Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Life

Diaries

We give people tape recorders and help them to document their own lives for public radio.

Graphic

My So-Called Lungs (Revisited)

Laura Rothenberg tried to live a normal life, with lungs that betrayed her and the awareness that she might not live to see her 30th birthday.

Graphic

Sofia’s Choice: A Ukrainian Diary

Sofia’s mother Vita was living in Kharkiv, Ukraine when Russian forces invaded. The family is now faced with an difficult choice.

Graphic

Majd’s Diary: Two Years in the Life of a Saudi Girl

Majd wants to be a scientist. Her family wants to arrange her marriage.

Graphic

Frankie: 16 Years Later

As a teenager, Frankie recorded his life as a high school football star. 16 years later and with a baby on the way, he shares his struggle with drug addiction.

Graphic

Josh: 16 Years Later

In high school, Josh documented his life with Tourette’s Syndrome. 16 years later, Josh records a new diary about trying to live a normal adult life with a brain that often betrays him.

Graphic

Amanda: 16 Years Later

At the age of 17, Amanda knew she was gay. But her parents kept insisting she’d grow out of it. Today, a lot has changed in the country, and within her own family. In her new story, Amanda goes back to her parents to find out how they came to accept having a daughter who is gay.

Graphic

Melissa: 16 Years Later

As an 18 year old raised in the foster care system, Melissa took NPR listeners along when she gave birth to her son Issaiah. Sixteen years later she chronicles her life as a working single mother.

Graphic

Juan: 16 Years Later

16 years ago, Juan reported on his life as a recent Mexican immigrant living in poverty in Texas. In his new diary, Juan takes us on a tour of the life he has built since he first crossed the Rio Grande. It looks a lot like the typical American dream: a house, 2 cars, 3 kids—except for the fact he’s still living illegally in the U.S.

Graphic

Teen Contender

At 16, Claressa Shields was the youngest woman to compete for a spot on the first-ever women’s Olympic boxing team.

Graphic

Teenage Diaries Series

Since 1996, Radio Diaries has given tape recorders to young people around the country and worked with them to produce the Teenage Diaries series for NPR.

Graphic

Weasel’s Diary: Deported

A 26-year-old Los Angeles resident gets deported to his parents’ home country of El Salvador, which he has not seen since age five.

Graphic

Thembi’s AIDS Diary

Thembi Ngubane was willing to stand up and speak out at a time when few South Africans were willing to say, “I have AIDS.”

Graphic

The Last Place: Diary of a Retirement Home

A group of residents of The Presbyterian Home use tape recorders to document their lives.

Graphic

Serving 9 to 5: Diaries of Prison Guards

Diaries from officers who work behind bars at Polk Youth Institution.

Graphic

Going Home: Cristel’s Diary

At 15, Cristel attacked a classmate with a razor blade. After 3 years of incarceration, she’s being released.

Graphic

Doing Time: John’s Diary

As a kid, John dreamed of becoming a police officer, but by the age of 17, John had committed more than 75 armed robberies.

Graphic

Matthew and the Judge: Juvenile Court Diary

Through their diaries, Matthew and Judge Jeremiah tell the same story from two different sides of the bench.

Graphic

Amanda’s Diary: Girlfriend

Amanda is gay. Amanda’s family is Catholic. And she’s having a hard time convincing her parents that this is not “just a phase.”

Graphic

Josh’s Diaries: Tourette’s

Josh has Tourette’s Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable tics and involuntary verbal outbursts.

Graphic

Melissa’s Diaries: Teen Mom

Melissa never meant to get pregnant. But now, after 12 years of living in the foster care system, she’s trying to build the family she never had.

Graphic

Frankie’s Diaries: Welcome Home, Dad / Football

Frankie always thought his family was pretty normal until the day the FBI showed up.

Graphic

Juan’s Diaries: Looking at the Rio Grande

Juan crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally with his family as a teenager. Now he lives next to the Rio Grande in Texas.

Graphic

Jeff’s Diary: Halfrican

More and more these days Jeff finds himself thinking about race as he’s confronted with the question “What are you?”

Graphic

Randy’s Diary: Remembering Ozell

While living on a farm that was once part of a slave plantation, Randy searches for clues about the life of his great-grandfather, the civil rights leader Ozell Mitchell.

Graphic

Emily’s Diary: Teenage Days

Emily gives an inside look at “sportos,” “krusties,” “krinkles,” and how being a teenager isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Graphic

Nick’s Diary: Home School to High School

Nick chronicles a turbulent year in his life. He’s 15-years-old and hates school, but somehow he must learn to make friends.

Graphic

Ricky’s Diary: What If God….

Ricky’s father is an atheist activist. Ricky is beginning his own search for something to believe in.

Graphic

Mandy’s Diary: God is My Guy

Mandy’s growing up with an evangelical pastor for a father.

Graphic

Esperanza Garden

Esperanza Garden was a much-loved community space in Manhattan’s East Village…until city bulldozers arrived to tear it down.

css.php