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Ear Hustle brings you the daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration.

Ear Hustle launched in 2017 as the first podcast created and produced in prison, featuring stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it. Co-founded by Bay Area artist Nigel Poor alongside Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams — who were incarcerated at the time — the podcast now tells stories from inside prison and from the outside, post-incarceration.

In 2020, Ear Hustle was named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting — the first time the category was recognized — for bringing audiences “a consistently surprising and beautifully crafted series on life behind bars.” In 2021, Ear Hustle received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for “shatter[ing] the myths about serving time and what happens afterwards.” Ear Hustle has also received honors from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, the Moran Center for Youth Advocacy, and is a two-time Peabody Award nominee. 

Earlonne and Nigel have delivered commencement addresses for the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Bennington College, a keynote at Podcast Movement, and have discussed their work at the City Arts & Lectures and Commonwealth Club series in San Francisco, and at the Tribeca Festival in New York. In addition, Ear Hustle has also inspired multiple creative endeavors, including the Metropolitan Museum of Arts’ “Songs from the Spirit” dance performance featuring music from the podcast.

Earlonne and Nigel are also the authors of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life, a book inspired by the podcast and published by Crown/Random House. The San Francisco Public Library selected the title for its One City One Book citywide community reading program in 2022.

Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary podcasts. Ear Hustle won Radiotopia’s first Podquest in 2016 — a search for new story-driven podcast ideas — beating out more than 1,500 international entries. Today, episodes have been downloaded more than 75 million times. The show is also broadcast to incarcerated communities, including in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation institutions and in the U.K. in collaboration with the Prison Radio Association.

The Ear Hustle team works in San Quentin’s media lab and in the KQED office in San Francisco. You can also find the team on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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Team

 

The hosts & Creators

Featured
Nigel Poor
Co-producer, Co-host, Co-creator
Nigel Poor
Co-producer, Co-host, Co-creator

Nigel Poor is an artist and podcast host whose work explores the ways people leave behind evidence of their existence. In 2011, Nigel got involved with San Quentin State Prison as a volunteer teacher for Mount Tamalpais College (formerly the Prison University Project). In 2017, she co-founded the prison-based podcast Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and two-time Peabody Award nominee, among numerous other awards. Episodes of the show have been downloaded millions of times by listeners everywhere. Her work as a visual artist has been exhibited nationally and internationally and can be found in museum collections including the SFMOMA, the M.H. deYoung Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. Nigel is a professor of photography at California State University, Sacramento. She’s the author of The San Quentin Project, published by Aperture and co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life, published by Crown Publishing Group, which was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book selection in 2022.

Co-producer, Co-host, Co-creator
Earlonne Woods
Co-producer, Co-host, Co-creator
Earlonne Woods
Co-producer, Co-host, Co-creator

Earlonne Woods was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. In 1997, he was sentenced to 31 years to life in prison. While incarcerated, he received his GED, attended Coastline Community College, and completed many vocational trade programs. He also founded CHOOSE1, which aims to repeal the California Three Strikes Law, the statute under which he was sentenced. In 2017, he co-founded the prison-based podcast Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and two-time Peabody Award nominee, among numerous other awards. Episodes of the show have been downloaded millions of times by listeners everywhere. In November 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown commuted Earlonne’s sentence after 21 years of incarceration. Upon his release, Earlonne was hired by PRX as a full-time producer and co-host for Ear Hustle. He is also the co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life (Crown Publishing), which was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book selection in 2022.

Co-producer, Co-host, Co-creator

The Crew

Amy Standen, Editor
Bruce Wallace, Executive Producer
Derrell Sadiq Davis, Assistant Producer and Music Contributor
Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, Producer
Shabnam Sigman, Managing Producer
Tam Nguyen, Assistant Producer
Tony de Trinidad, Assistant Producer
Tony Tafoya, Inside Managing Producer

Special thanks to…

Antwan “Banks” Williams (Sound Designer emeritus), Curtis Fox (Story Editor emeritus), David Jassy (Music Contributor emeritus), Erin Wade (Digital Producer emeritus), John “Yahya” Johnson (Producer emeritus), Julie Shapiro (Executive Producer emeritus), Pat Mesiti-Miller (Sound Designer emeritus), Rhashiyd Zinnamon (Music Contributor emeritus), and Lt. Sam Robinson (San Quentin Public Information Officer emeritus).

Big thanks to Acting Warden Andes and Lt. Berry at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, and Acting Warden Parker and Lt. Newborg at the California Institution for Women for their support of the show.

 
 
 

FAQ

  • We appreciate listeners wanting to hear more episodes more often, but please keep in mind that producing a podcast from inside a prison (without internet or phone access) takes much more time than producing one on the outside. This is a learning process for all involved, and while our systems are improving, it’s still a ton of work to get each episode publish-ready.

  • Every Ear Hustle episode is approved by prison administration as a matter of policy concerning outgoing media of any form from prisons. The administrations we work with have shown great support for Ear Hustle, and we see no indication that they will make it difficult for us to pursue the podcast we’ve outlined from the start, sharing stories about day-to-day life in prison. We are not concerned about this need for approval compromising the content or integrity of the show.

  • It's true! The day before Thanksgiving 2018, then-California Governor Jerry Brown commuted Earlonne's sentence, and Earlonne was released from San Quentin on Nov. 30, 2018. You can hear more about it in this bonus episode.

    Earlonne is now employed by PRX as a full-time producer with Ear Hustle, and is busy reporting on re-entry stories and daily life for formerly incarcerated people, while also documenting his own experiences. He still co-hosts the show with Nigel.

  • Thank you so much for the interest, but to be honest, most likely, you can’t. It’s not possible to bring collaborators into San Quentin regularly, nor to connect via internet or phone with the men inside. Besides the logistical challenges of collaborating, while there are many people on the outside pursuing excellent journalism and storytelling about prison culture and reform, with Ear Hustle we are committed to producing stories from and giving voice to the people on the inside. And while we have expanded to include stories of re-entry, we are not, at this time, taking pitches related to this subject.

    In general, due to the unique nature of our production, we do not respond to outside requests or pitches for material.

  • Yes! You can find transcripts of each episode on our transcripts page.

  • Thanks for your interest in this! You can always donate to the show to support what we’re doing, and help keep us Hustling into the future. If you’d like to send a physical check, please make it out to PRX, Inc., put “Ear Hustle” in the memo line, and send it to:

    PRX
    P.O. Box 382234
    Cambridge, MA 02238

    Would you or your company like to sponsor Ear Hustle? Just contact Radiotopia and they will hook you up. Want to make a donation through a family foundation or donor-advised fund? Our Director of Development will help you out.

  • Yes you can. We have T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more available. Order yours today!

  • We donate 25% of all proceeds from merch to San Quentin's Mount Tamalpais College (formerly Prison University Project), the program that Nigel first worked with when she began volunteering there in 2011. Any additional revenue from merch supports the production of the show.

  • Prison rules prohibit us from passing on any letters, but you can find all the information you'll need yourself.

    You can locate any incarcerated person's CDCR number here, and find instructions for how to contact them here.

    And you'll find the names of many of the people featured in our stories on each episode page, in the show notes.

  • Sorry, but we’re not able to relay messages to or within prison facilities.

  • It's great that you want to start writing letters to incarcerated people! Unfortunately, we can’t provide guidance on specific pen-pal programs, because we simply don’t know enough about each individual one. We encourage you to do careful research and vet pen-pal programs thoroughly before giving them your information.

  • Right now, music featured on Ear Hustle is not available for download outside of podcast episodes. But, you can find some of the songs from our episodes on our music page.

  • That's great! Here are a few programs you can look into:
    - Insight Prison Project
    - Mount Tamalpais College (formerly Prison University Project)
    - The San Quentin Trust
    - California Reentry Program
    - Insight Garden Program

  • We're so glad you've tuned in for all of our episodes! Have you tried any of the other podcasts on our network, Radiotopia? We recommend starting with the "Doing Time" series the shows produced to welcome us to the network back in 2017.

    If you're looking for other shows about incarceration and life in prison, check out our "Summer Listening" bonus episode for some recommendations. And here's a handy list:

    - The Secret Life of Prisons, from the Prison Radio Association in the UK
    - Birds Eye View, made by women in the Darwin Correctional Centre in Australia
    - Uncuffed, produced by men incarcerated at Solano and San Quentin state prisons in California for KALW
    - Life on the Outside, produced by Lucy Copp
    - Caught, stories about the juvenile justice system
    - Decarceration Nation, about mass incarceration and the people impacted by it
    - In The Dark Season 2, the investigative podcast looks at the case of a man tried six times for the same crime
    - Pelican Bay UNLOCKED, produced by people incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison in California
    - Prison Bag, a woman tells her story of having a husband in prison
    - “Prison Diaries” from Radio Diaries, first-person stories about life in prison
    - 70 Million, a podcast about criminal justice reform
    - Supervision, a four-part series about life on parole, produced by NHPR
    - Unprisoned, a podcast and radio show about the human impacts of incarceration
    - With(in) Podcast, a collaboration between the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative and the Colorado Department of Corrections
    - Mass Exoneration, about people convicted of crimes they didn’t commit, in collaboration with the New England Innocence Project
    - Suave, a collaboration between Futuro Media and PRX that tells a story of juvenile incarceration, redemption, and the unusual relationship between a journalist and a source.
    - Life Jolt, a CBC podcast that examines the lives of women navigating Canada's correctional system.

  • You can email us or send us a postcard — and keep your ears peeled for “Catch a Kite” episodes featuring questions sent in from listeners via postcard.

Press

 
 

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