Worlds Without Warning

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud "Notch: The Lost Years" by Patricia Caspers — a fiction story about a woman named Alicia who has spent her whole life hiding a secret she's carried since infancy: a presence inside her body she calls Notchie, a turtle who has been whispering the word "girlfriend" since before Alicia knew what it meant. Part coming-of-...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud "The Closure of St. Jerome's Home for Foundlings" by Tamsin Liddell — a historical literary fiction story set in a Baltimore orphanage in the 1950s. Told from the perspective of Lucy Victoria, a blind girl found as an infant on V-E Day, this story follows three years of quiet transformation as the orphanage slowly emp...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new contemporary romance, "Texts after 3." Told entirely through late-night text messages over the course of a year, this story follows Nina, a coffee shop manager who can't sleep, and Adam, a middle school English teacher who can't either. What starts as a post–New Year's check-in between strangers slowly becomes...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud "The Stranger in Apartment 3A, First Floor" by Mirav Levy — a ghost story told entirely from the ghost's perspective. You can find the written version right here. About the Author Mirav Levy is a speculative and horror Latina-SWANA writer who is passionate about creating emotionally resonant stories that stalk messy b...

In this special bonus episode of Worlds Without Warning, Jon Negroni reads aloud "The Big Black Square" by Kasey Soska. He also shares Soska's author notes. You can find the written version right here. About the Author Kasey Soska is a professional science nerd and novice fiction writer. His PhD in developmental psychology is from New York University. His academic research has appeared in Developm...

In this special bonus episode of Worlds Without Warning, Jon Negroni reads aloud "a Special Bond" by Marco Etheridge. He also shares editor's notes on why this story was published in Cetera Magazine . You can find the written version right here. About the Author Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work ha...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new short story "Second Run," which was published on January 15, 2026. He also shares his author's notes on the story behind this story. You can find the written version right here. About the Author Jon Negroni is a Puerto Rican author and illustrator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His published books include The...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud "Hành Tinh Thu Doesn’t Welcome You" by C. Inanen. He also shares editor's notes on why this story was published on Cetera Magazine . You can find the written version right here. About the Author C. Inanen lives in the Midwest, USA. His work has been most recently published in  Yellow Mama  magazine. I...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new speculative romance story, "No Regrets." You can find the written version right here. About the Author Jon Negroni is a Puerto Rican author and illustrator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His published books include The Pixar Theory (Slimbooks, 2015) and his debut fantasy novel Killerjoy (5050 Press, 2017). He'...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new literary fiction story, "You're the Best." You can find the written version of "You're the Best" right here. About the Author Jon Negroni is a Puerto Rican author based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His published books include The Pixar Theory (Slimbooks, 2015), a pop culture nonfiction, and his debut fantasy novel...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new literary fiction story, "Holiday Party." You can find the written version of "Holiday Party"  right here. About the Author Jon Negroni is a Puerto Rican author based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His published books include The Pixar Theory (Slimbooks, 2015), a pop culture nonfiction, and his debut fantasy nov...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni, Natalia Emmons, and Bridget Serdock present their collaborative cozy ghost story, "Someone Lived There Too." Set in an off-season Cape Cod rental cottage, this story follows Rena, an artist struggling with creative paralysis, who discovers that the old house she's staying in hasn't quite let go of its previous inhabitants. Blending sl...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new atmospheric horror story, "The Caller Isn't Human." Set during the graveyard shift at an all-night laundromat, this story follows Ray, a night-shift worker, through the hours between 2 and 4 a.m. when a payphone outside begins ringing at precise intervals, people start vanishing without explanation, and something be...

Special thanks to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast for sponsoring this week's story.  Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new speculative horror story, "The Petals Beneath Her Tongue." Set in a near-future where emotions can be extracted and sold as consumable flavors, this story follows Vera Salazar, a disgraced influencer who signs a contract with Sav...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new literary horror story, "Housekeeping for the Dead." Set during the night shift at the Starlight Motel, this story follows a housekeeper who cleans seven rooms while five stay locked, encountering different versions of the same dying woman in each one. Blending grief with supernatural repetition and the mundane detai...

Special thanks to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast for sponsoring this week's story.  Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud "The Morrow Twins," a gothic horror story by Natalia Emmons, Cetera's managing editor making her fiction debut. Set in the fictional coastal town of Greyport, Massachusetts, this story follows Iris, who returns home for the funeral of ch...

Special thanks to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast for sponsoring this week's story.  Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new fantasy story, "I Am the Wolf, I Am the Boy." Set in the mysterious Singing Woods, this story follows Ilen, a traveling bard searching for stories, who encounters Corrin, a young man cursed to transform into a wolf and forget any...

Special thanks to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast for sponsoring this week's story.  Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his dark fantasy story, "Songs for the Dead and Drowning," which is a fan favorite originally published in May that we've been eager to share in audio form. Set in a fantasy version of Caribbean waters influenced by Taíno folklore...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new magical realism story, "The Archivist." Set in Oakland, this story follows Isandro, a DJ who returns home from a late-night gig to find a mysterious woman in his apartment cataloguing all of his personal absences, which include missed calls, unsent birthday cards, and broken promises that have accumulated over the y...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new thriller story, "End of the Line." Set on Chicago's Blue Line during the late-night shift, this story follows Lily, a train conductor whose routine crossword puzzle is interrupted by a mysterious voice on an old radio frequency claiming there's a killer on board. Blending real-time suspense with transit procedural d...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new speculative contemporary fiction story, "Behavioral Pause." Set in our near future, this story follows Eleanor, who volunteers for a clinical trial testing a drug designed to help people control their verbal impulses by creating a neural delay between thought and speech. Blending pharmaceutical science fiction with...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new contemporary literary fiction story, "We Should Celebrate." Set in Charlotte, North Carolina, this story follows Elena and Noah, roommates whose carefully maintained boundaries are tested when Elena receives a job offer that will take her across the country. Blending understated prose with emotional complexity inspi...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new dark fantasy horror story, "The Hunger Beneath the Warrens." Set in a world of interconnected rabbit warrens bound by ancient magic, this story follows Captain Vetch of Thornburrow as he faces an undead infection that spreads through fallen communities, turning the dead into something far more dangerous than corpses...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his literary folk horror story, "A Butcher's Fable", which was originally published in April and now features a new edit by Natalia Emmons and fresh artwork by the author. Set in the fictional Caribbean coastal town of Bahía Roja, this story follows Juan Albizú, a meticulous butcher whose pristine shop becomes...

Welcome back to Worlds Without Warning. This week, Jon Negroni reads aloud his new horror fiction story, "Frequency." Set at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, this story follows Christian, a DJ performing as the opening act to an indifferent crowd while nursing fresh rejection from his partner. Blending electronic music culture with body horror and psychological terror, the story explo...