“A Cure for Solastalgia” by E.M. Linden, narrated by Wil

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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“The Sort” by Thomas Ha, narrated by Wil

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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"Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris, ‘6’" by F.E. Choe, narrated by Wil

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.

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“Disassembling Light” by Kel Coleman, narrated by Wil

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"The Odyssey Problem" by Chris Willrich, narrated by Wil.

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"The Dark House" by A.C. Wise, narrated by Wil.

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“End of Play” by Chelsea Sutton, narrated by Wil

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.

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“If We Make It Through This Alive” by A.T. Greenblatt, narrated by Wil

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.

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"can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time" by Iori Kusano, narrated by Wil

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.

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"The Hidden Heart of Brass Attending" by Christopher Scott, narrated by Wil

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.

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