I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette.

I'm Tricia Bobita.

And I'm Greta Johnson.

Thanks for listening.

Last week we talked with the showrunners of HBO's high maintenance, which at first was a web series. And this week, we are actually talking with another show creator who started on the interwebs and then was picked up by HBO. This week, it is Issa Ray. She is the creator of Insecure. And she's only 31, but she has gotten a lot done in her young life.

In the show Insecure, she plays a slightly fictionalized version of herself. It's about her and her best friend trying to figure out who they should be dating, whether they hate their jobs enough

to quit them, all sorts of those questions that happen to you in your early 30s, in your late 20s. Because adulting is hard. Because adulting is hard. And Issa Ray has done it well in her life. She's learned a lot from success and also

from some failures, which she'll talk to us about, including the ABC pilot that she worked on

with Shonda Rhymes that almost made it to our television sets. But you know what? Maybe it's good

that it didn't because maybe we wouldn't have insecure. And I'm really happy that we have insecure. Yes, we're actually going to listen to a little

clip of the show. This is from the pilot. And it's Issa getting ready to go out for a night out on

the club on a weeknight, I might note. And she's wearing this really intense sweater dress. And she's

in the bathroom, like talking to herself in the bathroom mirror.

Hi, I'm sexy. Let's get out of here. You're super. Oh my God, you're a music producer. Do you know Beck?

I don't make love. I'll f***. You want some of this pop pie. Pop pie. Pop, pop, pop. Well, hello, Daniel. No, you drive on the wrong side of the street.

Let me sprinkle some fucking Parmesan on you.

...