This piece has received a fair amount of attention - and for good reason. This is a great piece of radio. An honest, personal account that cuts through the immigration bluster in a affecting, intimate way. Vera's situation is more complex than the black and white debate the immigration issue is often reduced to. And this nuance makes it an engaging and valuable listen.

There's a certain amount of bravery at work here - Vera has the guts to capture some very tense arguments with family members over how she should best approach her legal limbo. And she doesn't shy away from asking pointed questions.

The only thing I find lacking is a more definitive ending - the piece winds down quickly, and ultimately strikes a whimsical note that kind of threw me.

But overall I think PDs would be hard pressed not to find a reason to put this on the air - particularly if they're looking to cover immigration in a compelling, refreshing way.

Pretty much everything that radio rookies does is excellent. But this piece in particular got my attention because the producer, Shakima, is a radio natural. Her narration is playful and engaging - a joy to listen to. This is a fun, light-hearted, personal investigation of the economic toll of clothing addiction and the social pressure to keep up appearances. I could hear it working in a feature-y show or towards the bottom of a news program. Great for Fashion Week.

I've been in love with Joey ever since I heard his "Pee in the Pudding" piece on This American Life. This recorded phone call is not all that remarkable in terms of content: there's no drama, no punchline/gut-wrenching moment. It's just a kid calling his mom from jail. That's why it's great. I think it would make a nice addition to a show about incraceration, or perhaps about the telephone.

A sort of interesting idea for a piece about censorship (at least an instance that I wasn't familiar with) except that I feel like I didn't learn much about the actual case and the grounds on which it was decided, or any reprecussions that it might have had. And if the piece is fundamentally about a couple guys going to jail for playing a Nilsson song why do we only hear some archival tape of Nilsson but no tape from the guys who actually went to jail from playing the record? It seems to me like telling the story from their perspective would have made it much stronger.