Goodbye to The Heart

Today we have an important announcement for fans of The Heart. The team will be ceasing production in January 2018 as they pursue other projects and evaluate the future of the show.

The podcast will live on as an amazing collection of stories about love, life, bodies and feelings, and can be found here. The Heart was founded in the “Mermaid Palace”, also known as Kaitlin Prest’s bedroom. Kaitlin started the show (then called Audio Smut) back in 2008 on a radio station in Montreal. With the help of senior producer Mitra Kaboli she dreamed up a new concept that became The Heart as we know it today. It was invited to join Radiotopia in 2014.

“The past 3 years have been one of my favorite chapters in my audio career. Making radio with Mitra, Jen Ng, Sharon Mashihi, Julia Alsop, Phoebe Wang, Samara Breger and all of the brilliant minds that make up The Heart. Being a part of Radiotopia, working alongside the best audiomakers in the entire world, I love everything about where we’re at right now. But we’ve decided it’s time for a break,” said host and creator Kaitlin Prest.

“We’ll miss working with Kaitlin and the mighty team behind The Heart,” said Radiotopia executive producer Julie Shapiro, “But Radiotopia is, at the same time, very proud of the impactful work they’ve produced over the years, and the rich, supportive space they’ve created in podcasting for so many marginalized voices. The Heart was a completely original project and I’m certain the community they have built through the show will live on. We wish them all the best in future adventures, audio and otherwise.”

The Heart has been featured in a wide array of top publications including Refinery29, The Financial Times, The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly, and has won a number of awards including the 2014 Hearsay Award Overall Prize, the 2015 Prix Italia golden awards for new radio formats, the 2016 Third Coast Audio Fest Best Documentary: Gold, and was a 2016 Peabody awards finalist.

Keep up with the show on its Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts, where the team will share adventures, latest audio projects and exciting work in the coming year. They might even throw a radio party from time to time. There is one more episode to come this year, a super special year-ender.

Read about Kaitlin’s favorite show moments, in her own words.

The Hurricane

I spend my entire year waiting for the next Mitra Kaboli radio piece. This is my favorite one. Her writing, her read and her unconventional ideas surprise and inspire me every time. Also, she killed it in her role as the mayfly.

No

Nick Quah wrote that this story was like a culmination of everything we’d learned as a show over the years. “A rich and elegant memoir”, and one of the most challenging works I’ve ever made. (This is part one of four.)

Mariya

Our Third Coast Gold award winner, and a collaboration with writer Mariya Karimjee. I always say the show was created with the hope that we would one day produce a story like this one. Sexuality as a magnifier for much larger social issues. Mariya’s story is at once personal, political and heart-expanding.

Samara+Kelsey

Samara Breger, one of the early producers on the show, is a sex educator, comedian and reporter. This was her first foray into producing a piece about her own personal life. She vows she will never go there again. It was hard getting into all the feelings, but she excelled at it. I will forever cherish this extremely personal, extremely moving work of hers.

Silent Evidence

In my view, this is a groundbreaking look at child sexual abuse. Journalist and artist Tennessee Watson is the strongest person I’ve ever met in my entire life. We worked on this together at her dad’s house in Vermont, drinking half-caf coffee out of feminist coffee mugs and taking breaks to buy local cheese down the road. (This is part one of five.)

BFF

Mitra Kaboli is obsessed with coming-of-age stories. This story, co-produced with writer Molly Osberg, is one of the many she’s made for the show over the years. (This is part one of five of a series about personal diaries.)

Movies In Your Head

A radio drama we made with Shani Aviram, my favourite composer. It was the first time the show sounded in real life the way I heard it in my head.