Roman Mars

A series of interconnected stories by A. H. Weatherman about the trauma of growing up in the south and participating in beauty pageants.

A sci-fi melodrama about the abusive relationship between debt collector and collectee.

NASA is figuring out how to take the next great leap into space. The difficulty is, if we leap to Mars, we might not make it back.

What would it be like if, in addition to our native languages, we could communicate across cultures in a neutral second language?

This hour we meander our way down three rivers in search of solace, spiritual healing and, of course, total domination.

This hour, uninvited guests like old lovers, irrational fears and the annoying habits that keep us up at night.

This hour they built it and we see who came.

This hour: where kids go to get away; from themselves, their troubles, the rules they're supposed to follow, and of course, their parents.

This hour: a purple hotel, a family who argues over their skin color, a singing rainbow and more.

This hour: a retired child beauty queen recalls her youth and a young man revels in eating trash.

This hour: we'll bob from the biggest maritime disaster that you've never heard of, to a man who saved thousands of shipboard lives with a deceptively simple design.

This hour: To do lists, compulsive lists, data lists, lists in literature and a list of firsts.

This hour: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

This hour: a one way mission to mars, a Russian cosmonaut's favorite music, the Voyager golden record, the sound of the northern lights, and more.

This hour: a man transformed by illness, a house full of paintings left behind by an old friend, and a surprisingly complex story of old people in love.

This hour: an isolated village experiences rapid cultural change, a "border blaster" transmits totally unregulated radio programs from Mexico into the U.S., and a tiny frog causes trouble.

This hour: girls, boys, and sleepover reconnaissance.

This hour: we celebrate ten years of Outfront, a groundbreaking show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corportation that invited listeners to tell their own stories.

This hour: climbing, flying and facing your fears.

This hour: redeeming the much-maligned bird.

This hour: a young patient escapes his hospital bed through flights of imagination, a musician documents a city under siege, and more.

This hour: the wild and wonderful results of the Third Coast Festival's 2007 Audio Challenge: Dollar Storeys.

This hour: a visit to a pauper's graveyard, three very short (but very big) questions, and more.

This hour: phone solicitors, bottle evangelists, a mysterious cassette tape unearthed in the attic, and more.

This hour: mountain climbers, pilots, and people on the way UP.

This hour: a chronicle of European history through the sound of bells and a bizarre spectacle of endurance.

This hour: letters on the radio.

This hour: a very personal take on a rare subculture, a young man forced to confront his obesity, a dinner with unabashed nudists, and more.

This hour: left-handed creativity and innovation.

This hour: a closely guarded family secret and the hidden history of long-deceased grandmother.

This hour: Rebecca Sheir's The End as Beginning: An Audio Exploration of the Jewish View of Death, a trilogy that blends interviews, personal reflections, and music, and focuses on death and the Jewish tradition.

This hour: a man grapples with the stillbirth of his son with surprising grace and clear-eyed honesty.

This hour: the work of Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister of Long Haul Productions. Dan and Elizabeth specialize in stories that follow people over days, weeks, and even years.

This hour: excerpts from some of our favorite Third Coast Conference sessions from years past.

This hour: the intriguing world of experimental podcasts.

This hour: sign language, lip-reading, and deaf culture.

This hour: one room school houses from Maui to Maine, each with a unique culture and character.

This hour: the Rockettes, the opera, congress, and other spectacles.

This hour: the mysteries and complexities of the brain.

This hour: the golden years.

This hour: brothers and sisters contend with family illness.

This hour: a surprising look at the relationship between a hospice worker and his patient.

This hour: amateur sleuths and internet detectives.

This hour: a man falls out of the sky, a woman falls into a hole, and a man recovers from a serious rock climbing accident.

This hour: music, memory, lost love, and John Denver.

This hour: a pizza chef travels to North Korea to cook for Kim Jong Il, a young man contemplates his release from "juvie," and more.

This hour: a town grapples with a young person's violent death, and a sound portrait of a chaotic emergency call center.

This hour: Dads. The good, the bad, and the complicated.

This hour: a seemingly mismatched but (mostly) happy couple, a wife who exacts revenge on her husband via beef broth, and more.

This hour: the indomitable Studs Terkel.

This hour: tongue twisters, brain teasers, cheaters, and one of the worst high school football teams of all time.

This hour: the strange, storied, hodgepodge history of radio.

This hour: voyaging, wandering, and becoming a fanatic pedestrian.

This hour: the captivating results of a transcontinental radio collaboration.

This hour: stories that bend, stretch, and downright fabricate the truth.

This hour: time-lapse phonography, a much-sampled beat, and the only instrument you can play without actually touching.

This hour: a child beauty queen, a young transgendered man, and an obsessive teen.

This hour: 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story, an audio experiment orchestrated by the Third Coast Festival in collaboration with cartoonist Matt Madden.

This hour: a documentary composition by Alessandro Bosetti.

This hour: decoding female language, an intimate dinner, and a tour of bathroom stall graffiti.

This hour: two stories by Mary Beth Kirchner.

This hour: two stories from RTE's Flux with Ronan Kelly.

This hour: two decades after he was forced to flee, a young Palestinian man returns to his home to meet the Israeli woman who lives there now.

This hour: a beloved pig and a meditation on dogs.

This hour: a group of tourists travels through Central Asia, where antics and misbehavior ensue.

This hour: memories and reverberations of conflict.

This hour: spiritual loss and pursuit, an isolated religious community in rural Montana, a grumpy minister, and more.

This hour: the story of four small towns that were evacuated and flooded to create one of the biggest reservoirs of drinking water on the east coast.

This hour: gods, idols, worshipers, and skeptics.

This hour: a visit to one of the most remote islands on earth, a woman who sings with crickets, a return to Zagreb, and more.

This hour: readers, writers, literary performance artists, and the grammar police.

This hour: a story about the bitter fight for gay rights in New Zealand, featuring a blend of rare archival tape of the speeches, rallies, and debates that marked the struggle and the personal stories of people affected by the fight.

This hour: games!

This hour: a brief history of the mall, radical knitters, and more.

This week: 14 brothers and sisters search for their estranged father, and a profile of one of the most avid sound recordists of all time.

This hour: stories told over the phone.

This hour: the difficult, brief, and brilliant life of writer Raymond Carver.

This hour: a beached whale in Maine, a conversation with the "real" Darth Vader, school kids deconstruct the work of one of America's most difficult poets, and more.

This hour: the strange world of competitive model horse collecting and an investigation of an old classmate's death.

This hour we’re coming to you from inside the Third Coast Institute of Sound — a fictional museum we’ve dreamed up where all of the exhibits and artifacts are dedicated to things that make sound and noise.

This hour: a tall, white New Zealander heads to Mumbai to try and land a role in one of the hundreds of Bollywood films the industry churns out each year.

This hour: a story about the vagaries of memory, leaving a legacy, and elevating the personal narrative above the political mire.

This hour: the halls of a high school and the alleys of one of the oldest cities in the world.

This hour: producers and sound artists go to the audio playground and remix to their heart's content.

This hour stories that dive below the surface to help us understand issues of race, the environment and immigration.

Gwen Macsai comes clean with a very colorful secret... about her dad.

What interests you about design and why did you think radio would be a good medium in which to explore the subject

This hour, we look back on some of our favorite moments from the past 14 years of Re:sound .

Independent producers have always had to fend for themselves, but today the building blocks for independent success - creating great work, reaching real audiences, making money, controlling your destiny - are falling into place in new ways.

How real does reality need to be?

Kickstarter is the world's largest funding platform for creative projects. Art program director Stephanie Pereira gives a primer on how to bring an audio-centric Kickstarter project to life.

This year we honored the best audio work in the following categories: Best Documentary (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Honorable Mention), Directors Choice, Best New Artist, Best News Feature and Radio Impact.

November 7-9, Holiday Inn Mart Plaza, Chicago

October 5-7, Orrington Hotel and Campus of Northwestern University, Evanston, IL