Built around the innovative, personal vision of host Ira Glass, This American Life^® documents and describes contemporary America. It is, quite literally, a new kind of radio storytelling.

This American Life explores a weekly theme -- fiascos, Sinatra, Canadians, conventions, Niagara Falls, music lessons, the job that takes over your life -- through a playful mix of radio monologues, mini-documentaries, "found tape," and unusual music. It invites artists onto the program to do their art, to ply their craft before its large and rapidly growing audience. Currently, the program finds and commissions more original fiction than any other show on public radio.

The stories on This American Life are engaging, intimate, surprising, funny, disturbing, bittersweet. Glass has an unusual knack for finding writers and performers whose work hasn't been heard on radio, and producing their stories alongside his own disarming commentary in a way that listeners praise as "riveting," "mesmerizing."

This American Life is a production of WBEZ Chicago and is distributed by Public Radio International.