Off the Page

Jared Kleger is a current senior at Stanford University. His writing has appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he is an editorial assistant.

Max Du was so obsessed with whales that his childhood friends called him Orca Boy. But when a SeaWorld trainer named Dawn was killed by an orca, his love for whales turned to shame…until he met Dawn’s best friend, a whale trainer named Lyndsey. She leads him back to SeaWorld on a journey of reclaiming the Orca Boy that he thought was gone.

This story was produced by Max Du and Carolyn Stein with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project. Max Du is an incoming computer science Ph.D. student and Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University. By night, he is a writer interested in immigrant experiences and the human-animal relationship. In addition to working on pieces for the Storytelling Project, he is currently doing fieldwork for a non-fiction book that features the oral histories of whale & dolphin trainers. When he’s not wrangling robots or making friends with whale trainers, Max also enjoys improvising on the piano and listening to Jimmy Buffet.

Jalen Eutsey is a 2022-2024 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2022, Nashville Review, Poetry Northwest, Harper Pallet, and The Hopkins Review.

Stanford grad Isaac Vaught (class of 2020) reads his essay “The Burden of Bad Men,” which explores masculinity, mass incarceration, and legacy.

Isaac Vaught received his BA from Stanford University, where he received the 2020 Creative Nonfiction Prize. He is currently an MFA candidate in Fiction at Florida State University.

When Anastasia Sotiropoulos joined the Stanford chapter of the Prison Renaissance Project, she got paired up with a man named Adamu Chan, who had been incarcerated at San Quentin prison for two decades. Their relationship began a few weeks before the pandemic, and the first time they talked San Quentin was the site of one of the largest COVID outbreaks in the nation. Over the next three years, Anastasia and Adamu exchanged dozens of letters, had weekly phone calls, and dreamed of creating a film together. Neither of them could have imagined where that friendship would lead them: not just to Adamu’s release from San Quentin, but his admission to Stanford as a CCSRE Mellon Arts Fellow. Today Adamu is an award-winning filmmaker and community organizer. Adamu and Anastasia have continued their friendship, and together created the 2024 podcast episode, Friends in Liminal Spaces, through the Stanford Storytelling Project’s Braden Storytelling Grant.

Carolyn Stein grew up with music like Avril Lavigne and The Marianas Trench – classic, trashy pop punk. But she never considered herself much of a punk rocker, until she took a little trip to the East Bay to a tiny venue called 924 Gilman Street. But soon after Carolyn discovers this venue, she learns that it may be at risk of closing. What will be lost if this venue closes?

Welcome to Paradise was produced by Carolyn Stein, Ana De Almeida Amaral, and Max Du, with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project.

Whether you have a tattoo or not, we are all familiar with the stigmas that are commonly held against tattoos. Where does this aversion come from? What do these taboos say about history? What do they say about us? In this story, Keoni Rodriguez shares how his tattoos helped him reclaim his indigenous Hawaiian heritage, connect with his ancestors, and begin to heal a history of colonialism and erasure.

Tattoos and Taboos was produced by Ana De Almeida Amaral, Natasha Charfauros, Mikayla An-Yee Chen, & Chloe Gabrielle Mendoza, with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project. A special thank you to Keoni Rodriguez for sharing his story with us

Alina Wilson and Alex Strong sit down with Kaitlyn Auth and Charlie Darracott for a story craft conversation about the story behind creating Keep Stanford Wrestling.

In the spring of 2020, Stanford University made the decision to cut 11 of their varsity teams due to financial issues and lack of success. This episode follows the men’s wrestling team and their coaches in the months following the decision to cut their team as they navigate the challenges of fighting for their spot back.

As an added bonus to our Reclaiming series, we’re including conversations with the creators who made them to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the craft of audio storytelling.

In this episode, Alex Strong talks with Aru Nair, the creator of Journey Through Generations, the second story in our Reclaiming series.