Something Wild

In San Francisco, 2014, four great storytellers took the RISK! stage at SF Sketch Fest: Stephen Tobolowsky was directing the New York premiere of The Miss Firecracker Contest with Holly Hunter in the lead and a stalker with a ticket for opening night. The question of whether to go on becomes a different question entirely when Holly disappears into the basement holding what looks like a butcher knife. Dana Gould spent years as pen pal and friend to Maila Nurmi, the actress who invented Vampira, destitute and barely known, living in a converted garage. He reads from the last letter he wrote her. (Content note: child sexual abuse) Nato Green landed a yard-work job at 16, took about fifteen years to figure out what his employer actually wanted, and has some thoughts on what actually protects kids. Brendon Walsh got his hat ruined, his face rearranged, his brass knuckles confiscated, and his name put on a court docket, in that order. Leave your comments on these stories and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/live-from-san-fran-2014-cre520  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on September 8, 2026 in NYC ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two stories from people who found themselves in situations they didn't choose and had to figure out what to do from inside them. Guest-hosted by the captivating Cyndi Freeman. (Content note: references to torture) Sofia Javed is a Pakistani-American interpreter hired to work in Uzbek and Russian at Guantanamo Bay, where she is ordered not to sympathize with detainees and then immediately put to the test. What starts as a potential crisis in a cellblock turns on a single, surprisingly mundane demand. (Content note: physical abuse, domestic violence) Heather Minter grew up in an evangelical fundamentalist family that uprooted itself for the mission field in Papua New Guinea, leaving her and her brother in a boarding school dorm run by a cruel and volatile house father. The faith that held her together through childhood eventually came apart in college, and what filled the void turned out to be its own kind of trap. Leave your reactions and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/captives  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ tonight! (Tuesday, June 9, 2026) in NYC. ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One chilly Seattle night in February 2014, four storytellers on the RISK! stage said some things they probably wouldn’t have otherwise said out loud. Dan Savage told the story of his early days writing Savage Love in Seattle, doing drag to hide his identity, and one late-night encounter that left him genuinely bewildered by his own desire. (Content note: murder, sexual assault) Kelleen Conway Blanchard grew up carrying fragments of a story no child should know: her cousin Pam was murdered in her apartment, and the man everyone suspected walked free. Twenty years later, a phone call changed what Kelleen knew, though not necessarily how it felt. Summer Waldron was freshly divorced, newly medicated for depression, and committed to a long-planned threesome. Then the night itself unraveled, pulled apart by side effects, a panicked call from her mother, and a body that had simply stopped cooperating. Emmett Montgomery nearly died of hypothermia on a high school survival trip in the Utah desert, hallucinating through every bad decision on the way there. Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/live-from-seattle-cre518  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's summer 2014, and Bailey Swilley has a boyfriend she's been trying to leave for months and a father who is about to make that the least of her problems. When her dad goes into cardiac arrest, the family descends on his hospital room in Memphis, and her Taiwanese grandmother, who has never previously mentioned being a healer, begins issuing instructions from a witch she met on a Carnival cruise. The spells escalate. So does everything else. Nick Hornedo has been falling for his girl best friends since he was a teenager, and he knows it's a problem. In high school, a girl named Chloe pulls him into corners to talk, says things that sound like promises, and kicks him in the groin. He keeps finding reasons to stay in the game. It does not go the way he imagined. Between the two stories, JC Cassis drops in with a deathbed anecdote about a grandfather who wanted everyone to know they should be working harder. Share your reactions and find music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/love-death-and-dads-pee  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in New York City ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This one goes deep. "Into the Mystic" first aired in February 2014, and it brings together three accounts of the uncanny from three storytellers who had no map for what they were experiencing. Christine Lee, an Episcopal priest, has spent years navigating the gap between the faith she teaches and the faith she actually feels. When a parishioner with a seriously injured knee agrees to be prayed over, Christine finds herself in the stairwell of her church, watching something she cannot explain. (Content note: emotional abuse, child psychological abuse) Lulu grew up in 1970s Pittsburgh with a mother who was cruel and checked out. That summer, a neighbor's adult son with schizophrenia becomes her unlikely companion and proceeds to fill her head with detailed, terrifying visions of the Rapture, the Antichrist, and the Tribulation. Jen Kwok is with her then-fiancé's family on Staten Island when his father collapses from a heart attack on Christmas Eve. The days that follow are brutal, and something extraordinary happens on the bus ride back to the city. Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/into-the-mystic-cre517  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live! ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices