Bloody Feelings

Host Ira Glass talks to writer Mitchell S. Jackson about how his mother’s blood donations made him think about just how much feeling there is in those little plastic pouches. (5 minutes)

The discovery of 30 century-old postcards written in old Yiddish by a distant family member challenges David Kestenbaum’s ideas about the unimportance of blood ties. (10 minutes)

When Neena Pathak found out she had a fibroid, it didn’t seem so bad. But then it got bigger, more uncomfortable, bloodier… and she had to decide if she was going to have to get surgery to get it removed. She turned her imagined confrontation with her fibroid into a one-act play. (6 minutes)

Neena Pathak wrote this piece in part at the Third Coast Radio Residency at Ragdale. Woman was played by Sohina Sidhu, Fibroid by Kate Arrington, and Therapist by Jena Friedman.