STORIES by Lea Thau

We're featuring a story from another podcast we love today: Proxy with Yowei Shaw. She investigates the strange, funny, and sometimes maddening emotional mysteries that shape our lives. I was really moved by this episode, called Caitlin Lost the Voice In Her Head, and I wanted to share it with you.For most of her life, Caitlin Myer had a narrator. A voice that told stories, shaped sentences, kept her company, and made writing feel less like work than a way of being alive.Then, after a concussion, the voice disappeared.In this episode, Yowei finds Caitlin a proxy: musician and songwriter Greta Morgan, who lost her singing voice after COVID and had to figure out who she was without the voice that had defined her. Together, they investigate the grief of losing the thing that gave your life meaning.You can find all the links to the books and music referenced in the episode here.Thanks so much to Yowei for letting us feature one of her stories this week and for her beautiful "emotional investigative journalism," as she calls it. It's tough to make it as an indie podcaster these days, especially doing the kind of long-form storytelling Yowei and I practice.You can join Proxy HQ on Patreon to support her independent show and get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, and live hangs. Proxy’s fall membership drive is happening right now with lots of cool perks.You can follow Yowei, and also the show, on Instagram and you can listen to lots more episodes of Proxy wherever you get your podcasts.You can follow STORIES by Lea Thau on Instagram and Facebook. The entire back catalogue of Strangers can be found at STORIES by Lea Thau on Patreon and Substack, where you can also find my new work in its entirety, all of it ad-free. You can join as a free or paid member, so come be part of my community!See you next week!LeaThe entire back catalogue of Strangers can be found at STORIES by Lea Thau on Patreon and Substack, where you can also find my new work in its entirety, all of it ad-free. You can join as a free or paid member, so come be part of my community! Or follow my new work in my new public feed, STORIES by Lea Thau, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pabba is now in his 42nd year, and his story has a resolution! Tune in to hear how his conundrum got resolved. It's a good story:) And check out Pabba’s original story if you haven’t heard that yet. . If you want to see photos that go with this episode, you can visit our free posts on Substack and Patreon. If you want to support our work and unlock a ton more of it, you can also become a paying subscriber on either of those platform, and we’d be deeply grateful for your support. Spoiler alert: The photos might give away some of the story, but I don’t think you’ll like it any less for that:) Huge thanks to Pabba and Britt for sharing their story.Britt Snyder is delighted to be back in her home state of N.C., embracing her inner woodland creature on the outskirts of Chapel Hill with her favorite human, Pabba. She spends her days with family, childhood friends, and a growing community built through an ever-changing lineup of hobbies (currently weightlifting, but check back next month).As for Pabba, a lot has changed in the past ten years, but not much in the past week. He still listens to punk and emo and isn’t shy about getting into a mosh pit; especially now that he’s met his deductible. He lives in Chapel Hill with Britt, and their two dogs, Otto and Ella, only one of whom moshes with him.Big thanks to Hyde Park Storytelling in Austin for introducing my former producer Laura Fetherstonhaugh to Pabba. Check out their shows, they’re great!This two-parter with Pabba is curated by Lulu Miller from Radiolab and Terrestrials, who called me “a divine and otherworldly storyhound from Denmark“ in the Radiolab newsletter yesterday. I think I’m going to put that on my gravestone.Here’s a Spotify playlist for you of Lulu’s other favorite stories from the show, which have been un-paywalled for the next month.My eternal gratitude to my associate producer, Vix Jensen, our intern Aviva Barry, our production volunteer Jen Alevizos, and my husband Paul Dreux Smith who makes the music and mixes.We welcome your feedback at [email protected] marks the official end of our Summer of Strangers, but we’ll be back with more stories next week, and every week!Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook.The entire back catalogue of Strangers can be found at STORIES by Lea Thau on Patreon and Substack, where you can also find my new work in its entirety, all of it ad-free. You can join as a free or paid member, so come be part of my community! Or follow my new work in my new public feed, STORIES by Lea Thau, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Imagine your parents controlled your online dating profile. That’s what happened to Pabba and this is his story. We first ran this story 10 years ago and next week we’ll have a brand new story with him. I can already reveal that a LOT has happened in the meantime.This two-parter with Pabba is curated by Lulu Miller from Radiolab and Terrestrials. In addition to Pabba's story, she's made a Spotify playlist for you of her other favorite stories from our show. They're normally paywalled but we've unlocked them for you for the next month. If you don't use Spotify, here are direct links to the episodes wherever you listen: Falling Slowly, Gay Talese: Committed Voyeur, Terry's Treasure, Love Hurts # 1.If you’d like to see photos of Pabba, including the pictures his parents wouldn’t let him use for his dating profile, and the one they chose instead, check out our free posts on Substack or Patreon. And course, if you’d like to support our work and unlock many more premium episodes, you can also become a paying subscriber on either platform. Huge thanks to Pabba for letting us rerun his story and for taping the update with me for next week. We aren't using Pabba’s full name here because he’d rather his family didn’t hear this story, but he performs and teaches improv at Mettlesome in Durham, North Carolina, and he moonlights as a robot from the past, who traveled to the future to party and fight in Giant Robot Fight Club. Like all tech bros in a midlife crisis, he has also gotten really into Brazilian jiu-jitsu at Revenant Combat Club. Big thanks to Lulu Miller for curating this week. Lulu is perhaps best known as the co-host of Radiolab, and the co-creator of Invisibilia, and she also makes the fantastic show Terrestrials for the whole family. It’s one of those rare podcasts that you can share with your kids but enjoy just as much for your own pleasure, because it’s full of Lulu’s creativity and curious mind. She likes to investigate all kinds of quirky things and come out with the best possible story about them. This is also the case in her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, which I cannot recommend highly enough.Paying subscribers, our next member hangout is: Tuesday, September 29: 5pm PT – 6pm MT – 7PM CT – 8PM ET – 1AM BST – 2AM CEST.Also big thanks to Laura Fetherstonhaugh for producing the original story with Pabba and being an incredible storyteller and human being, and thanks to my equally amazing current associate producer, Vix Jensen, and our beloved helpers: our intern Aviva Barry, our production volunteer Jen Alevizos, and Ark who made our social media reel this week.Get in touch at [email protected] and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook.The entire back catalogue of Strangers can be found at STORIES by Lea Thau on Patreon and Substack, where you can also find my new work in its entirety, all of it ad-free. You can join as a free or paid member, so come be part of my community! Or follow my new work in my new public feed, STORIES by Lea Thau, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A family tragedy sends the Corchados from Mexico to California, searching for greener pastures. Upon arrival, that’s hardly what they find, but some years later, a deal involving a 1978 Camaro sets the oldest son on a path to unlikely success.Today we revisit the story of renowned journalist and outstanding storyteller, Alfredo Corchado, with a present-day update at the end. If you’d like to see photos that go with his story, check out our free posts on Substack and Patreon, and if you like what we do, you can also become a paying member on either platform and unlock 100+ countless benefits and episodes. Alfredo Corchado is a multi-award-winning journalist and the 2026 recipient of the I.F. Stone medal for journalistic independence. He is the Executive Director of Puente News Collaborative and the author of Midnight in Mexico, a memoir about his childhood and his journalism career in Mexico, and of Homelands about the history of Mexican-American migration and the guest worker program that brought his family here. Alfredo is at work on a third book about the U.S.-Mexico border. He was a 2009 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and he recently completed this moving tribute to his father, who passed away in March – if you enjoyed Alfredo’s story, you might really enjoy this too!Thanks to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard for introducing me to Alfredo, and to then-Curator, Ann-Marie Lipinski, and then-Deputy Curator, James Geary, for hiring me to direct Alfredo's story and many other Nieman stories for the stage.Big thanks, as always, to my team:Vix Jensen: Associate Producer Extraordinaire, Aviva Barry: Indispensable Intern, Paul Dreux Smith: Music maker, mixer, and soul mate, Heather Kitching: Viral reel maker, Jen Alevizos, Volunteer Project Manager & new friend.To see more photos and episode reels, and to follow the story-making process behind the scenes, join us on Instagram and Facebook.We value your feedback, and you can contact us at [email protected]. The entire back catalogue of Strangers can be found at STORIES by Lea Thau on Patreon and Substack, where you can also find my new work in its entirety, all of it ad-free. You can join as a free or paid member, so come be part of my community! Or follow my new work in my new public feed, STORIES by Lea Thau, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a brand new installment in the Franky Carrillo saga that I’m very excited to share with you. Franky is the same great storyteller he's always been, and he goes deeper than ever here. If you haven’t heard the first two episodes with Franky, which we shared last week and the week before, I would go listen to those first. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you’ll be better prepared for this chapter, though it could also stand alone.If you’d like to see pictures from my day with Franky on the ranch, check out these free posts on Patreon and Substack.If you want to listen ad-free, access my member-only seriesThe Way Forward, and unlock the entire Strangers archive of nearly 100 premium episodes, plus all my Hopeful Locals stories, become a paying subscriber today, starting at just $5 per month on Patreon. Paying subscribers make our work possible. Franky Carrillo is a criminal justice reform advocate and a leading voice for the wrongfully convicted. He has served as Chief Policy Advisor for the Los Angeles Innocence Project and on the Los Angeles County Probation Oversight Commission. He also sits on the boards of Death Penalty Focus and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and he’s been profiled in the Netflix series The Innocence Files. You can find him on Instagram. Thanks as always to our production team: Vix Jensen, Aviva Barry, Jen Alevizos, and Paul Dreux Smith. Please help us keep the podcast going by spreading the word, hitting 'subscribe' wherever you’re listening, and perhaps giving us a good rating or even a little review there. It goes a long way, thank you!  You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and you can write to us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening:) The entire back catalogue of Strangers can be found at STORIES by Lea Thau on Patreon and Substack, where you can also find my new work in its entirety, all of it ad-free. You can join as a free or paid member, so come be part of my community! Or follow my new work in my new public feed, STORIES by Lea Thau, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.