Ira Glass is the mastermind behind This American Life, the public radio and podcast hit. This American Life seems to have a permanent spot on the iTunes Top Five podcast list, and it is probably the most popular public radio show in the United States. The show itself is a master class in storytelling every week, delivering powerful audio stories that span every conceivable topic.

This American Life is a major inspiration to our storytellers. For many of our staff and volunteers it is practically required listening each week. Because of this Ira Glass is a huge influence on our work.

When we first started doing holding quarterly workshops for our team several years ago we showed this four-part video to our team as a way to think about storytelling. Since then we continue to recommend it to storytellers from all over.

One quick note: it is an old video, and the image quality is not the best, but the content is great.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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Brian Lundin

Brian Lundin is the Lead Writer and Producer for The Austin Stone Story Team and manages Storyteam.org. He is a storyteller and geek who lives in Austin, Texas with his talented wife Lindsey. He also blogs at brianlundin.com.

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