The podcast
Everyone in there
had a book in them.
Most of them will never write one. So I am doing the next best thing: sitting down with people who have done time, turning on a microphone, and letting them talk for as long as they want.
In production · First episodes coming
Why the show exists
The mic usually points the wrong way.
There is no shortage of prison content. There is an enormous shortage of prison content where the person who was actually inside gets to finish a sentence. Usually there is a host with a serious voice, some strings, and a narrative arc decided before anybody sat down.
I was in there. I know what it does to you when someone tells your story back to you wrong. So on this show the guest sets the pace, picks what matters, and gets the last word. I am mostly there to ask the next question and stay out of the way.
I am not interviewing anybody about the worst thing they ever did. I am asking them what the Tuesdays were like. Cassie Will
The format
How each one works.
Simple on purpose. One guest, one long conversation, very little editing.
One guest at a time
No panels, no co-host cross-talk. Just two people and enough time to get past the version of the story they have already told a hundred times.
They approve it
Every guest hears their episode before it goes out and can cut anything they want, for any reason. Nobody gets surprised by their own life on the internet.
No true-crime score
No ominous piano, no re-enactments, no dramatic pauses in the edit. If a moment lands, it lands because of what was said, not because of production.
Who I want on the show
You do not need to be interesting.
Every single person I met inside thought their story was too ordinary to be worth telling. Every one of them was wrong. If you have done time — federal, state, county, a week or a decade — and you are willing to talk honestly about it, I would like to hear from you.
I am also interested in the people around it: the ones who drove four hours for a visit, the ones who kept a job open, the ones who did the waiting on the outside. That is its own sentence and nobody records it.
What being a guest involves
- A short email or call first, so we both know what we are doing.
- One recorded conversation, usually about ninety minutes, remote is fine.
- You hear the edit before anyone else does and can cut whatever you want.
- You choose how you are credited — full name, first name, or neither.
- You can pull out at any point up until it publishes. No hard feelings.
Launch list
Hear episode one.
The show is being built now. Leave your email and you will get a note the day the first episodes go live — and nothing else in between.