With Rachael

There’s nothing wrong with having relationships before you get married. You have to get to know people to understand what qualities you really want in a partner, and what qualities you can’t have in a partner. I’m not married, but that sounds like a no brainer. In this story, we begin with a woman who knows that it’s wrong to pine over another man. She’s wrestling with herself to throw away the lo...

I love children’s tales, because I’m someone who’s prone to getting nightmares and I love stories that have an underlying message. The underlying message in this one is strong. When there is suffering all around, people need to step up and help their neighbors. Not just because it’ll come back to them in some way, but because it’s the right thing to do. This story is about a statue of the Happy Pr...

H.G. Wells does it again. He draws you in to a great story with tons of detail and makes it so you’re itching to find out how the story ends. We begin at the top of the year. Scientists see the solar system change, but yet none of the population notices until the star they warn people about starts to glow bigger and brighter. As it heads on collision course towards Earth, most people on the planet...

Charles Dickens isn’t someone I would go to for an interesting short story. I had read Great Expectations , A Tale of Two Cities , and I had watched A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey. I hadn’t read a short story by him though, so that made this episode an easy pick. What I didn’t expect in reading this one was that the same idea of inviting in the supernatural, ghosts and apparitions, and allowing...

Miss Brill goes to the same park at the same time every Sunday just to see what the other regulars are doing. She dresses to the 9s, listens into conversations, makes comments to herself about what the others are doing and how they look. It’s not long until she comes to the conclusion that everyone at the park has their own roll to play and that this Sunday is an actual play. The band playing is t...

Not only was H.G. Wells a fantastic author, but he was also a visionary. Topics that seemed abstract and impossible at the time of his writing have come true, and that was an exciting surprise in this short story. Let me know what you think! Be sure to like this episode and comment your thoughts! Goodnight, Rachael The music for this podcast was provided by Miles Agean. Check out his album, Alpeng...

Let me start by saying that I think this is the best short story I’ve read so far on this podcast. Maybe ever. Not because it’s about space, which typically gives us a phenomenal look into a new landscape we don’t quite understand and makes it easier for us to imagine the possibilities. It’s so good because it takes a simple action, that I’m sure many of us have done albeit not to this extent, and...

I’m sure we all know that Disney took inspiration from Brothers Grimm for some of their Princess movies! Today, we explore that by reading Briar Rose, and I challenge you (loosely because reading is fun) to find some movies that could have been based on this story. I had always heard that the original stories had dark twists so when I read this before recording the episode, I was patiently awaitin...

I miss children’s stories that teach morals and values like this one! Three sisters start chatting with each other about the husbands they’re going to have. When it’s time to pay up the youngest girl realizes that she has to actually marry the scary Black Bull of Norroway. Luckily he treats her well and she falls in love! I was so excited to see a woman on the list of short stories, and she didn’t...

The only reason I’m posting this episode is because it might be the most mellow I’ve ever been recording the podcast, and it shows. If you like this type of monotone, low energy delivery, let me know by leaving a comment. Now that that’s out of the way. I have to say something. If you can’t tell by my podcast cover, I’m a minority. I walk through this world as a black woman with a vast ethnic back...

It’s hard to talk about the greats without hearing the name Kurt Vonnegut, and that’s what made me terrified to read this short story. Everyone talks about how great he was in science fiction or his dark humor that was infused in every piece he created. His name speaks for itself, and as someone who can never watch or listen to things during the hype (it’s never as good as people say) I really wan...

The only thing I knew about Arthur Conan Doyle before launching this podcast was that he’s the creator of Sherlock Holmes. That detective we had to read about in high school. My first story was “The Hounds of Baskerville”, and it was pretty good. While searching for the next short story I saw there was a title that was unlike the others, “B24”. The title alone intrigued me, and I wanted to learn m...

This one is on the favorites list! It feels morbid if you take it at face value. Yeah, everyone’s buying a casket. It’s the new most exciting purchase. It takes over the airwaves, tv screens and department stores all over the country, even worldwide! It’s a farfetched idea that most would never put together, let alone expect from a short story. If you look at this story through the 2026 lens, infl...

Richard Connell is a repeat author on the With Rachael Podcast, and like the first episode featuring his work (episode 12) this short story has to do with a Prince.. kinda. Today’s story features a man who leaves New York City on the railroad without a destination in mind. When the train stops and he sees someone strange, he gets off of the train to investigate a city in which it seems the residen...

Welcome back to The With Rachael Podcast! The first episode this season is actually one of my favorites. This story follows our narrator that invents a “negative gravity” device that lives inside of a knapsack he can carry around with him. Because of the attention that may come with inventing something of this caliber, he and his wife decide to keep it a secret until they die and to allow their so...

Charlotte Perkins Gilman gave us “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and now she’s back with a different story. Mollie Mathewson wishes she were a man. Almost immediately after she makes that wish, she gets transported into her husband’s mind. In that mind he quickly forgets why they had a little argument, and runs to catch the train. As the men on the train are chatting, the train is moving, and she finds th...

I put a few authors we hadn’t read before on a random wheel and spun it. Unfortunately this is the story the wheel chose for us and I’m not really convinced the author or the story is actually something I’ll ever want to read again. The story isn’t bad, it just doesn’t fit what I would consider to be intriguing. The sentence structure is very long, and almost feels like the story is composed of ru...

We do what we can to mitigate the pain of heartbreak. Some people cry in bed. Some people eat everything they have in their fridge. Some people dust themselves off, put on a camel costume and go to a party. Our main character and his partner are minutes away from signing the marriage license when they break up. Since both of them are a part of the upper echelon, they have to understand that they’l...

If I ever meet Nathaniel Hawthorne in the afterlife, he’ll never know peace. This story is about a successful scientist named Aylmer who falls and love and marries the most beautiful woman, Georgiana. The men want to be with her. The women are jealous of her. The only flaw she has is a tiny birthmark in the shape of an infant hand on her cheek. The birthmark is a little red, so when she blushes, t...

I want to get something off my chest. I feel as though it’s been a long time since our last TRUE invention. A tangible thing that flips the entire world on its’ axis hasn’t been released in a long time. Don’t fight me. This story is all about an inventor investing all of his time and money into this flying machine. The papers, his community, and passersby mock him and laugh at this seemingly unatt...

Wow. What a story. The first story on this podcast that made me think, “I should call him… Actually, I most definitely should not. ” This story is written as a letter from one woman to an old lover. She’s actively running away from meeting him one last time because she realizes that nothing can come from another reunion. As the woman recounts the beautiful moments between them, oh so long ago, she...

Don’t let that first line fool you, this story is interesting and made me laugh. Each story I read, I get more of an idea of the time period it was written, themes that may have been important back then, and how language changes over time. In this one, I found that in detective stories, I want more detail on how the protagonists solves the crime or problem. I want the step by step process on how t...

Once again we start a story with someone who’s on “an adventure”. Unfortunately, it feels as though adventure is a code name for trespassing on private property and getting flipped upside down- literally and figuratively. Although this story is classified as a gothic, it seems more whimsy than dreadful and scary. The forest is alive and playing small tricks on Mr. Thomas, starting from the crossed...

Warning! This is a children’s story, but here are a few choice words. A Prince is on bedrest which means he can’t do what he loves most about the job, making appearances in front of his adoring fans! As the young Prince tries to feel well enough to assume his responsibilities, he quickly comes to understand what it means to be Royalty, and just how clueless he’s been. This story is a direct repres...

Aldous Huxley wrote one of my favorite books known to man, Brave New World. Since I read it the first time in 9th Grade Honors English, I knew that it and Aldous Huxley would remain in my life forever. The amount of detail in his writing made it difficult to read back in that time, but as a nosy gal who needs to know everything about everyone, I thoroughly enjoyed it. He, along with my English tea...