DiscoverThis American Life838: Letters! Actual Letters!
838: Letters! Actual Letters!

838: Letters! Actual Letters!

Update: 2024-08-1821
Share

Description

When the best—and perhaps only—way to say something is to write it down.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

  • Prologue: Ira goes out with a letter carrier, ‘Grace,’ as she delivers mail on her route. He learns about the people who bring us our mail and also how people treat their mail. (11 minutes)
  • Act One: Writing a letter decades after an event that shaped her life was the only way that Nicole Piasecki could make some sense of it. (18 minutes)
  • Act Two: Yorkshire, 1866. A farmer overcomes his timidity and writes a very important letter to a local beauty. (3 minutes)
  • Act Three: When senior editor David Kestenbaum was still a rookie reporter, he wrote an email to a legend. Then he waited...and waited...for a reply. (6 minutes)
  • Act Four: A woman writes an unusual letter on behalf of her husband. (1 minute)
  • Act Five: Producer Zoe Chace compares the letters a person gets and the letters they wish they got. (12 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Comments (179)

Isabelle Drouin

The letter talking about a killed father - The teacher's cryptic note is clearly referring to the book she gave...

Aug 25th
Reply

I DO Know

President Trump and RFK JR getting together is as American as it gets, its literally unity, it's everything Democrats pretended to be. Instead, all they do is lie.

Aug 23rd
Reply (7)

I DO Know

So the US under Biden/Kamala added 818000 fewer jobs last year than the government reported. Understand, this is not a statistical error. A statistical error is 2-3%. This is 25% of what was reported. This is fraud, plain and simple. Do we really expect anything other than lies and deceit from the democrats now?

Aug 23rd
Reply (145)

Kumhola

So basically Kackala is saying give me control over the country for the next 4 years and she'll fix what she and Joe mucked up over the last 4 years.

Aug 21st
Reply (19)

Bea Kiddo

I love this episode.

Aug 19th
Reply

Kumhola

Remember when the entire Democrat party wanted to swap out Kackala for an entirely different VP because her approval rating was so shockingly low?

Aug 19th
Reply (1)
In Channel
00:00
00:00
x

0.5x

0.8x

1.0x

1.25x

1.5x

2.0x

3.0x

Sleep Timer

Off

End of Episode

5 Minutes

10 Minutes

15 Minutes

30 Minutes

45 Minutes

60 Minutes

120 Minutes

838: Letters! Actual Letters!

838: Letters! Actual Letters!

This American Life