Storytime for the Apocalypse is a virtual storytime for grown-ups. Established in April 2020 this online event series is made for your minds and hearts. It’s a hopeful, frank, uplifting, and nurturing hour for interesting people to read beautiful published writing out loud to one another. Dr Tilly Hinton began this event at the onset of the pandemic, offering stories and community as ballast against life’s vicissitudes.

Storytime for the Apocalypse is now also a podcastFind it online or listen on your favorite podcast app.

“Storytime was amazing! It’s as if each one outshines -without diminishing – the glow of the others ❤️”

Episode 18: Water

Tuesday October 11, 2022

This special episode was part of ‘The People’s Archive’, a public humanities project of LA River X/El Río de Los Angeles X, Pomona College, and The Claremont Colleges Library. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Episode 17

There was going to be a December 6, 2021 Storytime episode but we’re taking a rest instead. You can read more about that over on Instagram. In its place, maybe you’ll spend the Storytime hour curled up reading your own favorite apocalypse story of worlds ending and truths being revealed. I certainly plan to! If you do, tag us on social media.

Episode 16: Elsewhere

Monday September 6, 2021

  • Krysta Gonzales read from ‘Intimations’ by Zadie Smith
  • Laura Vena read from ‘Night Sky With Exit Wounds’ by Ocean Vuong
  • Lily Holleman read ‘Dream-Land’ by Edgar Allan Poe
  • Martie McNabb read from ‘High Tide in Tucson’ by Barbara Kingsolver

Episode 15 in collaboration with The Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE)

Monday June 7, 2021

  • Dr Andrew Watson read from ‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St. John Mandel
  • Dr Heather Green read from ‘The Marrow Thieves’ by Cherie Dimaline
  • Dr Sara Spike read from ‘The Closing Down of Summer’ by Alistair MacLeod
  • Dr Jessica DeWitt read from ‘Son of a trickster’ by Eden Robinson Read out loud by Dr Jessica DeWitt

Episode 14: Divergence

Monday March 8, 2021

  • Amelia Volwiler-Stanley read ‘A Ham from God’ by Anne Lamott
  • Tasha Shayne read ‘Today, When I Could Do Nothing’ by Jane Hirshfield
  • Kahlil Nelson read ‘State Fair’ by Garrison Keillor
  • Carolyn Freyer-Jones read ‘The House of Belonging’ by David Whyte, ‘When Death Comes’ by Mary Oliver, and ‘Don’t Go Back To Sleep’ by Rumi

Episode 13: Instructionals

Monday November 30, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 262]

  • Vassiliki Veros read ‘Ithaca’ by C.P. Cavafy
  • Toni Robison-May read ‘Flying Lesson’ by Dolores Hayden
  • Meredith Lancaster read from ‘The Cure at Troy’ by Seamus Heaney
  • Jessica Perini read ‘We Were Made for These Times’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Episode 12: When, sometimes, you have to concede defeat

Monday October 26, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 227]

  • Cancelled for October. In its place I recommend curling up with a book, listening to a podcast, making art, or requesting a handpicked recording of a previous Storytime just for your listening ears.

Episode 11: Invocation

Monday September 28, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 199]

  • Dr Sarah Minslow read ‘The Dead of September 11’ by Toni Morrison
  • Dr Tilly Hinton read ‘Praying’, ‘I Happened To Be Standing’ and ‘The Summer Day’ by Mary Oliver
  • Josh Shayne read ‘Frog and Toad Tentatively Go Outside After Months in Self-Quarantine’ by Jennie Egerdie
  • Rex Weiner read ‘I Am Waiting’ by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Episode 10: Transformation

Monday August 31, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 171]

  • Engineer and Poet Ehssan Sakhaee read ‘The Alchemy of Love’ and ‘Chickpea to Cook’ by Rumi
  • Education and Equity Specialist Nitasha Lewis read from ‘The Fire Next Time’ by James Baldwin
  • Tour Guide and Los Angeles Enthusiast Tom Sanchez read from ‘The Day of the Locust’ by Nathanael West
  • Creative supernova Toni Robison-May read from ‘Hope in the Dark’ by Rebecca Solnit

Episode 9: Worlds

Monday July 27, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 136]

  • Librarian Scholar Vassiliki Veros read ‘The Nightmare of Persephone’ by Nikos Gatsos
  • Actor and Animal Advocate Richard Sanderson read from ‘Kcymaerxthaere: The Story so Far …’ by Eames Demetrios
  • Community Engagement Proselytizer Dr Wade Kelly read from ‘Desert Solitaire’ by Edward Abbey
  • Film aficionado Chris Schwartz read from ‘Pale Blue Dot’ by Carl Sagan

Episode 8: Amplifying Black Voices Special Episode

Monday June 29, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 108]

This episode was stunningly guest-curated and co-hosted by Meredith Lancaster.

  • Political genius and future law student Jaria Martin read from ‘The Children of Virtue and Vengeance’ by Tomi Adeyemi
  • Journalist Deonna Anderson read from ‘Homing Instinct’ by Dani McClain
  • Spiritual activist Lauren Kai read from ‘The Prisoner’s Wife’ By Asha Bandele
  • Performing artist Mallewi read ‘For My People’ by Margaret Walker

Episode 7: Time

Monday May 25, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 73]

Episode 6: Outdoors

Monday May 18, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 66]

  • Artist-hypnotist Marcos Lutyens read from ‘Mount Analogue’ by René Daumal
  • Performing artist Rohini Chandra read from ‘The Dog Stars’ by Peter Heller
  • Floral Designer Katia Zaharin Barrett read from ‘Memoirs’ by Pablo Neruda
  • Poet Kate Reavey read ‘San Juan River’ by Esther Belin, ‘Concerning Violence’ and ‘From The Tent on the Volcano’ by Ursula K Le Guin, and ‘Pearly Everlasting’ by Gary Snyder

Episode 5: Sensory

Monday May 11, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 59]

  • Eternal Student Alicia Zaklan read from ‘Three soldiers’ by John Dos Passos
  • Multi-hyphenate Ariel Banayan read from ‘Augustus’ by John Williams
  • Superorganism Kiri Bear read from ‘Sandtalk: how indigenous thinking can save the world’ by Tyson Yunkaporta
  • Historian Tom Griffiths read from ‘Gun Island’ by Amitav Ghosh

Episode 4: Purpose

Monday May 4, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 52]

  • Art historian Meredith Lancaster read from ‘Positive Obsession’ by Octavia E. Butler
  • Bricoleur Tim Ottman read from ‘Cloud-Hidden, whereabouts unknown’ by Alan Watts
  • Silversmith Brooke Macbeth read ‘The Five Boons of Life’ by Mark Twain
  • Writer/Director Bonnie Foster read ‘Wild Dreams of A New Beginning’ by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Episode 3: Life

Monday April 27, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 45]

Episode 2: Attentiveness

Monday April 20, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 38]

  • Scholar Char Miller read ‘In This Short Life’, ‘I Dwell in Possibility’, and ‘”Hope” is the thing with feathers’ by Emily Dickinson
  • The Off-Grid Guy Michael Mobbs read ‘An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow’ by Les Murray
  • Screenwriter Joe Petricca read the final speech from the script of ‘The Great Dictator’ by Charlie Chaplin
  • Yoga Therapist Melissa Adylia Calasanz read from ‘Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Episode 1: Wonder

Monday April 13, 2020 [Los Angeles Lockdown, Day 31]

  • Filmmaker Par Parekh read ‘The Elephant & the Butterfly’ by E.E. Cummings
  • Editor and permaculturist Jessica Perini read ‘Tonight I Can Write’, ‘Leaning Into The Afternoons’, and ‘Poet’s Obligation’ by Pablo Neruda
  • Palaeontologist and Cicerone Trevor S. Valle read ‘Being an Experiment Upon Strictly Scientific Lines’ by Neil Gaiman
  • Curator Tilly Hinton read ‘Walking in a Pandemic’ by Char Miller

Count me in!

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