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This story originally aired on April 16, 2016. For some people, home is not a place of safety and comfort. When writer Anastasia Selby was growing up around the Seattle suburbs and Olympia, home was a dangerous place of neglect and abuse. As a young girl facing some tragic circumstances, Selby often ran away from home. Selby drew the strength to do that from what might seem like an unlikely place: the novels of acclaimed author, Judy Blume. Titles such as "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret"

This story originally aired on Jan. 14, 2017 The sidewalks of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood are home to drug addicts, the mentally ill and kids who’ve run away from home. These are the people most of us give wide berth to as we make our way in and out of trendy restaurants and bars. We turn a blind eye to then when they are camped out in a bus shelter. The level of caution afforded to these individuals goes up significantly when it’s dark outside. The people we avoid at night are the

This show originally aired on September 27, 2017. This week on Sound Effect, we hear stories of people who learned to hustle. The Cookie Hustle They may seem sweet (and they are), but sisters Hayden and Rena Korbol mean business. They are two of the top cookie sellers for the girl scouts in Western Washington, selling over 1,600 boxes each last year. The Bootleg King Back in the 1920s, during prohibition, Roy Olmstead supplied a dry Northwest with booze. Lots of booze. And we’re not talking

This story originally aired on September 27, 2017. Back in the 1920’s a Seattle police officer spotted a lucrative opportunity, and hustled fast to make it happen. His name was Roy Olmstead and for a time, he became a very rich man by running a highly illegal activity. During prohibition, Olmstead supplied a dry Northwest with alcohol. Lots of alcohol. The good stuff too. Not moonshine. No one is really certain how Olmstead went from being an enforcer of the law to a lawbreaker, but it’s

This story originally aired on September 27, 2017. College is really expensive. People take out loans, they work a million odd jobs, and if you’re lucky, you have parents who set up a college fund. When Gracelynn Shibayama was 17 years old, she had a college fund. But then, she got an email from her parents. “We had to use your college fund to pay for Calvin’s rehab. So, at that point it was like, Oh, this is getting really serious and if I want to go to college, and I thought that was going to

This story originally aired on September 27, 2017. In the late 1990s, WIl MIller was working as a King County prosecutor in Seattle. And for the first time, he was exploring the gay nightlife. Spending his evenings in the city’s gay bars introduced him to his future lover and, through him, to crystal meth. “If you're a gay man in the 90s and you're a little overweight and you’re a little self-conscious, it really seemed to solve all of my problems,” Miller said. “It played into every one of my

This week, some of our favorite stories that involved sound. First, we meet a man who plays taps every night from his deck as a way to honor service members. Then, a man who makes his living recording nature sounds faces the possibility of losing his hearing. We then head to the Sorrento Hotel where people gather together to read in silence. Next, a woman revisits some recordings she made during one of the darker times of her life. Also, we’ll hear the haunting sound of a radio station on fire

This story originally aired on April 1, 2017. Seattle musician and artist Shannon Perry is known for her exquisite tattoo work and incredible musical presence. But six years ago, while in rehab for Adderall abuse, she felt very alone. Perry picked up smoking again so she could socialize with the other people, but it didn't help. Rather than go numb from the isolation and boredom, she started to make things. Playing the drums on the floor with her hands and singing songs in a whisper, Perry used

This week on Sound Effect, our theme is "What Are the Odds?" We'll meet the grandson of Holocaust survivors who calculated the very low probability that he would even be born. Then a typo may have saved Bob Hofferber's life, by keeping him off of a military plane bound for Tacoma in 1952. In another story of the twists of fate, group of nuns walking along a Washington beach are overtaken by a rogue wave, changing their lives and their relationship with God forever. We'll get to know a scientist

Like many suburban cities around the region, the waterfront community of Edmonds has a total ban on fireworks . But there’s an enclave within the city that is officially not part of the city. So the law doesn’t apply. That means a special scenario on the Fourth of July.