The Midnight Edition Archive

A midnight obituary-radio fiction podcast.

Filed after midnight · Literary audio fiction

Each city edition gathers the fictional notices, objects, and motifs filed from a place mentioned in the stories. These are literary archives from the show's world, not local news records.

City Edition

Sacramento, California

Filed from J Street and the Gray Finch Hotel—a city where Corinne Applewhite carried a ruined book through the night audit and out into traffic.

City Edition

San Francisco, California

Reported from 11th and Dempsey, where Nadine Van Orman's brown wool coat held a private atlas of destinations written along the lining.

City Edition

Duluth, Minnesota

Reported from the Meridian Theatre on West Superior Street—Lake Superior wind, snow, a shuttered cinema, and a marquee that could not hold the word ELSEWHERE.

City Edition

Missoula, Montana

Filed from the Gallatin Community College Library north stacks, where books circulate in strange ways and names appear on cards that should not be there.

City Edition

Millersburg, Ohio

Filed from Millersburg Central High School country—a retired geography teacher who drew 214 maps of places he never visited and left a shoebox marked ISLANDS.

City Edition

Calaveras County, California

Reported from the Saint Bartholomew Volunteer Fire Department Harvest Fair— where Delbert Spoon entered the blueberry division after winning the apple.

City Edition

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Filed from the Candelaria Club—a salesman who sold lakefront parcels in Blue Mercy Shores, a development prosecutors called geographically impossible.

City Edition

Lark Street

Rainy Friday on Lark Street, between a closed tailor and a faded travel agency, where The Bacchanids sign stutters over the door and speed introductions promise one table, three questions, and no wasted time.

City Edition

Akron, Ohio

Filed from the Wilbeth Arms on the east stairwell—a six-story brick building where nine false alarms taught Marion Kells to pause until the tenth was real.

City Edition

Burbank, California

Reported from Carver Street—a rented house where Edward Vale rehearsed emergencies in the converted garage until Ruth stopped believing the phone would ever mean what it said.

City Edition

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Filed from a kitchen where Lenora Mae Fitch pressed her medical alert pendant once too often for the system to hear her when she finally said "I suppose I do."

City Edition

Fallow Creek, Pennsylvania

Reported from the old county school basement—where Gordon Pike tracked an amber auxiliary fault light from complaint to conclusion and entered alone when it stopped blinking.

City Edition

Fresno, California

Filed from Saint Brigid Hospital waiting area—where Ansel Reeve taught students to project but rated his own chest pain "maybe a four" and disappeared in the room.

City Edition

Muncie, Indiana

Reported from behind Plaza King Lanes—where Clyde Sutter hid stolen antlers, called in a fake stabbing, and said "No, really" into a phone nobody believed.

City Edition

St. Paul, Minnesota

Filed from the Orpheum Arms lobby—where Vivian Dole rehearsed one entrance too many and neighbors applauded before anyone understood the fall was not a bit.

City Edition

Tacoma, Washington

Reported from outside Tessa Lowe's apartment—where Arnie Price's Honda alarm had trained the block to ignore it until he died reaching for the dash at 1:42 a.m.

City Edition

Bandera, Texas

Filed from Crossroads Arena—where Rafe Dunlow knew where ridiculous stopped until the crowd laughed too early and survival felt like part of the act.

City Edition

Galveston, Texas

Reported from the Sea Herald Motor Lodge—where an empty swimming pool produced bright blue silence and Clara Vane demonstrated a fall her body still remembered as water.

City Edition

Harrowbend Ranch near Marrow Lake, Texas

Filed from Marrow Lake at drawdown—where Benton Ray Harrow drove his pale blue Amphicar down a cracked south ramp into shallow water, fence wire, and the memory of a lake.

City Edition

Kerrville, Texas

Reported from the Mesquite Room of the Cibolo Star Hotel—where Dr. Sibley Crane made medical vocabulary climb into a tuxedo until his own heart entered the room quietly.

City Edition

Llano, Texas

Filed from a small rented house outside Llano—where Mina Elise Voss left a blue clinic folder on the kitchen table and two live oak saplings waiting beside the porch.

City Edition

Port Isabel, Texas

Reported from the Lantern Gull Marina Restaurant—where a Panama hat landed in a restricted spillway and June Albright went after it because laughter can become an order without using the words.

City Edition

San Angelo, Texas

Filed from a Mallow ranch outside San Angelo—where Blake's survival twelve years ago became precedent and Teddy climbed onto a pickup hood because the family had mistaken survival for tradition.

City Edition

Hillside estate above Los Angeles

A private pool compound and breakfast terrace above the city — grapefruit, bishop-shaped coffee pot, white peacocks, grotto fountain, and a service turn where a dark car waits — the island Nelly made.

City Edition

Nelly's island above Los Angeles

Private hillside estate above the basin — moonless bedroom, painted-cloud stairwell, orchid room sprinklers, garage underworld, service gates, and a black sedan waiting under mildew tarp while the house burns selectively.

City Edition

Los Angeles basin / concrete river

Wet streets under ash rain, roadblocks, freeway fire, and the concrete flood channel where Virgil washes smoke from his mouth after the raft dies.

City Edition

LA River wash / concrete channel

A municipal flood channel under bridges where Virgil lies in ash and fever, and three young women pause at the chain-link with water, cloth, and a paper sack.