STORIES by Lea Thau

This is the prologue to my new series, The Hopeful Locals, and I hope you’ll enjoy it. The story continues on Friday. Huge thanks to Dengue Fever, Paul’s band, for letting me use the recording from their live show at The Chapel. They have two very special shows coming up on May 15 and 16 at Gold Diggers in LA, a more intimate club than they normally play, and you can also find them in other cities this spring and summer. Big thanks to their drummer and my true love, Paul Dreux Smith, for making the music for this episode and mixing it. Enormous gratitude to my associate producer, Vix Jensen, who has been my rock editorially, practically, and emotionally over the last year; my project editor, Christina Thyssen, who has helped give the stories shape and make them better; and our resident artist, Pernille Clifforth, who has illustrated this episode and every episode in the series. Also big thanks to Avi Odenheimer for making The Hopeful Locals logo. And thanks to all my supporters on Patreon and Substack for making my work possible, especially my Inner Circle. In the Inner Circle, we support each other’s creative work and commiserate about life through special meetings on Zoom and a private Discord. We’d love to have you if this sounds like fun, and I’m offering a discounted price on the upper tiers through the end of this month. Or join at any level, and I’ll be so grateful for your support. If nothing else, become a free subscriber on Patreon or Substack and get invited to our next Community Hangout tomorrow, Wednesday, April 21 to celebrate our public launch. Questions, comments, story pitches, feedback? Email us at stories@leathau.com or find us on Facebook and Instagram. See you Friday! 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.

Hi friends, I’m back! New episodes start dropping Tuesday! Also, heads-up: I’ll be changing the name of this podcast from Strangers to STORIES by Lea Thau on Monday. That hurts a little, I know – for me too – but I promise it’s not the end of Strangers. The plan is for STORIES by Lea Thau to be an umbrella for all my work, including Strangers, and I want to do a new season of that show next year. But first we’ll kick off next week with episodes from my latest series, The Hopeful Locals. If you can’t wait for the public release and would like to binge the first eight episodes of The Hopeful Locals right now, you can do so on Patreon, where you’ll also find 70 episodes of Strangers that are only available there, and much more. If you can’t afford to pay, you can also join my Patreon community for free and get access to some new and old episodes without ads – Episode 1 of The Hopeful Locals is already up there! If you have questions or comments, or perhaps a story you’d like to share, you can email me at stories@leathau.com or message me on Patreon, Facebook, Instagram, or Substack. My name on all those platforms is now STORIES by Lea Thau. I look forward to spending a lot more time with you again, so please….don’t be strangers! 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.

Part two of Sequoia Schmidt's story. Enjoy! You can find her at sequoiaschmidt.com. And you can find me at patreon.com/strangerspodcast.

Meet Sequoia Schmidt - a most interesting and unusual young woman from a most interesting and unusual family. This is Part 1 of her story. Part 2 drops next week. Enjoy!

Wilmot Collins is an interesting man with an interesting story. This is it. I hope you enjoy it. Find more Strangers content, new and old, at www.patreon.com/strangerspodcast - it's only $1 per month to join - or stay subscribed here for more free episodes, which will drop from time to time. However, if you want to receive regular episodes, and hear the continuation of my series called The Cape, and access our archive of more than 90 episodes, join us on Patreon!

15 minutes of life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We bring the year full circle with a new story about Jared in St George, Utah, who was the subject of our very first episode this year. We reflect on the beautiful difference a year can make, even for someone who thought his whole future had disappeared. If you need a bit of hope this … Continue reading Isn’t It Nice → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of a young man who decided to say yes.

It’s the time of year when skeletons come out of the closet. We honor the dead, as we get ready for holidays among the living, where secrets will be spilled, and secrets will be created that will haunt us for years to come. You might describe today’s story as a classic “noir,” if it wasn’t … Continue reading Do You Like My Little Lie? → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jack, Part 2, in which there will be guns and fear and roses and magic. There will be frat boys and homeless ladies, sweet clowns, and sad selves. Above all, there will be Jack. He will be nimble and he will be bold.

A run-down trailer in small town Texas, Sunday mornings with Charlie Chaplin, heroine-dazed zombies, fighting off dragons, and narrowly escaping real life monsters — this was Jack’s life as a kid. It was about survival from the very beginning. This episode is not suitable for children.

A couple of weeks ago we got an email from Sam in Australia about his podcast Human/Ordinary. We liked it so much we decided to share it with you. Here’s an adapted version of his 10th episode called Headstone: Breath and Bone. The content might be intense for some. You will glean the subject matter … Continue reading Human/Ordinary →

We check in with Franky who did 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit (listen to our original Franky Carrillo episode “Life” for the backstory) and find out how he’s doing now and what he’s been up to for the last six years since his exoneration. It was worth the visit.

Franky spent 20 years in prison for a crime he had nothing to do with. This is his remarkable story. We first published this story four years ago and are rerunning it this week as part of the network-wide Radiotopia theme, “Doing Time.” And we’re working on a follow-up story about Franky’s life now, so … Continue reading Franky Carrillo: Life → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is not another Trump voter conversation. It’s not an end-point or a neat conclusion to the series. This is Lea crying into her iPhone at 10pm on a Tuesday because she doesn’t know what to conclude, how to mend, where to go. It’s a messy, confessional audio letter about kidney stones, sea urchins, The … Continue reading Dear Diary →

This is where the gloves come off. In this episode, Lea travels to New York to talk to a Trump supporter who defies a lot of the stereotypes: he’s coastal, young, urban, educated, Jewish, an immigrant… But man oh man do the punches fly, on both sides.

Lea has been traveling around interviewing Trump supporters and she’s tried to do it differently. She’s gotten drunk with them and high with them, she’s road-tripped with them and stayed overnight in their kids’ bedrooms, she’s cried with them, dined with them, yelled at them (and vice versa) to bring the conversation to a new … Continue reading Lea in Trumpland: Alicia →

In this episode we revisit the story of Alaa Khaled AKA Alec Ledd and ponder life’s big questions, such as kugel, identity, celebrity, and how far we will go to please Barbara Streisand or compete with a more-famous brother.

It starts with a murder and ends with new questions. In between there’s Claire’s story. That’s not her real name. It’s neither her old name, nor her new name. It’s the name she took to tell this story. Warning: this episode contains graphic and disturbing content. Do not listen with children.

In August 2004, a Somali refugee family arrived in Vermont. It was the beginning of many good things.