Welcome to the 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story archive, where you'll find a collection of short audio pieces. Each has its own particular style, lasts 2 min and 30 sec, starts with some manifestation of the sentence "To begin with, they never got along." and includes the following sounds: a pre-recorded voice, a rhythmic noise and an exclamation (in that order).

99 Ways... is a collaboration with cartoonist Matt Madden and inspired by the French literary group Oulipo.

Read more about 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story.

YOU DID IT!! Thanks to the efforts of over 100 producers, audio enthusiasts, artists and students, over the course of 2006 (mostly) we not only collected 99 Ways to tell a Radio Story...we made it to 101. We're immensely pleased with the success of our first audio experiment, and thank EVERYONE who contributed to the project.

The 99 Ways project is now officially closed, but this archive will remain posted permanently. Stay tuned for our 2007 public audio project, a collaboration with Chicago's Dollar Store Show, which we'll be announcing at the end of March. Join our email list to learn all about it.
Presenting the Ways:
101)
Maria the Korean Bride
by Andy / USA

Description: Maria wants to be married in every state.
Production Style: breezy newsy
Website: www.touristinthecity.com
100)
Sister Christy
by Jody Melto / USA

Description: A brother reflects on his turbulent relationship with sister after hearing a phone message.
Production Style: phone message/interview
99)
Accident Avalanche
by Liz Bustamante / USA

Description: It's an Eastern Romance action-surrealist film, but He and She, they didn't get along so well.
Production Style: slapdash movie pitch
Website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/liz_noise
98)
My God
by Tim Forrest / USA

Description: Shalt thou dispute With Him the points of liberty ? (Milton)
Production Style: satire
97)
The Big Cookoff
by Nico Savidge / Youth Radio / USA

Description: Each year, the football teams from the U of California and Stanford U. play in "The Big Game," now for the first time, they meet in the arena of cooking in "The Big Cookoff."
Production Style: invisible narrator
Website: www.youthradio.org
96)
The Indian Ocean
by Delaney Hall, Rachel Pearson and Nick Hunt / USA

Description: How did the mammoths die? Where did the Indian Ocean come from?
Production Style: fairytale
95)
Charlie - Boston's Freedom Fighter
by Kristopher Carter for Small Craft Advisory Productions / USA

Description: A call for the folk hero of a 1948 protest song to rise up against the misuse of his name, which is being slathered across the very thing he fought against.
Production Style: Bureaucratic field-recorded irony
94)
Trouble in Vietnam
by Theo Lipfert / USA

Description: Robert McNamara, the Soviet Ambassador and President Lyndon Johnson face off in a historical remix.
Production Style: Documentary House
Website: www.singingpictures.com
93)
Big Bang
by David Polk / USA

Description: Two lousy-sounding atoms can't get along, cause the big bang and disrupt present-day international harmony.
Production Style: nuclear separation drama
92)
Blind Date
by Kay Collins / USA

Description: A G-Rated ice-breaker that would be told during a female bonding session.
Production Style: Throwing a gauntlet
91)
Dust Bowl Revisited
by Steve Walsh / USA

Description: Woody Guthrie backs up an interview with a Virginia National Guard soldier at an American base in Mosul, Iraq during early 2005.
Production Style: news remix
90)
Disrupted
by Seth Lind / USA

Description: I'm just trying to get some information.
Production Style: frustrated
89)
Saul and Joshua
by Seth Lind / USA

Description: They play well together, but...
Production Style: underground
88)
Best Friends
by Keith Brand / USA

Description: A conversation on the incapacity to communicate
Production Style: telephone neo-realism
Website: www.professorbrand.net
87)
The Woo-zits & Was-zits
by Sara Truesdale / USA

Description: what wacky ways we work with words!
Production Style: whimsical fiction
86)
Sixes
by Julia Grant / Canada

Description: Eavesdropping on a traditional Canadian Christmas
Production Style: edited field recording
85)
Time for Change
by Justin Grotelueschen / USA

Description: Boston Common + drum + activist + drunken panhandler = police intervention
Production Style: tell it like it is
84)
Courtney and Catherine
by Katie Day Good / USA

Description: Two girls don't see eye to eye on what defines a bright future.
Production Style: sofa chat
83)
Ligeti Was in My Aparment
by Jeffrey Letterly / USA

Description: What happened when Ligeti's ghost helped me create a sound piece.
Production Style: homage
82)
Deep-Fried Gravy
by Amy Pickett and Chip Bradley / USA

Description: Mabel and Dexter prove that one can experience culture clash and true love simultaneously.
Production Style: southern-minnesotan eclecticism
81)
Reel Noise
by Derek Simons / USA

Description: Surreal as it may seem, this rock band became very famous.
Production Style: unwound rewind
80)
Dancing
by Julia Grant / Canada

Description: You have to ask someone to dance with you, and you have to accept when they ask you to dance.
Production Style: home made, from a secret recipe
79)
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 99 Ways
by Bruce Wallace and Andrea Appleton / USA

Description: Remember when we were paranoid?
Production Style: historo-bombastic
Website: www.lawrencelanahan.com/beetdown.html
78)
Sound and Territory
by Marie-France Garon and Christine Morin / Canada

Description: Apartment sounds reveal a roommate crisis, the unwanted sharing of a territory.
Production Style: freestyle sound-collage
Website: ckut-90.3 FM
77)
Don't Take the Girl
by Jessica Gonzalez / USA

Description: Musical murder trial with a twist
Production Style: musical drama
76)
The Dwayne Split
by Lawrence Dolton / USA

Description: The answering machine traps a surprising revelation from an "old friend."
Production Style: sound collage discovery
Website: www.lawrencedolton.com
75)
Naptime
by Julia Barton / USA

Description: What does he remember from three months ago?
Production Style: 3-year-old conversational
74)
Hearing Things
by Carolina Wheat / USA

Description: A narrator tackles disembodied voices; admitting she seeks out the strange while actual Electronic Voice Phenomenon reverberates in a surreal background.
Production Style: EVP/ Dreamy / How-to
Website: prx.org
73)
Strictly Vegetarian (Or...something happened during that trip to Malacca, Malaysia)
by Jaume Pique and Manel Perez / Spain

Description: She is now pregnant!
Production Style: Quick-step dialog with sonic bumpers rewind
72)
And plenty of others never got along
by Jamie Proctor / USA

Description: A whisper of memory to transcend the frame of context and the boundary of plot.
Production Style: Stream of convergence
Website: myspace.com/jamieproctor
71)
The Cat and the Boyfriend
by Mark A. Tolstedt / USA

Description: Through diary entries, the relationship between a cat and the new, live-in boyfriend is revealed.
Production Style: POV fictional narrative
70)
Gobble Gobble
by Jane Cramer / USA

Description: A new kind of resolution to Thanksgiving conflict.
Production Style: bedtime story
69)
The Interloper
by Kay Collins / USA

Description: The story of a woman's fifth breast biopsy.
Production Style: third person narrative
68)
Micro-Sonic
by Stacy Bond / USA

Description: Mourning and a smaller memorial
Production Style: Meta-Audio
Website: www.audioluxe.org
67)
Bring on Jesus!
by Big Swifty / Australia

Description: Superstition, money, rules, bullshit, loud guitars, talking Moses and Jesus, and Santa!
Production Style: mash metal mayhem
66)
The Long Way Home
by David Henderson / USA

Description: New light on the wanderings of Odysseus provided by the discovery of Penelope's answering machine tape.
Production Style: pseudo found audio
65)
The Mime
by Cyrus Farivar and Rebekah Kouy-Ghadosh / USA

Description: The sounds of Turkish pop star Tarkan melds with possibly the most annoying roomamate ever.
Production Style: roommate drama + turkish pop music
Website: http://cyrusfarivar.com
                 http://iknowrebekah.com

64)
Perfect Founders
by Paula Rogers / USA

Description: The duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton re-arranged for laughs and life lessons
Production Style: classic TV sitcom
63)
Eagle 202
by Heather Kitching / Canada

Description: The true story of Chris, who thought it would be a fun intellectual challenge to try to write a piece of air traffic control software his company had abandoned - and what happened next.
Production Style: docu-drama
62)
Computer Drama
by Heather Kitching / Canada

Description: The computer talk show meets Saturday morning cartoons; featuring real live computer expert, Sarah Millen
Production Style: computer drama
61)
Henry Ford Wouldn't Have Called in Sick
by Tammy Terwelp / USA

Description: Feuding co-workers in an auto parts factory conpsire to assemble the big one.
Production Style: union-approved narrative fiction
Website: www.smashingcarscreations.com

Audio samples are from the The Freesound Project. Story and narration by Tammy Terwlp and featuring Patrick Mousel as "Honda Safety Recording Guy" and "Lott O'Play Announcer."

60)
Do What You Fear and Fear Disappears
by Sarah Boothroyd/ Canada

Description: Screams, thoughts on fear, screams, spooky music, more screams.
Production Style: haunted cinematic collage
59)
Evolution
by Dennis Conrow / USA

Description: In a piece that captures the history of (aural) technology, text-to-speech engines prove that computers really can befuddle man.
Production Style: man vs. technology
Website: www.newletters.org/ontheair.asp
58)
The Iceberg
by Thelon Oeming / Canada

Description: An old man fights his demons for thirty years.
Production Style: tempestuous
57)
Sweetheart, I Hate You
by Antonio Almeida / Portugal

Description: Two e-lovers meet in the flesh and the thrill is gone.
Production Style: confessional, windy, noisy
Website: http://ouvidodemaxwell.com
56)
Canned Love
by Deepthi Welaratna / USA

Description: A fawning profile of Charles Baker and Audrey Malone, the greatest voice talents of our generation.
Production Style: classic hollywood documentary

Featuring the vocal talents of Heather Cummins and Jon Bernstein, as well as the innovative original jazz piece "On the First Day" by the Marriott Jazz Quintet.
55)
Louise
by Deepthi Welaratna / USA

Description: A young man runs away from the circus.
Production Style: big top breakout

Featuring a nuanced narration by Steven Perry, slide whistle duties by Victor Andersen, and the nostalgic calliope strains of composer/artist Verne Langdon.
54)
Want Some Sushi?
by Jonathan Menjivar / USA

Description: An awkward office interaction at a temp gig gets even more awkward.
Production Style: tight spaces
Website: http://brokenbulb.org
53)
we can ALL hear you now
by Nancy Tyler / USA

Description: Yeah, they're handy...but cell phones sure are annoying.
Production Style: rant
52)
Both My Houses (Ma Maison En Deux)
by Marjorie Van Halteren / France

Description: You live in media you watch and listen to. I live in France, listen in Britain and dream outside.
Production Style: fictionalized actuality memoir
Website: http://vanwindmill.googlepages.com/home
51)
9/8
by London Concrete / UK

Description: A direct reaction to the submission criteria without prior rehearsal
Production Style: improvised sonic aggregates
50)
Icing Adversity
by Sherry Shute / Canada

Description: The story of how the Canadian Women's hockey team overcame the odds and poor officiating to win the gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Production Style: audio documentary
49)
Tapeletter from Denmark
by Soren Prehn Jensen / Denmark

Description: A man misses his sister.
Production Style: tapeletter
Website: www.periskop.dk
48)
Good Behavior
by Jack Jackson / Denmark

Description: A man, a car and freedom...or so he thinks.
Production Style: rumbling drama
Website: www.periskop.dk/person/jack_us.html
47)
From Glasgow to Basra
by Anna Norberg / UK

Description: A mother misses her son.
Production Style: interviews remix
Website: http://annano.homeip.net
46)
99 Fluffys
by Alice McNamara / Australia

Description: Fluffy is a mysterious creature surrounded by bees and sweets but confronted by a hysterical mechanical animal which initially cases some angst in the surreal world of imagined adventures of fluffy.
Production Style: clunky battery operated
45)
mishmash
by Regina Botros / Australia

Description: Many different stories make this whole.
Production Style: mash
44)
Oakiedale Train
by Ceil Muller / USA

Description: An historic train puts on the grease paint and starts serving murder mysteries.
Production Style: Fanciful
43)
School Mothers
by Nicole Schultheis Walton / USA

Description: While their daughters play on the school playground, two women become acquainted and share tales of sex and marriage gone awry.
Production Style: narrative fiction
Website: http://rolandparker.blogspot.com/
42)
Kitchen Confidential
by Kelly McCarthy-Maine / England

Description: Thai Red Curry that has a bit of a kick.
Production Style: naturally occurring narrative
41)
Looking at Topsy
by Brett Beyer / USA

Description: A radio story about a movie by Thomas Edison that is very hard to watch.
Production Style: historical tribute
Website: www.brettbeyer.com
40)
The Priscilla Tapes: an introduction
by Zoe Irvine / Scotland

Description: A story of a collection of taped letters. Voices: Zoe Irvine and Lindsay Perth
Production Style: conversational voyeuristic
Website: www.dialadiva.net
                 www.magneticmigration.net
                 www.7hings.com
39)
Distilling Stiller
by Zak Rosen / USA

Description: A man walks into his own neuroses.
Production Style: therapeutic dialogue
Website: http://muzachary.blogspot.com
38)
Personal Message: No Commercial Value
by Mark Vernon / Scotland

Description: Sinister entertainment with a tape recorder: a found message left for a girlfriend degenerates into a drunken squabbling over a reading of a Burn's poem.
Production Style: disturbing tape message
37)
A Bug in the Works
by Mark Vernon / Scotland

Description: Found tape diary of a family holiday recorded for Grandma and Grandpa; a six-legged intruder spoils the fun.
Production Style: entomophobic tape diary
36)
Liberals. (With Thomas Frank and Rush Limbaugh)
by Alfred Koch / Austria

Description: ...as the story continues, we finally learn that conservatives share some sort of nostalgia with liberals.
Production Style: montage, liberals-conservatives-dub
35)
No More Bad Luck. (Tess Gallagher meets Raymond Carver)
by Alfred Koch / Austria

Description: Woman meets man
Production Style: drawers' opera
34)
Zelda vs. Ernest
by Amber Cortes/ USA

Description: A virtual verbal boxing match between Literature's Leading Man of Men and feisty feminist flapper Zelda Fitzgerald.
Production Style: historical imaginative
Website: www.youneverknowradio.com
33)
Shaq + Kobe (Time is Running Out)
by David Schulman / USA

Description: This piece retells (and remixes) the NBA soap opera of Shaq + Kobe, in an audio cartoon created with the on-the-court assistance of the talented Kevin Smith, and amplified by music from Shaquille O'Neal, sampled game sounds and press conference audio clips taken wildly and egregiously out of context.
Production Style: streetball
Website: www.audioambush.org
32)
Natalie, Alone, in New York
by Sue Mell / USA

Description: A woman tries to come to terms with a breakup and a package of bacon
Production Style: omniscient narrator perspective
31)
As if...or 99 minus 1
by Jean-Claude Kuner / Germany

Description: As if / to discuss the world / John Cage / Joseph Beuys
Production Style: sound poem
30)
Levitating Stone
by Jeanette Werkhoven / Holland

Description: In a small village in India, a 90 kg stone levitates when the name of sufi saint Qamar Ali Dervish is chanted.
Production Style: narrative / eye-witness report
29)
Reality Depends on Where You're Standing
by Saya April Hillman / USA

Description: Three inner-city sisters randomly discuss their reality, intercut with the perceived reality of the country's distant puppet masters.
Production Style: random eavesdrops
Website: www.macncheeseproductions.com
28)
This Was a Crucial Place
by Peter Crimmins / USA

Description: A former inmate (John McCullough), a former guard (Donald Vaughn) and Steve Buscemi guide the listener through 1960's prison reform via the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA.
Production Style: museum audio tour
27)
The Secret Life of an Australian Mother
by Eurydice Aroney, Tom Morton, Stuart Brown / Australia

Description: Domestic duet for mother and six year old
Production Style: hysteria verite
26)
The Gulf
by Christine McKenna /USA

Description: How can we make sense of the communication and resource problems identified long before Hurricane Katrina that led to such tragic consequences for many residents of New Orleans?
Production Style: preaching to the choir
Website: http:/www.regiscollege.edu/programs/socwork/faculty/mckenna.htm

The music in this piece is under a Creative Commons license. It can be remixed here and can be viewed in different manifestations here.
25)
Where My Ears Have Been
by Jayne Fenton Keane / Australia

Description: Composed from sounds recorded during a residency at the National Science and Technology Museum, Taiwan, this is a story about communication.
Production Style: sound poem
Website: www.poetinresidence.com
24)
And I think there is something there that will stand the rain.
by Lee Fuoco / USA

Description: A woman remembers the most important person in her life.
Production Style: Lee encourages crying
23)
Train Wars
by Jayne Fenton Keane / Australia

Description: Jayne Fenton Keane talks with India's former Socialist Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, and former President of the Socialist Party of India, Ms. Jaya Jaitley, about the Railway Strikes of 1975 that brought down Sonia Ghandi's government.
Production Style: conversational
Website: www.poetinresidence.com
22)
The Yakuza Codes
by Christian Gasser / Switzerland

Description: Will Midori and her brother Yoshitoro overcome their antipathies and meet again?
Production Style: could have been bigger than a hollywood blockbuster
21)
Au Debut
by Zoe Irvine / Scotland

Description: Translation - Sylvain, Bruno, Zoe and Youssef at the PRIM Centre in Montreal, summer 2006.
Production Style: inconclusive linguistic
Website: www.dialadiva.net
                 www.magneticmigration.net
                 www.7hings.com
*Chosen as a 2006 TCF ShortDoc
20)
They Didn't Get Along
by Michael Hearst and Rick Moody / USA

Description: An inquiry into the nature of human relationships over the course of eons, featuring musical accompaniment in diverse time signatures, and a British narrator.
Production Style: "unclassifiable"
Website: http://www.oneringzero.com/?page_id=52
19)