About the Podcast

“A slightly gentler, but equally insightful Twilight Zone.”

Very enjoyable, and thought provoking stories. I think Rod Serling would be impressed.
iTunes listener review – 2015-10-27

The podcast’s name intentionally infers these stories are not polished works of writing; instead, they are ideas, often quite spur of the moment, put out to our listeners to consider in their raw state.

Makeshift Stories has changed significantly since I started the podcast in 2008. The earliest episodes were serialized yarns intended to evolve with listener input and target a young audience.

Episode 22, “The Boy Who Loved Candy,” was a bedtime story I had made up on the fly for my son a few years earlier when I turned out the lights and was trying to get him to sleep. “The Boy Who Loved Candy” inspired the current anthology format of the podcast and at the end of the second year, I introduced a series called Somewhere Sometime, intended to be one-off bedtime stories unrelated to any specific genre.

In its current form, there are, occasionally, repeating characters and situations, so the podcast is more than just a collection of independent stories. As it evolves, one consistent aspect of Makeshift Stories is my commitment to keeping the content accessible to all ages and maintaining a clean rating.

Although I initially thought of Makeshift Stories as science fiction and fantasy, it never really fit into a single genre, and only a listener’s review made me realize what the stories had become.

“A slightly gentler but equally insightful Twilight Zone.”

I was flattered by the listener’s comparison of the podcast to the Twilight Zone. Their comment finally helped me identify the themes that run through the stories; mystery, wonderment and the unexplained. Like that venerable TV show, Makeshift Stories tries to cross that threshold in your mind leading to a universe where imagination runs free.

I hope my writing has improved over the years and you have as much fun listening as I do creating the podcast.

I hope you find something here to enjoy, and if you do, please tell your friends about us and feel free to share any story you listen to.

Alan V Hare (aka series producer Vern Hume)