The Westside Fairytales Podcast
We at the Westside Fairytales have written a story for you. Not you in that broad sense where you just means anybody, but you, Dear Listener. We know all about you. What makes you nervous, what sickens you, what keeps you from leaving your house sometimes for the maddening worry of it. And we’ve put it in a story. A story we’ll read for you.
Demons, desperate souls, and eldritch horrors… These strange and varied original tales will linger long after you've finished listening. The Westside Fairytales horror and dark fiction podcast is an award-winning audiodrama written, read, and produced by author Tyler Bell.
Seasons 1-4 contain a variety of short stories; Seasons 5 and 6 are novels broken into chapters. While each story can stand on its own, all take place in the extended Westside Fairytales universe, with continuing themes, characters, and connections. The Horror and Lit Club episodes are discussions, interviews, and reviews independent of the fiction episodes. Original art by Yui Breedlove.
Latest Episodes
Tota Americana (Part Three)
In this continuation of the four-part series Tota Americana, Alex comes across an odd, lonely girl sitting by herself on a train platform. She asks for little more than some company, but things aren't always what they seem out there on the road.
Tota Americana (Part Two)
In part two of Tota Americana, we resume our story of Alex traveling across the country to the resting place of a barely known father. The hope is to find some deeper understanding of self through this visitation, but the paths ahead are riddled with pitfalls and parties of a dubious nature.
306 - Tota Americana (Part One)
In this, the first of a four-part series, we join a young person, a human animal cast loose of the nest by a sudden death of one parent, and the just as unexpected madness of another. Setting out on a journey to understand a new and unfamiliar life, this child will come across demons both external and internal, and characters both familiar and unfamiliar.
305 - The Gates of Heaven
Today’s story will let us see the furthest limits to which loyalty might push us, by putting us in the shoes of a soldier faced with unthinkable duties. In the last months of a war he does not yet know has all but ended, he’ll be pushed to carry out orders beyond the scope of anything he’s ever thought could come to pass.
304 - Ghost Story (Part Two)
Last episode, we left Barden in his hermitage of a flat in Paris. He’s been bothered by strange knocking from the apartment downstairs, and visions of some pale-faced apparition that may or may not be a symptom of his self-imposed isolation.
303 - Ghost Story (Part One)
Today’s story is about a man living alone, with little more than the glow of his computer to keep him company. But something from beyond the veil of death and time may soon enter into the life of this modern hermit, whether he wants it to or not.
302 - From Barstow Back Home
In today’s story, we follow a veteran who faces coming to terms with the guilt of surviving something many others did not. He’s taken up ultra-marathoning as a way to escape the memories and feelings that have haunted him since his last ugly day in the sandbox.
301 - Quarterly Review
Today’s story is about a man trapped in the grind, by his own desire to become the master of the great millstone itself. But his preoccupation with success is getting to him, coloring every new day darker than the last.
Summer Minisode (211) - Lagunitas, 4 a.m.
Life is like the tides. It comes and goes, rises and falls with the moon and light and darkness. Tonight’s minisode is about a man who takes his elderly grandfather on a late night surf trip. A last bit of kindness before the moon sets in the west.
210 - Bands of Gold and Iron
Today’s tale is the story of a woman who wakes up to a life that isn’t hers, that she doesn’t want to live, and that certain forces, certain people, won’t allow her to leave. Our protagonist knows the truth about herself, but she’s stripped of her freedoms, even her dignity, simply because that’s the sort of thing that happens to women sometimes.
209 - Last Chance Gas
Today’s story is about a man trapped in a relationship he despises. He doesn’t know if he hates his wife, but he does know he plans on leaving her, just as soon as they reach the end of the long trip they’ve embarked on together.
208 - The Gap on Gable Street
Today’s story is about a man who sets his watch by life’s banalities. He lives a boring life, but things are about to change for him. It starts small, a gap appears on a street where there was no gap. But even a small change in a boring life can have extraordinary effects.