ShortDocs
Discover hundreds of short audio gems produced in response to a prompt from Third Coast for the ShortDocs Competition, hosted between 2003 and 2016. Each year ushered in a new set of rules, new creative partners, and ever-more magical results.

Lucky Star
When you are taking risks and you don't know it's risky, and pushing boundaries when you don't know they are boundaries, it's good to be lucky.
- 2008
- 02:55
- Julia Grant

Labor Pains
Whether it's societal progress or a squiggly 11-pound miracle, getting there isn't always pretty.
- 2008
- 03:00
- Rich Halten

Leaves
The planting of a memorial tree reveals a lost story about my grandmother.
- 2008
- 03:33
- Max Barry

Life Plays On
An insecure boy discovers, through a saying on a mug, that there is more going on in the lives of others than meets the eye.
- 2007
- 03:10
- Byron Flitsch

Latin Mass
Long before the women's movement even had a name, some Oak Park girls began questioning tradition without even knowing they were doing so.
- 2007
- 03:00
- Chris Angelos

The Last Morning was a Sweet One
2013 ShortDocs Winner! A short story in sounds of our food's start to finish, from morning to night (though not necessarily in the same day!)
- 2013
- 02:56
- Alix Blair

Life Is Sweet - as Long as It's Smeared with Skippy Peanut Butter
What happens when the only foods you'll eat are French fries, peanut butter, and pizza - but you're a grown-up? - an exploration of adult extreme picky eating.
- 2013
- 03:00
- Cody Anderson
- Molly Jackel
- Selena Polston

Lady Bait
Lizzie and her sister think they are coming to Ray's just to see his monkey, but little do they know that Ray and Oscar have been sweating to the Harvey Carne Workout Method and Guide to Romance.
- 2008
- 02:57
- Eric Barkin
- Laura Vitale
- Tye Pemberton

The Life of Bil
A fictional documentary about the mysterious, elusive wild-man Bil.
- 2016
- 03:15
- Gavin Doyle
- Aisling Lambert
- Ashley Parsons

Love is Sweet Among Non-Human Animals
Love is delicious; love is disgusting.
- 2013
- 02:56
- Liz Wason

Ligeti Was in My Apartment
What happened when Ligeti's ghost helped me create a sound piece.
- 2006
- 02:32
- Jeffrey Letterly

Life With Cows is Sweet
Three quick angles of life in the cattle business.
- 2013
- 03:00
- Sarah Kmon

The Low, Slow 'n' Sweet Times of Clyde Biggins
Clyde Biggins lost everything, but now he's back to reclaim his spot among barbecue legends.
- 2013
- 03:05
- Carol Shih
- David Chong

Listening to Jamie
Imagine a cold London winter, where the bizarre and unpredictable sounds made by producer Hugh Levinson's sleeping newborn punctuate the dark nights in the most unimaginable ways.
- 2004
- 07:23
- Hugh Levinson

Lapsed Trappist
The gripping tale of a troubled Buddhist as he struggles with morals and mice in this short radio fiction based rather loosely on a true story.
- 2007
- 03:00
- Philip Briant
- Stuart Ewings

Little Voices, Far Far Away
Context is a bitch -- just ask mice. On earth they're seen as pests and carriers of disease, but space is another story altogether.
- 2007
- 03:03
- Anne Glickman
- Jennifer Brandel

Lovable Losers
Feel the passion, feel the pain of the faithful followers of Chicago's Lovable Losers.
- 2009
- 02:58
- Rich Halten

Love Means Never Having To Say You're Coleslaw
A group of Cantabrigians reflect on the weekly potluck that brings them together.
- 2016
- 02:07
- Nick Andersen

The Legend of Crazy Woman Creek
The origin story of how Crazy Woman Creek in Wyoming got its name, as told from the perspective of a mountain man named Johnson.
- 2016
- 03:00

Longing
Waiting for a long-departed lover.
- 2016
- 03:00
- Mara Maracinescu

The Long Way Home
New light on the wanderings of Odysseus provided by the discovery of Penelope's answering machine tape.
- 2006
- 02:30
- David Henderson

Louise
A young man runs away from the circus.
- 2006
- 02:30
- Deepthi Welaratna

Living off the Land
A Labor Day homage to women.
- 2007
- 02:43
- Nanette Drake Oldenbourg

Looking at Topsy
A radio story about a movie by Thomas Edison that is very hard to watch.
- 2006
- 02:30
- Brett Beyer

Liberals (With Thomas Frank and Rush Limbaugh)
As the story continues, we finally learn that conservatives share some sort of nostalgia with liberals.
- 2006
- 02:30
- Alfred Koch