these men made the same promise: to learn sign language, only to never follow through. Then, on ... Show More
Mar 4
Lindy West Thought She Couldn’t Handle Polyamory. She Was Wrong.
When she was growing up, the writer Lindy West was bombarded with negative messages about being fat. The whole world seemed to think she didn’t deserve love unless she lost weight. In her first book, “Shrill,” West wrote about how hard it was to combat fatphobia within herself, i ... Show More
51m 2s
Feb 25
I Didn’t Want to Have Kids. My Husband Did. Could Our Marriage Survive?
When Helena de Groot was a child, she pictured an exciting future for herself: living in a big city, getting an apartment with lots of plants, having a creative job and going dancing on the weekends. She never saw becoming a mother as part of that future. When people asked, she t ... Show More
53m 4s
Feb 18
What Happened When My Dad and I Came Out to Each Other
Julia Stoller loved her dad. But she never wanted to be him. He was a rule follower, he was so serious, and he was so straight. Then, when Julia was in her 20s, she got a phone call that completely changed her idea of who her father was. And as he opened up to her, sharing secret ... Show More
37m 53s
Nov 2022
Inciting joy with Ross Gay
Nearly every day for a year, American poet Ross Gay sat down and wrote about something that delighted him–from carrying a small tomato plant through an airport to playing a pickup basketball game.The result was his first nonfiction book, “The Book of Delights”, a collection of es ... Show More
33 m
Nov 2022
Inciting joy with Ross Gay
Nearly every day for a year, American poet Ross Gay sat down and wrote about something that delighted him–from carrying a small tomato plant through an airport to playing a pickup basketball game.The result was his first nonfiction book, “The Book of Delights”, a collection of es ... Show More
33 m
Aug 2021
EP57: Nanny's Hands, Goo Goo Cluster, the Cursing Parrot and Stephen Ross
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dennis Peterson shares the story of his maternal grandmother's hands which revealed a lot about her; Laurie Spradley, the owner of Goo Goo Cluster, tells the story of how her family's company came to be; the story of president Andrew Jacks ... Show More
38m 17s
Nov 2021
BB 19: Learn a Language and NEVER Forget It | Gabriel Wyner from Fluent Forever
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gabriel Wyner is an American polyglot, book author, and founder of Fluent Forever. He fell in love with language learning while training to be an opera singer at school. After feeling pressured by a deadline to achieve proficiency in French, he ... Show More
1h 25m