Step behind the scenes of deathcare in this episode of Sorry for Your Loss, from The Walrus Lab and Mount Pleasant Group. The podcast explores the often uncomfortable but universal conversations around death, sharing honest stories from the people who work in deathcare and the families they support. In this episode, funeral directors Macey Duncan and Natasha Bryan reflect on the emotional weight of their work and the meaning they find in guiding others through grief. More episodes are available here: https://lnkfi.re/sorryforyourloss

Many listeners were left with a lot of lingering questions and thoughts after the first three episodes. In the final installment of ‘NO’ we respond to some of the questions that we heard a lot of.

What do I tell my kids? What if my no DOES mean yes? Additionally, some of the producers and trusted sex educator, Samara Breger unpack some of the blind spots and larger themes from the last three episodes.

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The third episode of NO: Kaitlin’s search for the answer to why coercion is so omnipresent lands her in one obvious place. Straight, cis-gendered men. In this episode, Kaitlin consults the men in her life that she loves, her friends, her father, her exes to see if they had ever pressured someone into having unwanted intimacy. But she knows she cannot end her search here. She must reach out to the men who have transgressed her to get their side of the story.

In the second episode of the series, we catch up to Kaitlin while she is in her mid-twenties, waiting to fall in love. Over the years she has become an expert at advocating for her own pleasure. She has learned how to say no to the sex that she doesn’t want to have with tact and grace. Just as Kaitlin thinks she has figured out the art of sexual negotiations, another unsettling experience becomes a catalyst for a search for answers.

We meet Kaitlin in her youth as she learns to navigate her first sexual experiences along with the confusion of her desires. Kaitlin learns how to decline unwanted sexual advances and the difficulty of advocating for her needs. But what is she to do when her words are ignored and her agency is taken from her? "Advance" a non-psychedelic trip into my girlhood was originally produced in May 2017 and features sound design and composition by Shani Aviram. 2025 UPDATE: Drove by North Dundas the other day on a joyride. The smoking tree is not small anymore. 

Revisiting NO: after 8 years and several disappointing hook-ups wherein KP found herself wondering if the world forgot the lessons that shook 2017, she decides it's high time to listen again to the series that brings you inside of a 'no' that sounds like a 'yes', and all the 'yes's that really wanted to be 'no's. 

CREDITS

NO. written and produced by Kaitlin Prest, scoring and composition by Shani Aviram, editing by Sharon Mashihi, editorial feedback and production support from Mitra Kaboli, Phoebe Wang, Ariel Hanh. Editorial advisory board: JCJ, Brendan Baker, Stephanie Foo, Cassie Wagler.

In 2004, a racial controversy erupted at a small, mostly white performing arts high school in rural Massachusetts. There were protests. TV news crews. A tense all-school assembly. And then, an announcement: the school would stage an iconic American musical that no one saw coming. We're Doing The Wiz from Radiotopia is the story of that production. 

Radiotopia Presents premiers short multi-episode series in one podcast feed, unified by bold, inclusive storytelling pushing the boundaries of audio. Learn more at radiotopiapresents.fm and discover more shows from across the Radiotopia network at radiotopia.fm

My aunt Rari divorced her husband so completely and so long ago that I don’t even know the man’s name. She tells me that story and about the life she built without him. It makes me contemplate the value of a life spent alone — but also of lifelong companionship.

Most divorces in my family bring some sense of relief. It may take three years to get there, or it may take thirty years, but once it’s over, it feels pretty clear that this is for the best. But it’s not so clear for my Uncle Eric’s relationship.

The idea of a lifetime commitment can feel impossible, when it can still fall apart in year 20, or year 30, or 35. My own parents’ marriage never made it that far, but some of my aunts and uncles did, only to find that after all those years, they too were better off apart.

My grandmother never sent presents for birthdays or holidays, and didn't expect us to either. She seemed to resist anything that felt like authority, convention and tradition; which is why it's so strange that she was once married to my grandfather — a Harvard-educated lawyer.

My parents divorced when I was eight years old — young enough that I don’t have a lot of clear memories of it, but old enough that I was definitely watching, listening, and learning. So I asked them both to tell me what happened, and got two pretty different stories.

When I decided to get married, every living member of my family who had ever been married had also gotten divorced. Apparently, I thought my marriage would end differently.

Listen to Personally: Forever is a Long Time starting June 16, 2025.

Introducing an upcoming season of Personally, called Creation Myth. Helena does not want kids. Her husband does. What else is the purpose of life, he keeps asking her, hoping she’ll change her mind. But after eight years he gives up and leaves. Lost and alone, she’s left with his question. What is our purpose? And what if it is already here?

This series is an Official Selection of the Tribeca Audio Festival. Make sure you follow Personally, so you know when the full season becomes available, later this year. 

As Alex’s newfound family grapples with who he really was and what side of the war he was fighting for, COVID sets in. Will Alex ever get a real reunion?

Alex finally takes a DNA test, hoping to prove his identity – once and for all. What will it find? Who will it find? The results surprise everyone, even Alex.

Alex’s story goes viral (as viral as it can in the early 2000s), but doubts and accusations swirl around him – dividing his family and community. Alex is called a liar and a conman trying to profit from the Holocaust, yet he refuses to do the one thing that would prove he’s telling the truth.

Uldis is now Alex – living an ordinary, happy life in Australia, but the horrors of his past have resurfaced. Fifty years after his name was stolen from him, can he find it again? A letter from Minsk might hold the answers.

Uldis Kurzemnieks believed he would take his lie to the grave – his life had depended on it. For decades, he told the same story of how he survived the Second World War as a boy, but his niece always believed there was more to the story. Now, she’s learning the whole truth – piece by shocking piece.

As a child, Alex Kurzem faced a choice: be killed or join the killers. 

After escaping the massacre that killed his family during the Holocaust, he’s found by the enemy and taken in as one of their own – becoming a Jewish boy masquerading as a Nazi soldier. He’d live with this false identity for so long, he no longer remembered who he was before.

This is the story Alex would tell the world decades later, but could a story so unbelievable be true? Host Dan Goldberg finds out.