Hi friends! I am so excited to announce It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton, my new podcast. Our first episode drops on March 26th.
This idea emerged from my creative self the same way that Tabletop did. It spung, fully-formed, into my face when my friend who has been writing since we were in high school told me that he had finally been published.
I was so excited for him, and I loved his story so much, I thought it would be cool to narrate it for him, one friend to another, in celebration of something that’s been such a long time coming. As I pulled my mic out of the closet, and opened up Audacity to do one of my signature DIY, lo-fi thingies, a voice in my head said, “Hey, man. I think this could be the basis of a podcast. Hear me out: you’re a respected and acclaimed narrator. What if you looked for new works from great authors who haven’t yet found their audience, and narrated them? What if you used the privilege you have earned to help boost other people’s creative voices and careers?”
This was a good idea, I thought. But I didn’t know that anyone else would agree, so I attempted to tackle it entirely on my own.
Two miserable, frustrating months later, I concluded that I am not cut out to be a slush reader, or a content editor, and if I was going to move this from idea to thing, I needed help. So I asked some friends who had relevant experience, and built an all-star creative and technical team to do all the things I couldn’t, which allowed me to focus on narrating the stories, which is the part of this I know how to do.
I’m going to yadda yadda over the next year, which was marked by starts and stops, enormous technical challenges, and lots of very good work that kept me going through all of it, and jump ahead to last summer, at the Burbank airport departure terminal A.
I was there with LeVar Burton, waiting to board our flight to a convention.
LeVar had just finished his podcast, which I loved and listened to regularly. When I went looking for a similar podcast to replace it, I couldn’t find one that checked all the boxes that his did … and that’s when I realized I was making the podcast I wanted to hear, profoundly inspired by him and all of his work. I absolutely wasn’t going to move forward without his blessing; he’s family and I’m not going to step on his toes.
So I told him all about it, and asked him if he was cool with it.
To my utter delight, he was as excited about it as I am, and he encouraged me the way a loving parent or family member encourages their kid to follow their dream. Even if this podcast doesn’t find its audience, and only lasts one season, that moment will stay with me for the rest of my life.
I’ve been doing lots of press, and I’ll share those links when they are released. For now, I’d love for you to see the video I made of myself recording the trailer that dropped today:
Here’s everything you need to know, copied from my official podcast page:
You may recognize Wil Wheaton’s name from his acting work in television shows like The Big Bang Theory, Leverage, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, or 1985’s timeless classic, Stand By Me. You may recognize his voice from one of the many audio books he’s narrated, including number one New York Times bestseller, Ready Player One, John Scalzi’s award-winning Collapsing Empire Trilogy, or even his own bestselling memoir, Still Just A Geek.
Now, 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 Story Time With Wil Wheaton is available wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday, beginning March 26.
Subscribe now at
I hope you’re as excited about this as I am, and I hope you’ll help me let other people who would enjoy this, know that it exists. The easy part was narrating all these stories and writing all the stuff that went with it; the hard part is helping it reach its audience.
I’ll be checking comments for the next few hours, if you have any questions.
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Super cool! As an editor of a lit journal, I’d love to get some of the stories in front of y’all’s eyes!
I recently started pairing stories with audio by the authors reading them, and it’s been super fun.
And I’m just always pro more attention — in any and all ways — on short stories!
Congrats.
My ultimate goal with this podcast is to help break new writers, so when we get there, and I can solicit submissions, I’d love for you to pitch us.
That would be fantastic.
No questions, just thrilled! Sounds amazing – I can’t wait to discover authors I don’t yet know, while listening to your fantastic voice. Thanks for this news – definitely a bright spot in my day today!
You are absolutely one of my most favorite narrators ~ Ready Player One & The Kaiju Preservation Society are two of my comfort listens (Have I listened to KPS maybe 20 times since it came out? Maybe.) Just thrilled for this opportunity to discover new writers!
Hey Wil, This looks great. I use PocketCasts, and couldn’t find this when I searched and didn’t see a link in your post. FWIW, they are good people with a great philosophy about keeping podcasts free to all, so I hope to see it in their feed soon.
You’re not the first person to ask about PocketCasts. I just emailed the team, and asked them to look into it.
It is there now. I found it in PocketCasts by searching for It’s Storytime an hour or so ago.
Here ya go! https://play.pocketcasts.com/podcasts/9911a4f0-e72b-013d-46fd-02bb5ef11301
This worked perfectly; thank you!
Subscribed on PocketCasts. I’m really looking forward to this. I’m also a librarian, so I’ll be recommending it to every audiobook fan I talk to.
Thank you for being a librarian!
Also subscribed on PocketCasts!
Wil, I can’t tell you how excited I am for this – even though I struggle so much with listening to podcasts and audiobooks. I feel there needs to be more books, more new authours discovered and celebrated! I love that you recognize the position you are in and how you can best use it to uplift others!
Thank you,
A grateful Canadian fan.
I am really looking forward to your podcast. I loved Levar Burton’s podcast and have missed it since it ended. This will be a good positive distraction from all the chaos right now, which i greatly need!
This is great news! I got into audiobooks partly because of your narration of Ready Player One and I am a huge fan of audiobooks now- this podcast sounds right up my alley and I will be telling everyone about it.
I just finished listening to you narrate Cory Doctorow’s latest novel, and it was great, story and narration. I LOLd so loud when you thanked him for not making you read a million digits of pi again. I subscribed to your podcast so fast!
Isn’t is a great book? I want him to write like 12 more.
Yes I too want him to write more Martin Hench Novels.
Unfortunately, the way the timeline in the novels works, the next version of Martin Hench would have to be a toddler, which could be a bit limiting. 🙂
Sounds like we need a children’s picture book to be part of the series.
Awesome sauce!!
I’m so happy for you to have made a thing that speaks to your true creative spark.
I will share far and wide.
This is fantastic! I’ve very much enjoyed LeVar Burton’s podcast, his wonderful narration and how he talked about the story’s effect on him. I’ll definitely check out your podcast. Great big wishes on its success!! 🌞
This is monumentally awesome. You’re my favourite voice to listen to for audio books, and I listen to a lot. Congrats on the podcast launch, looking forward to it!
This sounds pretty awesome and I can’t wait to start listening! I hope this continues on for many many seasons for you. I am excited and have already followed your new show. Ready and waiting with bells on. ☺️
This sounds like a great idea, and right up your alley.
Favor: If some stories aren’t appropriate to play when younger kids are around, can you note this in the episode description?
Yes, we will always put content warnings into the show notes.
Looking forward to the podcast Wil!👍 Definitely going to share on the socials.
It sounds amazing, and I’m here for it, Wil. Congratulations on making it happen. I love it when you do a thing! Does the podcast have an RSS feed that I can use to subscribe in my podcasting app?
Here ya go! https://feeds.megaphone.fm/itsstorytime
subscribed… but if this will be 100% something you own you may want to have a feed URL that lives on this site (something like https://wilwheaton.net/itsstorytime-rss that just 302s to where it lives so that if it ever changes in the future people will not have to change it or resubscribe losing their history
YAY! Just followed your podcast on Spotify, and can’t wait to hear what you do!
Looking forward to this. I love Audiobooks and Podcasts, and discovering authors I have never heard of.
I’ve been burning my way through the Martin Hench books, so having more opportunities to experience your talents as a narrator is welcome. If there’s any way we can support the podcast beyond subscribing and boosting, please let us know.
You’re so kind. Thank you. We have ideas and plans that I hope we can put into motion sooner than later. When that happens, I’ll be sure to post about it here.
Hey Wil… got a question for you…
In the trailer recording, why the headphones? What could you be listening to just reading?
That’s how I can hear the director when I’m recording. She talks into my headphones. I didn’t take them off, even though I now realize I could have, because it’s just not in my muscle memory to do that when I’m recording.
Very excited for this. Congratulations on what is sure to be an amazing new adventure.
I think the podcast will be a huge success. i’m looking forward to the first episode.
How does one get their work into your hands?
We haven’t started that part of this, yet. If we find our audience, that part will happen in the second season and beyond. When it does, I’ll post about it here, mention it in the episodes, and generally ensure that everyone knows our criteria, and how to get your work to us.
This is freakin’ amazing! I love LeVar’s podcast and I was super inspired as a youngster with Reading Rainbow. I hope your podcast finds its audience. I’ll definitely be tuning in!
Thank you for this! Just today, I was thinking of ways to help survive the horrors, and this is exactly the kind of podcast that can help quiet an anxious mind.
To your point, I almost canceled the whole thing, after the tragedy in November.
But I kept thinking about my Mister Rogers tattoo that says LOOK FOR THE HELPERS, and I kept thinking about how much I want and need to be a helper, and I realized that the best way I can be a helper right now, is to tell stories so you can have a break.
I feel really good about that. Thank you for noticing 🙂
As someone who listened on loop to the first Just A Geek, I can’t wait to have new hyperfocus content.
Seriously you and Dave from that original book keep me company many late nights at work.
You magnificent bastard. Couldn’t hit SUBSCRIBE fast enough.
I LOVE this thing! FYI, you are in my top three favorite Audiobook narrators. There are a few audiobooks I bough only because you narrated them. I will look forward to hearing new books by authors I don’t know I love yet. Thank you!
Wil, I’m not sure if you know how much we needed this, especially right now. I’ve found ‘Wil Wheaton’s voice’ to be a safe audio space for years now, and it’s still one of the best grounding, calming options I have in my mental health toolbox – stories and audiobooks read by a safe person. We needed this – THANK YOU 🙂
You’re so kind. Thank you.
I have been trying to get myself back into reading again. I read voraciously as a kid, and in the last 8-10 years slowed down until I wasn’t reading at all anymore. I’m starting slow, with some novellas and but I hope I can get my attention span & love of reading back. This could be another push for me!
I didn’t discover LeVar’s podcast until it was done, which made me incredibly sad. But now this is coming and I’m so excited! We could all use some time to tune out the madness of our reality for a little while. Thanks, Wil!
Oh HELLS yes. This is awesome.
I’m not an audiobook person in general. I listen to podcasts constantly in the car, doing chores, etc., but there’s so much great podcast content out there that it’s too hard to commit the many hours required to listen to a great audiobook. I made an exception for Still Just A Geek (mainly because I prefer ebooks to paper books nowadays, but my Kindle just didn’t handle the footnotes nearly as well as Wil does in the audiobook), but mostly I don’t have time to listen to podcasts that are more than an hour, let alone full audiobooks.
This seems like the perfect combination – short fiction, discovering new authors (which is one of my favorite things), narrated by one of my very favorite celebrities. Can’t wait to have this in my queue!
Cool, another thing to do with my iHeart App! Should be interesting – clicked Follow! Can’t wait for the first episode.
I am so glad there will be another podcast that will give me a break (I have a few political ones I can’t listen to anymore). Just subscribed on Apple Podcast.
I don’t usually listen to podcasts but for you I will make an exception. This sounds wonderful! Can’t wait!
Colleen
PLEASE also release the podcast in video form! My audio attention span sucks (“Look! Shiny!”), so a video would really help me focus. Even a lo-fi Zoom recording would be more than sufficient.
Puh-LEEZ?
Audio-only podcasts (and audio books) are the one area in my neuro-spicy life that I miss most, because I have no workaround, not even reading along with the text. I presently follow no podcasts that aren’t also talking heads on video.
This podcast is one I do NOT want to miss!
I experimented with video, and it did not work at all.
For this to work as video, I need to treat the audience as if I am on stage in front of them, playing to the house. That is a fundamentally different performance than narrating for an audience who will experience it as audio-only. I couldn’t do both, and the whole thing suffered when I tried.
So it’s strictly audio now, though I am allowing for the possibility of some kind of video of a live show in the future, should I be so lucky to have the opportunity.
Please think of the video on the same level as live-captioning; it’s there as an accessibility aid to audience members who need it. I doubt you’d care about the font used for live-captioning. Think of this video the same way. It fills an accessibility need and is NOT in any way the main product.
The minute intro video for this podcast is more than good enough! You already have that rig, so why not keep using it? Reduce the resolution to 720p @ 15fps, which is plenty good for accessibility, yet useless as any kind of a professional production article.
Just point the camera at the mic and ignore it. The real content is the audio, with the video being “whatever”. No makeup or shave. Bad Hair Days are encouraged! Zero production values, other than at least partial face visibility. No special lighting. Use whatever the environment offers, then let it be.
The tech cost and hassle should be minimal. My own setup uses a $50 wide-angle 15fps 4K action-cam looking through a $20 ring light with OBS Studio (with the Face Tracker plugin, running on my old Win10 laptop) configured to track me in a 720p view within the 4K frame to keep me centered. Fine for Zoom, and that’s about it.
I developed my rig during the COVID lockdown (which was viciously destructive to my mental health), so I could “share an office” with the two other folks I worked closest with. We had a Zoom session always running in the background, with its window shoved to the corner of a monitor and generally ignored, as the ambient audio was what was needed most. Yet when we did need to talk, we’d simply start talking, then, if needed, enlarge the window for the conversation. Which we always did for our lunch breaks, so we could casually shoot the breeze while munching. This low-bandwidth background video meeting hack literally saved my sanity, and actually improved our productivity, as we had NO INTERRTUPTIONS from other folks in the company! (They had to use email or Slack.)
Please reconsider your stance on this. Please provide “shitty” video for accessibility!
Seconding this. My level of neuro-spicy requires something in addition to the audio as well. And since I read several times faster than any human can speak (clearly, that is), captions/text aren’t so great for me either. But video, even if it’s just talking-head style, works well to keep my focus. Or, rather, it works better….. (Y’all can’t see the other half dozen tabs (minimum) open or the other books, tablet, or phone(s) next to me at my desk, right?)
This is really awesome as I found my love of books again because of the audiobooks you read. You really helped me get through covid and the years since.
Question: I’m currently listening to Radicalized. How hard was it to read the story that you did for that book. As a father of a 2.5 yr old it wrenched my heart and was really hard to listen to?
I read that so long ago, I don’t recall how I specifically felt while I narrated it, but I do remember thinking “this is just too real” the whole time.
Sounds Great!
I know there are too many choices but anything google? youtube or youtube music podcasts?
Google at least used to say “”Don’t be evil” oh well, Good Luck!
I found it searching by name in beyondpod: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/itsstorytime
Cool. What a perfect way to be the helper and be an inspiration.
How very cool, Wil! I say that of course not having listened to any podcasts before on a regular basis. So of course I’ll have to give this a try-good luck with the new venture and I look forward to hearing the broadcast of the 26th!
This is amazing! Can’t wait to listen. I routinely search the Libby app for your name to make sure I don’t miss any audiobooks when the library buys them.
I am moist w/excitement !
Sounds cool! Look forward to it.
I have been here since ’76, and what is so great about this post is that there’s the mutual respect for a fellow family member and regardless of all the upheaval in the world, we can stick together and treat others like family; even if our own family didn’t always do so…
Thanks for the great creative work you guys do, Wil!
Well, this is a lovely thing to wake up to. Thrilled for you, and lucky us 😊
SQUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I had no idea when you said you were doing a thing, that it was something I really really need and want. I miss Levar’s podcast a lot. And I immediately thought “Oh cool now I have something to fill that space in my life again, and then I got to the part where you talked to him about it, and “sniff” now I’m all emotional.
Seconding the request for a direct RSS feed! I don’t use any of the podcasts services because they make the experience worse than just downloading things directly with gPodder.
Here it is! https://feeds.megaphone.fm/itsstorytime
I’m looking forward to the first episode!
… But why is Stitcher listed as a subscription option? That podcatcher shut down in August 2023. 🤔
Holy crap, I haven’t subscribed to a podcast this quickly in ages. I’m excited to hear the first episode!
Wil, I think this is amazing what you’re doing. There are so many amazing indie authors out there as well, like myself, that are just starting out, and this would help so many who are not as fortune as I have been. I have a post apocalyptic dystopian out, Reboot, that I’d love for you to do an audiobook for (not necessarily for the podcast but just as an in-general/paid work.) Not sure how to go about arranging it, however! Please have your agent reach out if you’re at all interested, and absolutely no hard feelings if you’re not, just keep up the amazing work and being your awesome self!
SO looking forward to this!!!!
Yay you!