Original Publication Credit: Khoreo (including audio version): https://www.khoreomag.com/fiction/phoenix-tile/ 

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://guanun.com/ 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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Today, we are going to visit a future where child actors are still exploited, still used up and discarded, facing an adult life without purpose, that they were never prepared for, because nobody cared what happened to them past an arbitrary age.We will meet a young woman who is doing her best to assemble the pieces of a stolen childhood into a fulfilling adult life. It isn't what she wanted, or would have chosen for herself, but she's doing her best, which is all any of us can do.

This is: To Carry You Inside You

Original Publication Credit: "To Carry You Inside You" was originally published in Clarkesworld in print and audio in November 2023; it was translated into Chinese in print in Science Fiction World: Translations in October 2024.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://tiatashiro.com/ 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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Today, we have a beautiful story for you that is all about love, specifically the kind of love we have for our children. And when we're finished, I think you'll want to hug your kids, or reach out and tell them you love them. I know that I did.

This is: Bird Girl Builds A Machine.

Original Publication Credit: Clarkesworld Magazine

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://hannahyang.com/stories/ 
It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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A splashing fountain in the center court of a mall with fully stocked stores but no shoppers, muzak cheerfully playing for an audience of none. A paper ticket in your hand, in an airport departure lounge that hasn't seen a passenger in fifty years, the board still updating flight information, with whirling letters. The front desk in the empty hotel lobby, an abandoned cigarette burning down in a glass ashtray, static on a black and white TV.

.These are Liminal Spaces: familiar, recognizable, but not quite right, and also a little bit wrong, in a way that is just beyond your ability to describe. Fortunately for us, it is not beyond author Brian Evenson's ability to describe. In fact, you may want to look up now and then to remind yourself where you actually are, as we take you out on the road, destination: Heathman Ldg.

Original Publication Credit:  “Heathman Ldg” was first published as a limited edition concertina chapbook in Brazil, in English with facing Portuguese translation:  Heathman Ldg (Sao Paolo, Brazil: Raphus Press, 2023). Edition of 88, concertina.  Nearly simultaneously it appeared in English as:  “Heathman Ldg,” Bourbon Penn 32 (2024), 7-22. 

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.brianevenson.com 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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This week's story features one of history's memorable, real-life villains, and while this isn't her story, directly, when she tells it, she is the hero, and so very, very justified. And as much as I hate it, I gotta tell you that she isn't wrong. 

Original Publication Credit: Uncanny Magazine Issue 35, July 2020

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://jordantaylorwrites.com/ 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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As long as we've existed, humans have told each other stories to understand and interpret the world around us. There are as many different myths about the sun and the moon as there are different cultures and mythmakers, in some places, even the wind gets a name and a backstory from the ancient artists who sought to understand our natural world.I've always been drawn to the stories that seek to explain and understand the world inside of us, the world we live in every day, that is so profound and real to us, that nobody else can see. And today, on It's Storytime, I get to tell you one of those stories. It's timely and relevant. It is, among other things, about grief, and loss, and the Frankly Impossible Weight of Han.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.mariadong.com/ 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.chelseasutton.com/

To purchase The Body audiobook, please click here: https://bit.ly/3NZd3DT

Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Body by Stephen King, read by Wil Wheaton. Copyright © 1982 by Stephen King. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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One of the biggest lies set into the foundation of America is that we are the land of the free, a nation of fair and impartially adjudicated laws that seeks not to punish, but to rehabilitate, the almost two million of our citizens we imprison, some of them in conditions so horiffic, they shock the conscience.
Let's imagine a future together, one in which crime and punishment are handled quite differently from our present. In this future, there is a prison dedicated to rehabilitation ... or so it seems. Let's take a closer look, just beneath the surface, to find out what's really going on at the SuperMAX.

Original Publication Credit: Originally published in "Uncanny Magazine." The short story "SuperMAX" by Daniel H. Wilson was published in Uncanny Magazine Issue 53, which is the July/August 2023 issue.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.danielhwilson.com/ 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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In just a moment, I will take you to the far future, where we will meet a dead man who spent his life traveling the universe, chronicling the grieving and funerary practices of extra-terrestrial species. It turns out that death, and grief, and loss, aren't just human conditions; they are literally universal experiences. His grandson, no stranger to his own grief and loss, has picked up that work, and is doing his best to complete it. Maybe, if he does, his own burden will be lifted.

Original Publication Credit: Originally published in The Deadlands, March 2023. Reprinted in Apex Magazine, January 2025.

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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This is a re-release from season one of the podcast. We have also added the original Coda from Wil to the back of the episode, which is a weekly Patreon exclusive for every episode. 

To learn more about the author, please visit:  https://meganchee.carrd.co/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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Original Publication Credit: Nov 2023 issue of Strange Horizons

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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This week's story hits extremely close to home for me. It's about a son,
and the father who let him down. It's about the desperate search for a
connection, before The Last Lucid Day.

Original Publication Credit: The story was simultaneously published by Lightspeed and io9; it's also been reprinted in The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, Vol. 1, edited by Michael Kelly. 

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://dominiquedickey.com/ 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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In the age of parasocial relationships and Influencer Culture, it's all
too easy to convince ourselves that we know someone we've never met,
when what we actually know is the carefully curated content they choose
to share. The connection we feel to that content is real and it's valid,
but that's where the relationship really ought to end. See, behind every
public face, there is a private life that it is none of our business.
This week, I have a timely story for you about an Influencer who is
beloved by millions of people all over the world, practically an
Industry, all by herself. Of course, she has a private life, and we are
extremely fortunate to be welcomed into it by the one person in the
world who truly knows Lily, The Immortal.

Original Publication Credit: “Lily, the Immortal” was read on Uncanny Magazine Podcast episode 44B in 2022

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.kylieleebaker.com/ 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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There are billions of people on planet earth, a number so huge, only a
few of us can truly grasp its enormity. I am not one of those people,
but I am one who beat the odds and found my person, the one in a billion
chance for a perfect match. We have built an incredible life together,
that I am grateful for every single day.
When two people love each other the way we do, a connection is formed,
and a promise, often unspoken, is made: I will always be here for you,
no matter what happens. It is the most precious gift we give and receive.
This week, I will tell you a story about two of these rare and lucky
humans, at the moment in their life when it happens, and that promise is
kept: We Will Weather One Another, Somehow.

Original Publication Credit: Diabolical Plots, June 2021: https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-76b-we-will-weatherone-another-somehow-by-kristina-ten/ Story Hour, Sept. 2025: https://youtu.be/u56vj3Cg-Ts?si=UJhsvRVCeRVRT5MB (recording of online reading series) 

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.kristinaten.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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Original Publication Credit: Lightspeed Magazine, November 2020 / Previous audio version: Audio reprint in CatsCast episode 6, September 2022

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://ratiwrites.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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Aesop, of the Fables, wrote that no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. If you've listened to me for any amount of time, you know how committed I am to choosing kindness, celebrating kindness, and encouraging kindness in others.

Today's Storytime is all about kindness with a capital K. It's also about Family with a capital F. Now, to me, Family are the people who love you no matter what, who always show up for you without question or judgment. When you are with Family, you are safe. Family can be your siblings, your parents. It should be, but not all of us get that, and for us, it can also be -- and frequently is -- chosen and assembled from friends, coworkers, and extended relations who are willing to do the hard work of being a Family.

We're just a moment away from meeting Wade, a man who is a little lonely, and a little lost. His cousin, Keifer, who is a bigger part of Wade's capital F family than I think Wade realizes, is pulling into his driveway. It seems that Kiefer knows Wade needs his Family right now, and he's here to drive him exactly where he needs to go, using his brand new Wend-Way-Go.

Original Publication Credit: Uncanny, September/October 2025 issue

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.patreon.com/timpratt 

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠. 

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Original Publication Credit: Nightmare Magazine in Aug 2019, with an accompanying audio version read by Stefan Rudnicki. Also reprinted in the 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar (Hingston and Olsen).

To learn more about the author, please visit: ⁠https://senaa-ahmad.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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Hi, I'm Wil and it's Storytime.

I have an interesting life. I get create art and share it with a loyal audience. I get to travel all over the world and meet people from every culture and background imaginable. I frequently have the privilege of speaking to large groups of people about the value of kindness, inspiring them to be the change we all wish to see in the world. I do my best to make a difference with all the privilege I have, and that keeps returning to me ten times over.

All of that is interesting, and it feels pretty good ... but it isn't even the best part of being me. That part of me, the most important and valuable part that lives in the most sacred, protected depths of my heart, is my family.

The very best part of being me, is being married to Anne, and being Ryan and Nolan's dad. Everything else is a distant second place.

Today's storytime is about a family that loves each other the way we do. It's not all roses and chocolates -- real love never is -- but it forms a bond that is so powerful, it persists no matter where they are, even on The Other Side of Mictlān.

Original Publication Credit: Uncanny Magazine Issue 49, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas

To learn more about the author, please visit: ⁠https://olivasthewriter.wtf/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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I will never understand the reckless inaction humanity seems to have chosen in the face of catastrophic climate change. Last time I looked, Earth was the only planet we have, and taking care of her should probably land real close to the top spot on our species' to do list.

Catastrophic Climate Change is scary, it's real, and it's dangerously close to inevitable because it is so scary, we tend to look away and pretend it's going to somehow be okay.

Y'all, it is not going to be okay unless we choose to make it okay. And one of the ways we can inspire people to do that is through fiction that suggests what our future may look like, if we continue to choose inaction.

This week, we're boarding The Guiding Light, a research vessel that's been sent on a desperate mission from a dying world to find someplace new to live. They've been looking for a long time, and all they've found is death. Maybe this planet will be different. Let's find out, as we join The Coffin Maker.

Original Publication Credit: Uncanny Magazine

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://anamariacurtis.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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When we leave home for the first time, and enter the so-called Real World, we become responsible for so much more than our laundry, our food, and our bills. We truly become responsible for ourselves. We choose our values, we choose who we will trust to share those values, and when we come home for the first time, we will do everything we can to convince our parents that the values we are now living should also be their values.
The resulting, deeply disappointing and frustrating experience, is commonly called "The Generation Gap" and some of you are noticing a rueful grin has appeared on your face just now because you have experienced this for yourself. Some of you, like me, have experienced it from both sides of the gap. 
Today's Storytime is about someone who is very special, just as their mother intended them to be. They carry their mother's talents, shaped and nurtured by her teaching. They've been away from home long enough to discover that the way they use those talents is very different from the way their mother intended. There is no bridge that can cross their Generation Gap, and if I told you why, there wouldn't be much of a story left. So, we are about to join them, in their Real World, while they work to claim their talent for themselves, to make it their own, as they seek A Cure for Solastalgia.
A Cure for Solastalgia was originally published in January 2024, issue 1, of Strange Horizons.
E.M. Linden (she/her) is a speculative fiction writer from Aotearoa New Zealand who likes coffee, books, and owls. Her work has previously appeared in The Deadlands, Flash Fiction Online, Weird Horror, and elsewhere.

To learn more about the author, please visit: emlinden.blog or @emlinden.bsky.social.

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We don't have to imagine a world where people who aren't doing anything wrong have to hide themselves -- or, at least, their true selves -- for their own safety. I wish that world only existed in imagination, but, well, you know. Today, we will experience that world through a father and his son, who share a very special, telepathic  bond. 
And, about that, a technical note: this communication is clear in the text, but it's less so in this format. So when they are communicating directly, our editors will make it sound like this. 
Now, let me bring you with me to a world that is all-too familiar, as we meet a family who are about to encounter The Sort.
The Sort by Thomas Ha was originally published in Clarkesworld Issue 215, in August 2024. 
Thomas Ha is a Nebula, Ignyte, Locus, and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated writer of speculative short fiction. You can find his work in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Weird Horror Magazine, among other publications. His work has also appeared in The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror. His debut short story collection, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, is now available. In fact, I have a copy sitting on my desk. Thomas grew up in Honolulu and, after a decade plus of living in the northeast, now resides in Los Angeles with his family.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.thomashawrites.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

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Every week, I take you with me through space and time to fantastical worlds, futures dystopian and hopeful, even to the rareified air of the gods themselves. This week, we're going to stay right here on Earth, but our visit will be just as fantastic as any of our tales as it comes to us through the eyes of an alien intelligence. They are called SWARM X1048 and this is their ethological field report on Canis Lupis Familiaris, "6". 
Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris, "6" by FE Choe is a Theodore A. Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist. It originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 210 in March 2024. Runner-up for the 2025 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and reprinted in ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction. 
F.E. Choe is a Korean-American writer whose work has been published in The Moth Magazine and Fractured Lit. She is a 2023 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and an Editor at 100 Word Story. Born in Toronto, Canada, she currently lives in South Carolina in the United States.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.fechoe.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome, friends. I'm Wil Wheaton, and it's Story Time.
This is the part of my introduction where I talk about the story you're about to hear, where I write what I call "the magazine heading" which will help you press pause on the real world and come with me into Story Time. This part is challenging for me; I need to summarize just enough of the plot to entice you, without giving away anything important.
I'm struggling with this part more than usual today, because this story doesn't fit neatly into any single category. It's a ghost story, it's a love story, it's a gorgeous monologue that cries out to be staged in the real life theatre where the titular play is set. It is a beautiful way to wrap up our first season. There is nothing I can say about it now that adds anything to it, so I invite you to take your seat, because the house lights have come down, and we have to begin, if we are going to get to the End of Play.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://www.chelseasutton.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome, friends. I'm Wil Wheaton, and it's Story Time.

I must confess that dystopian fiction currently doesn't have the impossible distance from the present for me that it once did. A story about three women navigating crumbling roads and misogyny in equal measure on a dangerous and frequently deadly road race could have come from this morning's paper; we just happened to pluck it from the pages of TK PUBLICATION.

Get ready to meet three women who have come together with everything at stake, to literally drive toward a shared goal, without losing sight of their individual goals -- or themselves -- along the way. 

This is If We Make It Through This Alive.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://atgreenblatt.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome, friends. I'm Wil Wheaton, and it's Story Time.
I remember being a kid in the late seventies, looking through this book I had called The Catalog of the Future. It was filled with imaginary vacation destinations, floating cities (in the air and in the sea), rockets, wireless phones, all beautifully illustrated. With a little assistance from my young imagination, I could pretend this catalog had been plucked from the future, that everything inside it was real, and one day, I would live there. 
I was a weird, lonely, scared kid. I treasured the escape and the sanctuary I found inside the covers of this book. 
Today, in a story that landed on me like an uppercut, I'm going to take you to a Waffle House, somewhere in North America, where we will meet a guy who had his own version of that catalog, his own glimpse of a world where the things that made him weird in our reality made him special and gave his life purpose. And we're going to find out how it feels for him to know that he can never go back. 
This is Can I Offer You An Egg In This Trying Time?

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://kusanoiori.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome, friends. I'm Wil Wheaton, and it's Story Time.
The heart wants what it wants, and it will fight for it with a passion and fury that is unimaginable until you fall in love and feel it for yourself.
Today, I'll take you to a time when a fulfilling a heart's most intimate desire could lead to prison or worse. A time when the truth of who you loved had to be hidden away in the most secretive places. A time when even the most powerful men could be destroyed with a carefully uttered whisper.
You are about to meet one of those men, at a moment of great consequence in his life, a moment when his heart's desire is at his fingertips, if only he can grasp a cold, brass hand and find The Hidden Heart of Brass Attending.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://talesfromthebonesaw.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome, friends. I'm Wil Wheaton, and it's Story Time.
From a mortal's perspective, a god is a god. Omnipotence isn't really on a spectrum; it's pretty binary. 
The gods don't see it that way. From the moment humans dreamed them into existence, they've fought among themselves to determine which mortals they will hear, what responsibilities they have, and how they will be divided amongst the firmament. While mortals merely hope their prayers will be heard, it turns out that some of the gods answering them aren't particularly thrilled with their assignment.
I am about to introduce you to one of those gods, who does not yet know that it's actually pretty major to be the god of minor troubles.

To learn more about the author, please visit:  https://meganchee.carrd.co/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome, friends. I'm Wil Wheaton, and it's Story Time.
I love a good quest. The hero's journey to find the golden fleece and bring it home has been a cornerstone of storytelling for all of recorded history for a reason. At some point in our lives, each of us will hear the call to adventure and set out on a quest of our own. A lucky few even manage to complete their quests, sometimes against incredible odds.
Some famous quests are for knowledge, power, or even to save the world, but we are about to embark on a quest for something far more intimate, far more personal, and elusive: it is a quest for connection, and redemption. And it can only be found by Proof of Induction.

To learn more about the author, please visit: https://josepabloiriarte.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California. 

If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit ⁠patreon.com/storytime⁠ 

I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at ⁠wilwheaton.net⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's an old saying about moving heaven and earth for the people you love; If you're lucky, you've experienced that feeling yourself for your partner, for your family. Take a moment with me to feel that -- really feel it -- in your body. 
Got it? 
Now, imagine that moving heaven and earth -- well, more earth, but I'm getting ahead of myself -- is not quite enough. You have to move Space and Time, as well. 
This is Rock Paper Scissors Love Death.

To learn more about the author, please visit her website: https://carolineyoachim.com/

It's Storytime was produced in 2025 by Traveler Enterprises, Inc., who holds the copyright.
Our producer is Harris Lane
Our Story Producer and Director is Gabrielle de Cuir.
Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas
Our Podcast is mixed, edited, and mastered by Alex Barton of PhaseShift AV
Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black.
It's Storytime is recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, California.
If you'd like to support the show and get an ad-free feed, visit patreon.com/storytime
I'm your Creator, Executive Producer, and host, Wil Wheaton. You can find me online at wilwheaton.net. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beginning on March 26th, Wil brings you It's Storytime with Wil Wheaton, a weekly audiobook podcast, featuring stories that Wil loves, pulled from the pages of Uncanny, Lightspeed, On Spec, and others. You're going to meet authors you don't yet know you love, including some who are being narrated for the very first time. Listeners will travel through time, meet some gods, watch people fall in and out of love, and more, brought to life by Wil's remarkable narrative voice.

It's Storytime With Wil Wheaton is available wherever you get your podcasts on March 26th.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices