Boo! The Seattle Public Library’s ‘Thrilling Tales’ Podcast to Post Haunted New Episodes Each Week in October
release date: September 28, 2020
Ready for thrills and chills? The Seattle Public Library will get you in the haunted spirit this October with "Virtual Thrilling Tales: A Story Time for Grown Ups." Featuring vintage spooky stories expertly read by David Wright, Reader Services librarian, this Library podcast series will post a new classic tale every Thursday in October, starting on Thursday, Oct. 1.
“While movies and TV shows are filled with jump scares, I maintain that there’s nothing quite so authentically frightening as the realms chillingly evoked by the Victorian and Edwardian masters of horror,” said Wright, who had been hosting “Thrilling Tales” as a live story time event at Central Library for more than 15 years before creating a virtual version of the event in the spring of 2020.
Get a taste of what’s in store by listening to some of the spooky Thrilling Tales that have already posted, such as Edward Lucas White's 1906 story The House of the Nightmare, which may have been the first scary story to begin with a car breaking down on a lonely highway, or Gertrude Atherton's 1896 story The Striding Place, in which a hapless ne'er-do-well has an unexpected encounter along the banks of the deadliest river in the world.
Episodes range from 30 minutes to an hour, and go live around noon on Thursdays, “though you may want to wait 'til midnight to listen,” said Wright.
Other “Thrilling Tales” episodes especially fit for fall include a World War One espionage tale, a heart-stopping story of suspense on the railroad tracks, and a Twilight-zone tale revolving around the comforting pastime of jigsaw puzzles.
Based on the idea that we never grow out of stories, “Thrilling Tales started as a live event at the Central Library in 2004. Since then, the Library has staged over 500 story times at the Library, at senior living facilities and homeless shelters, and eveN to bars and pubs each fall under the banner ‘Ales from the Crypt.”
Find all “Thrilling Tales” episodes as well as recordings of live events, at spl.org/podcasts or through your favorite podcast reader.
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