Tales to Terrify

Drew Sebesteny

500 episodes listed below

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Literary horror, told in the dark.

The gist

Tales to Terrify presents horror fiction as an anthology, often pairing stories with introductions and contributor notes. Its recent episodes favor creeping dread, uncanny domestic detail, Halloween-tinged settings, illness anxiety, and ordinary places turning quietly wrong.

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About Tales to Terrify

Tales to Terrify is a horror fiction anthology with a deliberately formal spine. It opens the door, names the writer, and then lets the story do the work. The recent run shows a broad appetite for unease: green things tended too closely, a virus conversation curdling into suspicion, a Halloween town tour threaded with coffins and pumpkins, and an apartment courtyard where a child’s presence becomes harder to read. The show does not need every scene to announce itself as terrifying. A park’s immaculate leaves can feel accusatory. A feed shed can hold more danger than a monster’s lair. An old graveyard can become comic for one breath and threatening in the next. That patience is central to the appeal. Episodes often begin with contributor introductions, sometimes noting publication histories, speculative fiction credentials, or Women in Horror Month context. The anthology frame is steady even when the individual stories vary widely in voice. Some tales lean into Halloween texture. Some stay close to domestic dread, grief, shame, and fear of abandonment. Others let civic history, church windows, archives, and family crypts carry the chill. The narration style suggested by the excerpts is grave without being stiff. It trusts sensory detail. It trusts silence after a turn. Production credits recur at the end, emphasizing the show’s ongoing editorial machinery rather than a single celebrity host. The result is less like a chat show about horror and more like a cabinet of narrated fiction. It is built for listeners who want authors, atmosphere, and dread with literary patience. The scares are not always loud. They tend to arrive already seated beside something familiar.

Made for: For horror fiction listeners who prefer narrated stories, slow dread, and anthology structure over casual banter or recap. It especially suits fans of speculative fiction, uncanny domestic scenes, and carefully credited genre writing.

What sets it apart: Tales to Terrify stands apart through its austere anthology frame: story introductions, author attribution, and narration that lets each tale establish its own weather. The show’s recurring strength is how calmly it moves from ordinary detail into threat.

In their own words

The unseen creature whose ravenous fangs dog your every step as your footfalls echo down the midnight alleyway. —A long, icy shadow looming over you, making the hairs on your neck rise and your breath turn to ragged puffs of mist. —Unearthly howls that pierce the night, pulling you from the comfort of sleep with feverish, heart-pounding dread. —Welcome to Tales to Terrify, a weekly horror fiction podcast that gets under your skin, lays eggs and hatches writhing baby horrors nursed on your darkest fears. We're unique in our simplicity, bringing pure tales of terror to your ears audiobook-style – unadulterated and unador...

As heard by us

Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026

Tales to Terrify pairs careful story introductions with sustained narration that makes room for body horror, uncanny transformations, and slow-building dread.

Tales to Terrify gives horror stories room to establish their own logic before the fear closes in. The host introduces each writer and a brief premise, then yields to narrated fiction that can occupy an entire installment or share the bill with a second tale.

Read our full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Impossible boulders and troublesome fingernails wait until you decide bedtime needs worse ideas.

Press play if you want

narrated horror that lets one strange premise tighten slowly instead of sprinting to the scream
a menu where body horror, impossible objects, and human weakness all look equally inadvisable

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

horror fictionauthor introductionsWomen in Horror Monthuncanny domestic spacesgraveyards and dark historiesillness fear and distrustordinary places turning strange

Talks about

Fiction Audio Drama Horror Fiction

Best episodes of Tales to Terrify

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

Tales to Terrify 742 Jeff Wood & Daniel J. GreeneApr 17, 2026

A slow-burn horror piece where a walk home and a park dispute turn ordinary details into unease.

This Tales to Terrify story follows a walk home and a park confrontation into a slow, uneasy drift, with the new leaves carrying most of the tension.

Tales to Terrify 741 E. C. BogosianApr 10, 2026

A feed-shed conversation turns fear, grief, and denial into slow-burn dread.

Episode 741 lets E. C. Boghossian's "Apoptosis" unfold in a feed shed, where a boy and a man talk through cures, viruses, and the stories people tell themselves as the scene leans steadily toward dread.

Tales to Terrify 740 Douglas Smith & Joshua Ramey-RenkApr 3, 2026

A slow Halloween tour that builds unease through place, ritual, and a carefully controlled pace.

The episode leans into its Halloween setting without overplaying it. An old church, a narrow alley, and the Knickerbocker graveyard give the tour a fixed sense of place, while candles, pumpkins, crypts, and the town council's permission keep the unease grounded in the ordinary…

Tales to Terrify 739 Mia ChengMar 27, 2026

A slow, shadowed story that turns a courtyard routine into something tense and unnerving.

Tales to Terrify settles into a nocturnal rhythm: a boy, a painter, and a courtyard where the light keeps fading. What makes it work is how plain the setup feels at first.

Tales to Terrify 723 Derek Alan JonesDec 5, 2025

A strange artifact, a man from the box, and dread that builds through careful domestic detail.

Derek Allen Jones's "Antiquity" begins with a team of antiquarians and a strange artifact, then settles into the uneasy care given to the man from the box.

Tales to Terrify 722 Sam Logan & E. F. Benson Nov 28, 2025

Body revulsion and domestic dread anchor two grim horror tales.

Two kinds of dread do the work here. Sam Logan's opener hits hardest, turning an aversion to fingernails into something intimate, ugly, and hard to shake.

Tales to Terrify 721 Dafydd McKimm & L. T. WilliamsNov 21, 2025

Two grim tales, one slow slide into dread.

Tales to Terrify 721 opens with two stories that build dread the slow way. The first sends a village host to a visitor with an appetite that never seems to quit.

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About Tales to Terrify

In their own words

As heard by us

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of Tales to Terrify

Podcasts like Tales to Terrify

Episodes

Tales to Terrify 768 Adam Porkolab

Tales to Terrify 767 B. Garden

Tales to Terrify 766 Jonathan Louis Duckworth

765 | Dane Fichter

Tales to Terrify 764 Arthur H. Manners

Tales to Terrify 763 William Hope Hodgson

Tales to Terrify 762 Darcy L. Wood

Folded Space Podcast – S01, E01: Mother of All Bombs

Tales to Terrify 761 Vivi Estaris, Francesco Levato & Michael Harris Cohen

Tales to Terrify 760 A. Sleeper

Tales to Terrify 759 Anna Clark

Tales to Terrify 758 Inigo Hare

Tales to Terrify 757 Adam Newnham & Frank J. Oreto

Tales to Terrify 756 Eric Fomley & Myna Chan

Tales to Terrify 755 Sabine Baring-Gould

Tales to Terrify 754 Marissa Snyder, Dario Splendido & Carolyne Topdjian

Tales to Terrify 753 Paul Edmonds & Samuel Marzioli

Tales to Terrify 752 Asher Ellis & Marissa Snyder

Tales to Terrify 751 Jacob Vaus & Stephen Sottong

Tales to Terrify 750 Christopher Hawkins

Tales to Terrify 749 STOKERS Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece

Tales to Terrify 748 STOKERS R. J. Joseph

Tales to Terrify 747 STOKERS L. E. Daniels

Tales to Terrify 746 STOKERS Champ Wongsatayanont

Tales to Terrify 745 STOKERS Anna Taborska

Tales to Terrify 744 Sci-Fi Flash Fiction Contest Winners

Tales to Terrify 743 Anthony J. Rapino & Christopher Collins

Tales to Terrify 742 Jeff Wood & Daniel J. Greene

Tales to Terrify 741 E. C. Bogosian

Tales to Terrify 740 Douglas Smith & Joshua Ramey-Renk

Tales to Terrify 739 Mia Cheng

Tales to Terrify 738 Maria Hossain & Allison Mulder

Tales to Terrify 737 L. Fox & Chelsea Davis

Tales to Terrify 736 WiHM New Author Feature

Tales to Terrify 735 Ely José Couto

Tales to Terrify 734 Calvin Demmer & E. F. Benson

Tales to Terrify 733 Arasibo Campeche & David Stephen Powell

Tales to Terrify 732 J.S. Apsley, Frank Oreto, Elle Zi Dong & Derek Alan Jones

Tales to Terrify 731 Corinne Engber

Tales to Terrify 730 Emma Johnson-Rivard & Chris L. Robinson

Tales to Terrify 729 Meagan Regina Thomas & Alfie Court

Tales to Terrify 728 T. R. Steele & Rex Burrows

Tales to Terrify 727 J. A. W. McCarthy

Tales to Terrify 726 Amanda Cecelia Lang

Tales to Terrify 725 Adam May

Tales to Terrify 724 Ann O’Mara Heyward & Sabine Baring-Gould

Tales to Terrify 723 Derek Alan Jones

Tales to Terrify 722 Sam Logan & E. F. Benson

Tales to Terrify 721 Dafydd McKimm & L. T. Williams

Tales to Terrify 720 E. F. Benson

Tales to Terrify 719 James Fritz & Keith LaFountaine

Tales to Terrify 718 Halloween Flash Contest + E. F. Benson

Tales to Terrify 717 C. W. Stevenson

Tales to Terrify 716 Bret Chandler, Nelson Allister & Jonathan Agar

Tales to Terrify 715 Erica Waters

Tales to Terrify 714 Laila Amado & Akis Linardos

Tales to Terrify 713 R. S. Nelson & QED

Tales to Terrify 712 Mark H. Harris & Avra Margariti

Tales to Terrify 711 Elizabeth Gaskell

Tales to Terrify 710 John Betancourt & T. R. Steele

Tales to Terrify 709 Obiwulu Chisom Peace, J. V. Gachs & Blaize M. Kaye

Tales to Terrify 708 Anne Wilkins

Tales to Terrify 707 Sabine Baring-Gould

Tales to Terrify 706 Derek Alan Jones & Damir Salkovic

Tales to Terrify 705 Edd Vick & Donovan Douglas Thiesson

Tales to Terrify 704 F. Marion Crawford

Tales to Terrify 703 Chris Riley & Rob Gillham

Tales to Terrify 702 F. W. Weatherstone

Tales to Terrify 701 Derek Alan Jones, Nick Badot & Victoria Brun

[PREVIEW] Sightings – Episode 1

Tales to Terrify 700 Philip Madden & Mary Elizabeth Braddon