How Radio Reporters Turn Ideas into Feelings

Spending hours sitting alone at a drawing table, cartoonist Jessica Abel often listens to public radio, a habit that turned her into a devotee. Abel calls radio “the most fertile ground for narrative nonfiction in English-language media.”

With a foreword by Ira Glass, her graphic novel “Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio” takes readers behind the scenes of popular programs such as “This American Life” to uncover the techniques producers use to construct engaging stories.

In this excerpt, Adam Davidson (first panel) of “Planet Money” as well as Soren Wheeler (in plaid shirt) and Jad Abumrad, both of “Radiolab,” talk about what they grapple with as they try to turn a lofty idea into must-listen radio.