Calling all Ear Hustlers! Join co-hosts and co-creators Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods live on stage as they share stories from inside and outside prison, accompanied by beloved musicians from the acclaimed podcast.

Ear Hustle launched in 2017 as the first podcast created and produced in prison — featuring stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it. Hosts Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods launched the podcast when Earlonne was incarcerated at San Quentin. In 2018, Earlonne’s sentence was commuted and he was released. Just last year, he received a pardon. 

Ear Hustle has expanded to include voices and stories from other prisons, including two women’s prisons, as well as stories about what it’s like to get out and start over again on the outside. Ear Hustle stories are raw, often hilarious, and rarely what you’d expect to hear on a show about prison life. 

In 2020, Ear Hustle was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting — the first time the category was recognized — for bringing audiences “a consistently surprising and beautifully crafted series on life behind bars.” In 2021, Ear Hustle received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for “shattering the myths about serving time and what happens afterwards.” In 2024, Ear Hustle won the Best Audio Documentary award from the International Documentary Association. 

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Nigel Poor is an artist and podcast host whose work explores the ways people leave behind evidence of their existence. In 2011, Nigel got involved with San Quentin State Prison as a volunteer teacher for Mount Tamalpais College (formerly the Prison University Project). In 2017, she co-founded the prison-based podcast Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and two-time Peabody Award nominee, among numerous other awards. Episodes of the show have been downloaded millions of times by listeners everywhere. Her work as a visual artist has been exhibited nationally and internationally and can be found in museum collections including the SFMOMA, the M.H. deYoung Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. Nigel is a professor of photography at California State University, Sacramento. She’s the author of The San Quentin Project, published by Aperture and co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life, published by Crown Publishing Group, which was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book selection in 2022.

Earlonne Woods was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. In 1997, he was sentenced to 31 years to life in prison. While incarcerated, he received his GED, attended Coastline Community College, and completed many vocational trade programs. He also founded CHOOSE1, which aims to repeal the California Three Strikes Law, the statute under which he was sentenced. In 2017, he co-founded the prison-based podcast Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and two-time Peabody Award nominee, among numerous other awards. Episodes of the show have been downloaded millions of times by listeners everywhere. In November 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown commuted Earlonne’s sentence after 21 years of incarceration. Upon his release, Earlonne was hired by PRX as a full-time producer and co-host for Ear Hustle. He is also the co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life (Crown Publishing), which was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book selection in 2022.