RISK!

A Classic RISK! episode from our early years when Brian Finkelstein, Carrie Wade and Matt Oberg told true stories at the live RISK! show for the 2013 LA Storytelling Festival.

🎤Live Story: She and I by Brian Finkelstein

(Content note: miscarriage, suicidal ideation) Brian’s anxiety around marriage and fatherhood lead to a panic attack at a grocery store just before he learns his wife is pregnant… shortly before he learns of a miscarriage. 

🎤Live Story: Power In It by Carrie Wade

Carrie describes how her cerebral palsy affects sex, desire, and pain tolerance. She discovers through a BDSM experience that the very traits she was taught to hide are the source of her sexual confidence and power. 

🎤Live Story: The New Normal by Matt Oberg

With OCD tendencies, Matt strives to seem normal. A disastrous attempt at seduction involving a hidden collection of fingernail clippings leads him to realize honesty matters more than normalcy.

🌈 Support RISK! & Get Involved

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on March 17, 2026 in NYC!

✍️ Pitch your story⁠

❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

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Ezra Holmlund and Sarah Adelman tell stories about things involving coming... and going. 

🎤Live Story: Things Are Going South by Ezra Holmlund

Ezra and his brother are at home when they begin to suspect a stranger has broken into their house upstairs. When the police arrive, the two brothers are mistaken for being the criminals.

🎤Live Story: The Long And Winding Road (To Semen Analysis) by Sarah Adelman

Sarah is working at a sperm bank but loses her job after the HR department discovers her stand up comedy material is based off her work, forcing her to abandon a rigid life plan and choose an unpredictable creative path.

🌈 Support RISK! & Get Involved

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on 03/17/26 at Caveat in NYC

✍️ Pitch your story⁠

❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In memory of Jan Scott-Frazier, we revisit her 2011 story called “The Riverside” and, until now unreleased, her conversation about the story in 2021 with narrative therapist David Newman. 

00:00 Introduction

01:34 The Riverside by Jan Scott-Frazier

(Content note: suicide) At 22, Jan moved to Japan, but was lonely, as foreigners often feel. She began to notice a woman who visited the same river she did, who was even more depressed. Jan strategized how to comfort this stranger, but was too late, discovering from the newspapers that the woman took her own life. 

15:49 Discussion: Jan Scott-Frazier & David Newman

🌈 Support RISK! & Get Involved

• 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on March 17, 2026

• ✍️ Pitch your story⁠

• ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

• 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

• 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠

• 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stella Mayerhoff and Rebecca Heron tell stories about the unbearable weight of truth.

🎙️Radio Story: In Ways I Never Could Have Imagined by Stella Mayerhoff

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, out in the field studying bonobos, Stella has to get a local man back home by lying to him, saying his baby is sick, when in fact, his baby has already died.

Keywords: Congo field research, bonobos, primatology, grief in the jungle, moral dilemma, scientific fieldwork, malaria loss, human conflict abroad

💻Workshop Story: Unfolding by Rebecca Heron

(Content note: sexual assault, emotional abuse, child sexual abuse.) In a Zoom session for Kevin’s online storytelling workshop, Rebecca considers how her uncle, a victim of child sexual abuse never shared his story and she feels holding that in killed him, so she shares her own story of her own survival of sexual abuse. 

Keywords: trauma memory, dissociation, childhood coping, sexual assault survival, storytelling workshop, inherited pain, silence and disclosure

🌈 Support RISK! & Get Involved

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on March 17, 2026

✍️ Pitch your story⁠

❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Classic RISK! episode from our early years that first ran in October of 2013, when Janine Latus, Scott Whitney and Dan Telfer told stories about brushes with madness that left scars.

🎙️Radio Story: Revelations by Scott Whitney

(Content note: cults, suicide ideation) A Jehovah’s Witness struggling with his faith, Scott knocks on the door of a traumatized recluse to attempt to convert him. The brief, troubled friendship convinces Scott to leave the church.

Check out our “Revelations, Revisited” episode, where Scott talked to Kevin about his then 12-year-old story.

🎤Live Story: Boots on the Ground by Dan Telfer

(Content note: suicide, suicidal ideation) After his brother’s suicide, a grieving young man channels despair into obsessive protest attendance until a police kettle triggers a panic-driven flight that forces him to confront his own paralysis and fear.

🎙️Radio Story: If I Am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus

(Content note: murder, domestic violence) Janine's sister is murdered by an abusive boyfriend. In retrospect, there were too many signs witnessed by too many people who knew the victim and her killer, but no one was sharing the story.

🌈 Support RISK! & Get Involved

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on March 17, 2026

✍️ Pitch your story⁠

❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices