Epiphanies, Ira Glass, and Why I Tell Stories

Since 1995, Ira Glass, one of the greatest storytellers of our time, has been the host of the radio show “This American Life,” a weekly hour-long show that is primarily journalistic non-fiction but also features essays, short fiction and occasionally memoirs.

I had the pleasure of seeing Ira live this past weekend at Jones Hall here in Houston. My experience was less like sitting in a large hall and more like sitting in a living room listening to a fascinating storyteller spin a variety of yarns. Ira spoke about how the stories for his show are picked and how they are fact checked. He mentioned how sometimes, just hours before a show was ready to record, the show would get canned because a fact would come back as incorrect. He shared how to find the best stories and what elements go into the making of a great radio story. But what he shared that especially resonated with me was his opinion of what qualities are found in the better storytellers.