Third Coast Audio Library

Our vast and ever-growing collection contains thousands of carefully curated audio stories, episodes from Third Coast podcasts, educational sessions on craft from the best makers on the planet, and more.

We’ve also featured some incredible audio work beyond this audio library, in other ways and using other formats: don’t miss the 2021 Web Showcase, featuring a more in-depth look at the winners, judges and even a list of 40 finalists from the 2021 Third Coast/RHDF Competition.

Mad About Magpies

Many people look to the natural world for clues about living a more harmonious life. For example, we aspire to traits we associate with certain animals: the wisdom of the owl, the noble bearing of the bald eagle, or the grace of the swan.

Little Black Train

Eighty-two-year-old Daphne Reed is married to and madly in love with a man 30 years her juinor. She's been thinking a lot about death recently, and about the future years her husband will likely spend without her.

Epic, Painful, Long, Scary

Epic, Painful, Long, Scary is the story of 19-year-old African-Australian twins. The twins hardly remember their mother and father, who both died from AIDS-related illnesses when the boys were just toddlers.

Childhood Trains

What is it about train travel that inspires music and memory? And why do people tend to confess their innermost thoughts once they get on board?

New Orleans' Hurricane Risk

In September, 2002, three years before Katrina devastated America's gulf coast, veteran NPR reporter Daniel Zwerdling investigated what would happen to New Orleans if it fell in the path of a Category 5 hurricane.

Who Is Vern Nash?

The day Thelon Oeming moved into an apartment in a working class area of Toronto, he saw a hunched-back man shouting to himself in the middle of the street.

Walt Whitman: Song of Myself

This is an excerpt from Curtis Fox's portrait of Walt Whitman, one of the world's greatest poets, and his radical vision of America.

Snow on Plum Blossom

Japanese springtime: the motif of countless haikus and soulful pop songs, spectacular kabuki and elegant Noh plays, short stories, and novels. In Japan, spring begins in winter -- with a lot of noise.

City X

The shopping mall is a cultural and commercial phenomenon in America that most can relate to in some way or another.

Just Another Fish Story

Ten years ago, the people of Lubec, Maine, were met with an unpleasant surprise: an enormous finback whale had washed onto the beachfront of their tiny coastal town.

Chicago Hustles

Meet Floyd (not his real name), a self-described "cigarette hustler" and part of Chicago's thriving underground economy, where goods and services -- legal and illegal -- are sold under the radar.

Meat Factory Ear Worms

You know how sometimes you just can't get a song out of your head? Radio producer Richie Beirne can sympathize.

Poetry Off the Shelf

Award-winning producer Curtis Fox has covered arts and culture for many years, first for public radio, and more recently as a full-time podcaster.

Listening to Jamie

Imagine a cold London winter, where the bizarre and unpredictable sounds made by producer Hugh Levinson's sleeping newborn punctuate the dark nights in the most unimaginable ways.