This American Life

Hosts

• Ira GlassHost and creator of This American Life
• Sarah KoenigAmerican journalist, former This American Life producer and creator of Serial, guest-hosting this rerun
• Chana Joffe-WaltThis American Life producer and reporter, guest-hosting the episode
• David KestenbaumThis American Life producer and correspondent, guest-hosting this episode in place of Ira Glass
• Zoe ChaceThis American Life producer and reporter who covered the trial

Frequent guests

• Casey Phillips · 1 episodePenn State senior who reported the same coins-stuck-to-back phenomenon
• Kerry Weeks · 1 episodeFilm prop man and storyteller who told a pocketknife story at a Moth StorySLAM
• Emiliano Garcia Sarnoff · 1 episodeListener who ran into his estranged father atop a pyramid in Mexico on Father's Day; label also covers some student voices
• Etta Thorderson · 1 episodeListener who unexpectedly met her estranged father at a Los Angeles bus depot; label also covers brief clips of other listeners
• Jeff Dunn · 1 episodeListener from Sioux City, Iowa, who as a teen saw men hide something under a manhole cover
• Ryan Rozar · 1 episodeLos Angeles listener who experienced coins mysteriously dropping in the shower in college
• Esther Graychin · 1 episodePaul Graychin's wife, who had written her name on dollar bills at age 19
• Paul Graychin · 1 episodeChicago-area man who found a dollar bill bearing his girlfriend's name
• Stephen Lee · 1 episodeListener whose late father had once proposed to his future mother-in-law in Korea
• Blake Oliver · 1 episodeListener who spotted his grandmother in the background of a friend's childhood photo
• Elaine Olson · 1 episodeJuliana Bontrager's 81-year-old grandmother, an avid collector of coincidences
• Juliana Bontrager · 1 episode16-year-old listener competing with her grandmother over coincidences; label also briefly covers subway storyteller Jill Peterson

Topics

• Egocentric bias
• The Moth
• The Scarlet Letter
• Pennsylvania State University
• Coins stuck to skin while sleeping
• Grandparents
• Fatherhood
• Marriage and long-term partnership
• Immaculate Dollar of Arlington Heights
• Space Needle
• Poopa Troopers
• Probability and statistics of coincidences
• Synchronicity
• Coincidence
• Desegregation busing

Recently covered

• 
  489: No Coincidence, No Story!

  Oct 19, 2026 · 1 h 1 min

  Guest host Sarah Koenig presents listener coincidence stories—grandmothers, love, coins in the shower, lost fathers, and a pocketknife—while weighing skepticism against meaning.

• 
  898: An Argument

  Sep 26, 2026 · 1 h 3 min

  Nikole Hannah-Jones revisits her famous essay on choosing a segregated public school for her daughter Najya, who argues with her about that choice a decade later.

• 
  892: Trapped on a Bus

  Jul 20, 2026 · 1 h 3 min

  Guest host David Kestenbaum presents stories of unwanted journeys: a runaway bus, a neighbor-spy and bipolar paranoia, Havana blackouts, the Sycamore Gap felling, and an in-flight bite.

• 
  891: The Test Case

  Jul 13, 2026 · 1 h 11 min

  Zoe Chace reports on the federal trial over the July 4 Prairieland Detention Center shooting, where the government tried to prove an Antifa terror cell existed.

All episodes

Every episode in the show’s feed. Linked episodes are in the encyclopedia; request any other and you’ll be notified when its entry is ready.