In 2018, the first year I started making audio drama (also known as fiction podcasts) after becoming a fan of the medium myself, I was on an overnight red eye flight back home from visiting a friend. As the dim, cramped, claustrophobic Spirit Airlines cabin rumbled and the hours dragged on, I needed a way to distract myself. I put on my headphones and pulled up my podcatcher. I began with the first episode of GONE, a psychological horror podcast about a person who has suddenly awoken in a dark world where everyone else has vanished. As I listened to Sunny Moraine’s voice describe the haunting terror that filled this new world, I drifted. I felt myself drawn down into the darkness and the dread. I was swaddled by it, and despite the tiny seats and the kids crying and the people talking at two in the morning… I drifted off to sleep.
Why would people take comfort in horror stories? Why does audio drama seem particularly good at creating the kinds of stories that comfort listeners through gruesome tales, monsters, and ghosts?
Lisette Alvarez 