Kaitlin Prest blends personal reenactment and Gaza war testimony across serialized documentary seasons.
The Heart turns personal tape, diary entries, conversation, and performance into cinematic audio stories. Its recent episodes move from country-house reflection and animal care to consent, friendship repair, Palestinian monologues, and the cost of making art.
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The Heart is created, hosted, and narrated by Kaitlin Prest, who frequently appears as a subject within her own episodes rather than staying behind the microphone. The show is produced by Prest's company Mermaid Palace and released through the Radiotopia podcast network. Its most recent run centers on the 'NO' series, in which Prest revisits a specific consent violation involving a longtime friend referred to as Jay, listens back to archival tape of earlier encounters, brings in panelists such as Phoebe Wang, and eventually confronts Jay directly, closing with reflections on bell hooks and restorative justice. Running alongside this is a set of Gaza monologue episodes made in partnership with Ashtar Theater's Gaza Monologues project, built from testimony recorded with Palestinian evacuees, including siblings Ahmed, Hamza, and Tarneem Jabir, describing displacement to Cairo and interrupted medical and dental studies. A separate serialized entry, 'The Shadows,' is a semi-autobiographical audio drama about a long-term relationship, using actors alongside interviews with Prest's own parents. Formats vary episode to episode: some are solo narrated essays, others are structured interviews or multi-person panel conversations, and several use scripted reenactment with actors standing in for real people, with the reenactment disclosed to the listener. Guests tend to be either people directly tied to the personal stories being told — friends, exes, family — or subjects of the documentary strands, such as Palestinian students and theater artists. Episodes commonly close with production credits for Mermaid Palace and Radiotopia and, in the Gaza episodes, appeals to support named individuals through fundraisers. Production leans on layered narration, sound design, and cross-referenced archival audio rather than a straightforward talk format. Listeners drawn to first-person audio documentary about consent, intimate relationships, and war testimony are the core audience.
Made for: Listeners interested in first-person audio documentary on consent and relationships, or on Palestinian war testimony, who are comfortable with frank sexual content and descriptions of wartime violence.
What sets it apart: Unlike interview-driven relationship or advice podcasts, The Heart builds seasons around one ongoing personal story reworked through archival tape and actor reenactment, while running a separate serialized strand of direct-testimony documentary from Gaza evacuees produced with a Palestinian theater company.
Since 2014 this longstanding podcast favourite has been creating hard-hitting cinematic stories about love, bodies and all of the things between humans that we don’t know how to name. Creator Kaitlin Prest works with her friends, idols and all kinds of loved ones to bring you into an expansive sonic universe that challenges what we think we know about relationships.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
The Heart uses intimate audio storytelling to make power, consent, care, and survival audible in the grain of lived experience.
The Heart turns recorded conversation, personal narration, and performed monologue into intimate audio work about consent, friendship, power, and survival.
Kaitlin Prest turns the word "no" into a conversation you may need to pause before answering.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A searching, careful conversation about consent, blame, and how power teaches people to mishear boundaries.
NO: Questions + More Questions sits with the messy aftermath of the Raul tape, where refusal, desire, blame, and power keep getting tangled in other people's ears.
A raw friendship reckoning gives way to a tender tribute to the people who keep an artist making work.
NO: Answers + Updates drops into a friendship reckoning already in motion. Jay wants to know whether one drunken mistake really deserves years of baggage; the host, nervous but newly unafraid of him, tries to say what she still cannot let go of: she does not remember an apology,…
A raw, precise look at consent, inherited compliance, and the shock of finally being asked what you want.
NO: Inheritance + Reality Check sits with the quiet training that can make refusal feel impolite, risky, or somehow unavailable. Caitlin Prest moves from a raw personal reckoning toward a wider question: whether unwanted sex can be shaped not only by one pushy encounter, but by…
A tender audio monologue where coffee, scholarship news, and rehearsal-room fragments turn family care into performance.
An anniversary and a birthday unfold as a small theater of care: coffee made before bureaucratic errands, chocolate croissants brought gently to wake people, voices coaching one another through a performance, and the charged news of a full scholarship in Turkey.
A raw, intimate episode about Palestinian refuge, institutional hypocrisy, and the work of keeping care alive.
The Heart's MONOLOGUE#10 sits in the charged space between grief, anger, and care. Caitlin Prest frames the episode within a Radiotopia world of artists and makers, but the center is a frank conversation about feminist nonprofits in Lebanon and Jordan, Palestinian refugees, and…
A spare, bruising pairing of Palestinian monologue and Gaza testimony, carried by voice, survival, and unresolved grief.
The Heart pairs a Palestinian monologue from Ashtar Theatre with Ahmed Jabir's account of Gaza after October 7, and the result is stark without feeling overworked.
A giant horse statue in Jenin becomes a charged story of public art, pride, grief, and civic memory.
The Heart turns the Horse of Jenin into a work of public art that lives well beyond its materials. Alaysh Hamid recalls a huge statue, built over four weeks with the help of 15 Palestinians, then claimed by the city as freedom, resistance, vitality, and strength made visible.
A restless, intimate monologue about Palestinian identity, distance, war, and the effort to stay tender while life keeps moving.
The Heart's first monologue follows Ali Dajani, Palestinian Jordanian and newly in motion, through a private geography of voice notes, family memory, Amsterdam plans, Abu Dhabi work, and the politics that keep entering the room.
Broadway talk with twin-speed sparkle.
Host Caitlin Prest reads an unaltered typewritten diary entry from October 26, 2025, written during a stay at friend Becky's stone farmhouse in Roseneath, Ontario, as the Toronto Blue Jays played in the World Series.
Caitlin Prest records a solo episode of Suburban Paradise from her parents' house in the suburbs of Ottawa and a friend's stone farmhouse in Roseneath, Ontario.
The narrator describes her prolonged and hesitant move from Toronto to Montreal, getting stuck at her parents' house in Ottawa for months due to inertia.
Power feels awful here.
A friendship does not snap back into place.
A friend forgets how to be a friend.
The host reflects on a traumatic personal experience from 2024 while recording in her garage studio in 2025, exploring themes of girlhood and emotional healing.
A personal narrative about a second date where the speaker reflects on attraction, honesty, and a connection formed through discussions of art, music, and social issues.
This episode promotes a new album by Rishikesh Hirwe and then introduces a segment called 'The Gaza Monologues Revisited', a personal letter to Gaza.
A coffee ritual holds the ache.
Money vanishes, and the mask drops.
This episode features artist Aaliyah Pabani's binaural audio piece recording a bank appointment in Toronto, created in response to a request to engage with the Gaza Monologues.
A point in the sea becomes unbearable.
A horse watches Jenin.
February 14th starts with a march.
Palestinians share personal stories and perspectives on the ongoing conflict, trauma, and displacement.
A belated birthday message starts it.
The host promotes a new album by a fellow podcaster before introducing the episode's theme of personal stories about love and relationships.
The host introduces a new album by a fellow podcaster and then transitions into the final episode of a series about personal relationships.
Names keep multiplying around Charlie.
The host promotes a new album by Rishikesh Hirwe and introduces the show's focus on creating a radio play about human connections.
A promotional segment for a musician's album and tour, followed by a poetic reflection on a pile of clothing and the memories attached to them.
The host promotes a new album by Rishikesh Hirwe and then introduces a mini-season episode exploring themes of race and friendship through personal narrative.
The host introduces a new series called 'Race Traitor' after promoting a fellow podcaster's album.
The host promotes a new album by a fellow podcaster, then introduces a special fiction series about a love story.
The host promotes a new album by a fellow podcaster, then introduces an episode about a person finding a way to externalize shame as part of a series on divesting from people-pleasing.
This episode explores the psychology and somatic experience of people-pleasing, particularly in Black women.
The episode begins with a promo for Song Exploder's album, then introduces a show about self-hatred and internalized marginalization.
The host promotes a new album by Rishikesh Hirwe and introduces the return of the show with new producers.
The host introduces a new project called 'Shadows' after a year-long hiatus, teasing the first episode about romance.
The host promotes a new album by Rishikesh Hirwe and introduces an episode that asks listeners to engage differently.
The host promotes a new album by a fellow podcaster and then introduces an episode about her best friend Sharon, a screenwriter and artist.
Host Kaitlin Prest promotes a new album by Song Exploder's Rishikesh Hirwe and introduces a team member, Phoebe Wang, who transformed the show's social media.
Host Kaitlin Prest introduces a story about finding community and freedom through music and dance.
Host Kaitlin Prest introduces a mini-season about resistance, starting with a promo for a fellow Radiotopia host's album.