Ear Hustle
Ear Hustle is prison slang for eavesdropping, and that’s what listening to the show feels like: a raw, often funny, and always surprising peek into the reality of life inside prison. Hosts Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods co-created the show that launched in 2017 while Earlonne was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, where Nigel was a volunteer teaching photography. Since Earlonne’s release in 2018, the show has expanded to include stories from prisons across the state, including the California Institution for Women, as well as stories about getting out of prison and starting over, post-incarceration. From finding romance, to grappling with a life sentence, to trying to parent via 15-minute phone calls, Ear Hustle stories deliver what This American Life host Ira Glass calls a “"very real” and “untragic” take on prison life. Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent listener-supported podcasts. Discover audio with vision at radiotopia.fm and learn more about Ear Hustle at earhustlesq.com.
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On the Margins
A psychic. An RV park. A one-room post office. San Quentin's prison gets all the headlines, but just over the wall, there's a whole other world to explore. This episode was scored…
CIW: The Magazine, Issue One
Rumors of a prison swimming pool, losing cherished memories to new technology, the right to housing in prison, and different ways of looking at a letter: Our first class of storyt…
Ear Hustle Presents: The Science of Happiness
We're sharing an episode from another PRX podcast, The Science of Happiness , which explores what science can tell us about living a happier, more meaningful life. We think Ear Hu…
Revisiting "Last Memory: Linda"
Nigel reexamines the fourth episode in our Last Memory series, from December of 2024. Linda’s mom brought her to a Catholic Mass because she had a sense her daughter was on the ve…
Behind the Scenes: “Bag of Skittles” and “Over and Over and Over and Over”
Could telling Sadiq and Demarion’s story actually make things worse between them? And were we right to be concerned that SQ's public information officer wouldn't sign off on a sto…
Revisiting "Getting a Date"
Earlonne relistens to the final episode of Ear Hustle’s first season, about one official and one unofficial way to get out of prison. Steve, Danny, Phillip, and Ron are all trying…
Over and Over and Over and Over
Even though they share a difficult past, Sadiq and Demarion had never met in person, and it was probably best that it stayed that way. When an event at San Quentin brought them to…
Tricks of the Trade
At North Kern State Prison, incarcerated people are being trained to do what staff cannot: provide peer support, whether it’s with addiction, cellie drama, or just adjusting to pr…
Bag of Skittles
From obsessive body-building to extreme tattoos and other transformations: stories about the ways people in prison think about and try to change their bodies. Plus: “the Californi…
Corny-Ass Episode
Nigel says no matter where you are, everyone has a story to tell about a hug: good, bad, or awkward. Earlonne isn’t buying it. Thanks to Alonzo, Deonza, Harmon, Maurice, Ralph, Ca…
Revisiting “Chicken on the Bone”
For our latest installment in the ”revisiting” series, Nigel and Earlonne time-travel back to Season 4 and the uncertain futures of men who were living on San Quentin’s now-shutte…
My Favorite Color
The last time Domonica saw her dad, he was behind prison glass and she was just six years old. Now, more than two decades later, they’re trying to rebuild their relationship. But…
Dear Ear Hustle
The letters come from all over: incarcerated men and women listening to Ear Hustle on their tablets, fans tuning in from as far as Australia and the Philippines. Most of the time,…
Songs of San Quentin
From beatboxing, to blues, to a song of praise once heard in the Met Museum, musicians in San Quentin have created some indelible songs. And we have featured a number of them on E…
Revisiting “Gold Coats and OGs”
Earlonne brings his second selection from the archives: an episode from Ear Hustle’s first season about how people care for each other in a harsh place. Dealing with aging and dea…
Revisiting “Saber-Toothed Cat”
At the start of a new year, Nigel revisits an episode about time passing and one man’s experience of four decades behind bars: our 2023 episode “Saber-Toothed Cat.” What’s the dif…
The Loop Ep. 6: Make Your Partner Look Good
For the final episode of our all-NYC series, we take the train uptown to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, where a group of incarcerated dads from Rikers Island are playing game…
The Loop Ep. 5: Yes, And ...
Kaysha is in her early 20s: low on resources, but big on dreams. Sometimes, those dreams feel tantalizingly close to reality; other times, she's pulled back into a life she badly…
The Loop Ep. 4: Where’s the Conflict?
Boys at Crossroads outnumber girls 10 to one, but if you ask staff about who’s harder to work with, it’s the girls, hands down. To find out for ourselves and learn more about life…
The Loop Ep. 3: No Violence
At Crossroads, just three little letters — SMD — can spark some very big drama. This episode is all about conflict: watching it, responding to it, and getting it started. Keys fly…