From Our Staff | March 03, 2010

We’ve just posted the first episode in our four-part podcast series featuring the winners of our 2009 Audio Competition. On this episode, we present “Lucy and the Bike Girl” by Hillary Frank, a finalist in the competition. Lucy, a 28-year-old with cystic fibrosis, meets the “Bike Girl,” who has the same disease, in an internet chat room. They are both, against the advice of friends and doctors, trying to get pregnant. They quickly become friends but can never meet in person, because the Bike Girl carries a bacteria in her lungs that is toxic to anyone with cystic fibrosis. This piece is an experiment in combining fact and fiction. The interview tape is all from a real interview; the narration is semi-ficitonal.

Hillary Frank is a freelance writer and radio producer, whose work has aired on This American Life, Weekend America, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Day to Day, Studio 360, Marketplace, and Chicago Matters. She has won awards for her radio stories from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, the Association for Women in Communications, and the National Mental Health Association. She is the author and illustrator of the novels Better Than Running at Night, I Can’t Tell You, and the forthcoming The View from the Top.