Category: Podcast

It is Wednesday, and that means there’s a new episode of It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, waiting for you wherever you get your podcasts.

This week’s story is Wend-Way-Go by Tim Pratt. It was originally published in Uncanny Magazine.

I made a creative choice for this week that I haven’t made before on the podcast, and it was so satisfying, I wanted to talk about it a little bit.

When I was working on Star Trek, one of the adults in the cast — and I can’t remember who, no matter how hard I try — introduced me to the concept of “meeting the demands of the material.” They meant that our job as actors is to serve the writer’s intention, not the other way around. Before we start changing words or rewriting lines, it is our responsibility to do the work of understanding the author’s intent until the scenes work. And if the scene still doesn’t work after all of that, then it is time to talk about making changes. But you don’t go making changes because you’re 15 and don’t yet know what it means to be an actor, beyond following direction.

It took me awhile to process that, and it took me even longer to reliably meet the demands of the material, but I eventually got there and never left.

As a narrator of over 100 titles, my job is easier, more joyful, and more satisfying because I know to listen to what the author wants to say, and then do my best to communicate that through my performance. When it works, the listener doesn’t even know what I did; they just feel the story more completely than they would, otherwise. It’s a pretty great trick.

When we recorded this week’s story, Gabrielle (who directs and produces) and I both felt that the material was making a specific demand, that was also a gift to me: without saying so directly, Tim sets this story in what felt to both of us like South Carolina, for some reason. It was so clear in the text that the narrative character needed to speak in a soft drawl, that supported his fundamental gentleness.

It is a creative risk, to be sure. Accents are tough, and present a unique trap that catches me all the time when I discover I am doing an accent, when I should be performing with an accent.

So it’s exciting and a little scary, but I’m glad I did it. I loved this story, and I hope you do, too.

And now, links!

• Apple Podcasts
• PocketCast
• Spotify
• Pandora
• iHeart
• Amazon
• or grab the RSS directly from me right here.

You can also support the show on Patreon, where $5 a month gets you access to the show with no ads, a growing community of lovely people, live AMAs with me, and weekly insights behind the scenes of the show.

If this is your first time reading or visiting my blog, welcome! I’m glad you’re here. If you’d like to get my posts in your inbox, here’s the thing:

There is a massive winter storm barreling toward us right now, expected to arrive in the next 18 or so hours. Yesterday, it was unseasonably warm and stupidly beautiful. Today, it’s eerily calm, under grey skies. The air is so still, it carries the train whistles from all the way across the valley, and every lawnmower in town sounds like it’s next door. You walk outside, and everything just says, soon.¹ Even the corvids and squirrels seem reluctant to come out of the trees, It never rains in Southern California, man. It pours.

This past weekend, though, it was great, and I was grateful for it.

Last Friday, Anne and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. We have both been so busy and overwhelmed for so long, we planned to skip our usual weekend getaway and just go out for a really fancy dinner, instead. So we went to Mozza in Hollywood, where I think Anne discovered that pasta can actually be wonderful and not what her husband struggles to assemble in our kitchen.

We had such a wonderful meal, and such a nice time out, on a Friday night like PEOPLE WHO GO OUT TO DO THINGS! And that would have been enough, but about two weeks ago, Anne said that she was really missing our usual weekend away, and how did I feel about using points to go somewhere close? I admitted that I, too, was feeling sad we weren’t going to have two days of absolutely nothing but Us. Funny how we both really wanted to do this together, but kept talking ourselves out of it because we’d agreed together that we would.

Anyway, she found a place, cashed in some points, and we spent the weekend up in Santa Barbara. It was nothing but long walks, petting dogs, eating incredible food, and prioritizing each other, our relationship, our friendship, and our marriage. Each of us truly is married to our best friend, and even after 26 years (30+ total), we still have all kinds of fun goofing off together. We have consistently done the hard work of being married and being a family, and that investment pays off at like fifty million percent all the time.

It’s just like … it’s such a blessing and so awesome to spend our lives together, and be mom and dad to our kids. We have worked really hard for a good life, and I’m grateful that I’ve worked so hard to heal my PTSD, so I can actually enjoy living it.

And now…

This week’s story dropped earlier today! It is Disassembling Light, by Kel Coleman. It originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue 385.

This is a magical story (meaning that Magic features prominently in the narrative) about a man who holds tremendous knowledge and skill in his heart, and the hopeful apprentice who comes to learn from him. It also makes me wonder what good is knowledge, if its holder doesn’t freely share it?

You can get It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s some links to the more popular services:

• Apple Podcasts
• PocketCast
• Pandora
• iHeart
• Amazon
• or grab the RSS directly from me right here. (Yo! Old school RSS subscribers, I see you and finger your .plan!)

You can also support the show on Patreon, where you’ll get the show with no ads, as well as some spiffy extras that all the cool kids are into these days.

Today, I recorded two episodes. One of the things we did is the most beautiful, heartbreaking, I-need-a-minute-to-compose-myself story I have read in a long, long time. I’m so excited for you to hear it. It’s also the source of the show’s first official blooper, where you will get to hear me use all my, uh, colorful metaphors in rather creative ways.

I would absolutely love to hear your feedback on the show, if you’re a listener. I feel like we’re doing good work, and putting good art into the world, but I have no idea what the audience thinks if I don’t ask, because we aren’t exactly in a theater together. Although, if I can figure out how to stage one of these stories, I’m into seeing what that would look and sound like. Maybe something cool is there, way off in the mysterious future.

1. Unfortunately, it’s not the soon we are all waiting for ↩︎

I should have posted this yesterday. My bad! I’m working all week on a narration that I have wanted permission to do for years. YEARS. Every night I go to sleep super excited to get back to work, and every morning I wake up excited that I get to do this.

That said, it’s been hard work, and I’m exhausted. You’d never believe it was possible to get exhausted, I bet, sitting in a chair and reading all day. And you’d probably be right, if that’s all I was doing. In fact, I wouldn’t have believed it, myself, if I didn’t have firsthand experience. But it’s performance, if you’re doing it right, and performance takes energy. Four straight hours of performance is a lot of performance, it turns out.

To be clear: I love that I’m exhausted. It feels earned and it’s satisfying. It’s also, uh, exhausting. I am entirely out of mana at the end of the day, and I didn’t think reaching into hit points for my blog was the best idea.¹

I don’t know when I can get into the details of this — I have such a story to tell about today’s work — but I hope it’s soon.

Oh! This is SUCH a good excuse to put in my subscribe thingy. If you don’t want to miss that post, or any other post, you can do that here:

Nice.

If you follow my Instagram, you may recognize that I’m working in the same booth where I record It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton. Allow me to use THAT to now fulfill the promise of the blog title, and tell you that a new episode dropped yesterday.

This week’s story is The Odyssey Problem, by Chris Willrich, originally published in Clarkesworld Magazizne. Ohhhh it is so good. I’d love to hear what you think.

It’s Story Time With Wil Wheaton is available wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe now at

• Apple Podcasts
• PocketCast
• Spotify
• Pandora
• iHeart
• Amazon
• or grab the RSS directly from me right here.

You can also support the show on Patreon, where you’ll get the show with no ads, as well as some spiffy extras that all the cool kids are into these days.

Oh! Oh! Reminder that Corey, Jerry, and I are coming to a city near you² with a 35mm print of Stand By Me. Tickets are available for three screenings:

December 5 at Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, New Jersey

December 4 at Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire.

December 6 at Lynn Memorial Auditorium in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Everything you need to know, including how to buy tickets and VIP packages is at stand by me live dot com

Hey, hasn’t it great to wake up yesterday and finally have the day you voted for? It feels good, doesn’t it?The beginning of his end is upon us, friends.

1. Actually, I can confirm this, as I just realized while proofing this post that I am currently dipping into hit points. ↩︎
2. Offer valid if you live near Red Bank, NJ, Concord, NH, or Lynn, MA. Offer void in Iceland, for some stupid reason. ↩︎

And we’re back! My podcast, It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, returns today with a spooky story to celebrate the spooky season.

This week, it’s The Dark House, by AC Wise.

A photographer’s obsession with an unsettled subject exposes two friends to a darkness that won’t be contained by frames…

It’s so good! I had a great time narrating it.

If you’re interested, take a look at my Patreon for a feed with no ads and a bunch of cool behind the scenes extras. If you subscribe before 5pm Pacific tomorrow, you can watch me do a live reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Oh! And starting today, you can get most of the Patreon stuff through your Apple account with Apple Subscriptions, if you prefer to do it that way.

I love that I get to do this, and it means more to me than you know that so many of y’all tune in and love it with me.

I’m around all day today, and I’ll be checking in here if anyone wants to talk about the show.