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along for the ride

submission guideposts

Along for the Ride is organized around the ideas and interests of our "guest reporters." Here's what we look for in choosing a guest reporter:

1) The point of Along for the Ride is to "see America through a different set of eyes each episode." Consider our first show. Our guest host, Amy Wilensky, is a writer with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Her OCD structures the way Amy interacts with the world in unusual and fascinating ways. Our show focused particularly on Amy's fascination with cheeses - not just their taste, but also their varying sizes, shapes, colors, smells, and so on.

Amy is a writer, and most of the shows we've done have centered on people who do "cultural work" in one way or another. We've found that the work that artsy folks do tends to inform their takes on the world in interesting and vibrant ways. But we are not looking only for artists.

2) We want our guest reporter to take us out into the world and introduce us to a person, place or thing meaningful to him or her, one that he or she thinks worth introducing to us. So he or she must have interests outside of his or her own immediate work.

3) The guest reporter must be radiogenic! We're not looking for Tom Joyner or Susan Stamberg, or even looking for people with radio experience (necessarily). But the guest reporter must have a presence you can feel even with your eyes closed.

4) The guest reporter must take us an adventure that "works" on radio. We want stories, not studies. The point is to gain an appreciation of one person's very subjective take on a slice from his or her life. The stories will usually take place on the guest host's home turf and always (for budget reasons) in the U.S.

Finally, please understand that we can only use a fraction of the very good ideas we get. And, given our small staff, we can't respond to all submissions in a timely manner. But we will review all suggestions, and thank you in advance for sending them.

Along for the Ride can be heard the first Saturday of every month on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered and is available on-demand on this website. Please email submissions to theride@npr.org or mail them to:

Melissa Giraud
NPR's Along for the Ride
635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001.