This is Love
Love is more than you think. From the creators of Criminal. New episodes twice a month. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Episodes
June 4, 2025 • 32 mins
In 1963, Jeanne and Alan Abel traveled to Washington, DC to picket in front of the White House. They said they were part of a campaign that wanted to put clothes on animals — including the first lady’s horse.
Jenny Abel and her husband, Jeff Hockett, made a documentary about her parents called Abel Raises Cain.
Say hello on Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad...
Mark as Played
May 30, 2025 • 24 mins
Two years ago, we started making Criminal Plus episodes — behind-the-scenes conversations featuring Phoebe and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer. Today, we’re sharing some of those conversations with you — about everything from Phoebe’s jangly bracelets to the reason a judge ordered a man to watch Bambi.
And we’re also sharing a promo code if you’d like to support our work and join our membership program. Use the code “JOINUS” fo...
Mark as Played
May 21, 2025 • 34 mins
For the past 40 years, people have been sending Sally Winey their damaged stuffed animals, and she's been doing what she can to repair them. "That bear's been with them through everything.”
Say hello on Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ad...
Mark as Played
May 7, 2025 • 44 mins
Terence McPherson and Shawnika Giger met at a party in Atlanta, and went on their first date a few weeks later. Things were going well, until they started to talk about money.
This episode is in collaboration with our friends at This Is Uncomfortable.
Say hello on Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to Th...
Mark as Played
April 23, 2025 • 38 mins
When The Guardian sends two strangers on a blind date, the last question they have to answer for the newspaper column is “Would you meet again?” We asked people how their dates went – and what happened next.
Say hello on Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and Phoebe Reads a Myst...
Mark as Played
April 9, 2025 • 43 mins
At The Guardian newspaper, there’s a person who has to find two complete strangers to send on a blind date every week.
In our next episode, we hear about how things really went from the blind daters themselves. You can listen right now by signing up for Criminal Plus.
Say hello on Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll g...
Mark as Played
March 19, 2025 • 45 mins
About twenty years ago, D’yan Forest considered getting into stand-up comedy. “People told me, no, don’t go into comedy. Everybody is going to make fun of you. They’re gonna heckle you. You’re an old woman.” D’yan ignored them.
Say hello on Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and...
Mark as Played
March 5, 2025 • 33 mins
When his older brother died of cancer, Patrick Bringley quit his New York office job and got a new one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—as a security guard. He stayed for 10 years.
Patrick Bringley's book is All the Beauty in the World.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Lo...
Mark as Played
February 19, 2025 • 43 mins
On August 28th, 2000, Danny Stewart got on the subway to meet his boyfriend Pete Mercurio for dinner in New York City. As he was exiting the station, he noticed something on the ground. It looked like a baby doll wrapped in a shirt. And then he saw the doll's legs move.
Pete Mercurio's children's book is Our Subway Baby. His forthcoming memoir is called There: We Found Our Family In a New York City Subway Station.
This episode was ...
Mark as Played
February 5, 2025 • 33 mins
When Cody Bryant suddenly stopped communicating with Haley Woloshen after weeks of hanging out, she assumed she was being ghosted. It was only later that she found out he’d forgotten about her entirely.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and Phoebe Reads a M...
Mark as Played
January 22, 2025 • 41 mins
The day Edgardo Griffith met Heidi Ross, he asked her if she’d like to come with him to look for frogs. He was looking for a particular kind – bright yellow, with black spots: the Panamanian golden frog. But by the time Edgardo and Heidi were engaged, the frogs had started to disappear.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for ...
Mark as Played
January 8, 2025 • 40 mins
Everything you didn’t know about Goodnight Moon, the book that’s put children to bed for generations — and the woman who wrote it. "She could write very well for young children because she remembered exactly what it was like to be one of them."
Leonard Marcus’ book is Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Lov...
Mark as Played
December 18, 2024 • 50 mins
Stories we love about animals really going for it.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you’ll get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal and other exclusive benefits. Learn more and sign up here.
We also ...
Mark as Played
December 4, 2024 • 30 mins
One night in 2018, Ahmed Ali Akbar rented a car and drove two hours to the Detroit airport. He was picking up a package for his cousin – over a dozen boxes of a very special fruit.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads....
Mark as Played
November 20, 2024 • 42 mins
“After more than a hundred years of hard work from some of the greatest cryptological and linguistic minds on the planet, we still don’t quite know what this object is. There’s really nothing like it in the world.”
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and Phoeb...
Mark as Played
November 6, 2024 • 40 mins
Recently, Phoebe told a personal story about her mother, who died this year. In this episode, she talks to journalist Sebastian Junger, who was rushed to the hospital one day after feeling sick – and then, he saw something strange.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Cr...
Mark as Played
October 16, 2024 • 42 mins
For our 100th episode, a story from Phoebe about her mother, Valentine, who died this spring.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Want to listen to This is Love ad-free? Sign up for Criminal Plus – you’ll get to listen to This is Love, Criminal, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you’ll get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal and other exclusive bene...
Mark as Played
October 2, 2024 • 43 mins
When Drew Lanham was growing up in South Carolina, he used to lie down in a field and play dead, just so he could get a glimpse of vultures flying over him. He made binoculars out of toilet paper rolls, and wings out of cardboard. He loved birds. But when he went to college, he says, “I was trying to live up to the expectations of others who said, ‘You’re a Black kid who’s good at math and science.’” So he studied engineering, and ...
Mark as Played
September 18, 2024 • 44 mins
Writer Andrew Leland talks with Phoebe about slowly losing his eyesight. He was diagnosed with the degenerative eye disease Retinitis pigmentosa when he was in high school. "It was like, 'I'm going out in the woods with my friends at night. And oddly enough, I'm bad at it.'"
Andrew Leland’s memoir, The Country of the Blind, A Memoir at the End of Sight, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagra...
Mark as Played
September 4, 2024 • 37 mins
When Miguel Esteban was 14 years old, he got an idea to make his own science fiction magazine. He wanted Octavia Butler to write a piece for it. So he picked up the phone to ask her.
Special thanks to Terry Gross and Fresh Air, which is produced at NPR member station WHYY and distributed by NPR. Quotes reprinted with permission of the Octavia E. Butler Estate.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow the show and review...
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.