That always bothered Aline Laurent-Mayard, who spent their teenage years feeling alienated from peers because of their own lack of interest in sex. Free of Appeal, which won Tribeca’s Narrative Nonfiction Audio Storytelling Award, is an elegant reflection on the spanish wife Aline’s understanding of their asexuality and becoming a single parent. In a storytelling style that feels like a private whisper, Aline opens up about growing up in Paris, The City of Love, in the ’90s, feeling free from desire. They talk to experts, sociologists, and friends about our culture’s obsession with coupling in the most traditional sense. Free From Desire gets asexuality right in a way that’s driven by personal experience, making it triumphant, graceful, and intimate.

Foretold

At 17, Paulina Stevens’ cards had been dealt for her. Growing up in an insular Romani American family, she had left school, ily, and joined her in-laws in the family fortune-telling business. Foretold is what happens when Paulina risks everything to step away and chart her own path. Reported by Faith Pinho, who was approached by Paulina years ago as a rookie reporter, Foretold corrects Romani stereotypes with empathy while honestly reporting on the cultural problems that drove Paulina away. (more…)