The Ten-Minute Storyteller

The Ten-Minute Storyteller

Want to hear some entertaining stories but don't have a lot of time? Here's your ticket to ride. The Ten-Minute Storyteller arrives packed with humor, pathos, humanity, and originality… in ten minutes or less. All stories written and narrated by Bill Simpson, an acclaimed novelist who has, after many years in the kitchen, perfected the short short story.

Episodes

July 17, 2025 10 mins

This week we meet Joey. Joey’s in a bit of a pickle, got himself stuck in the jar with the lid screwed on tight, and he’s not at all sure how to extricate himself. 

It was all fun and good times for a while, well, for a very short while, but now, not so much. Just a lotta stress and three snot-nosed kids. 

Take a listen to learn how the human race guarantees its survival through procreation.

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Mark as Played

This week we meet Dan. Dan has reached the top of the heap. He stands atop the Citadel. 

Dan is a very powerful guy. The most powerful guy around. 

Dan has untold legions who hang on his every word. Who love to death is fiery rhetoric in support of White Supremacy and Male Dominion.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
July 3, 2025 12 mins

This week we meet Shelia. She’s had it up to her eyeballs with her two-timing husband. A liar and a serial cheater.

But she can’t think about that right now. The house has been invaded by yellow jackets. Can’t think about anything else till she rids the house of yellow jackets.

Shelia grabs her phone, races outside, and calls the exterminator.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
June 26, 2025 10 mins

This week we meet Joe. Joe’s not really enjoying life. 

Joe’s stuck. In a sort of emotional quicksand. He can’t pull himself out. Doesn’t know what to do or where to turn. 

Joe blames his confinement on his wife, his kids, his job, his friends, but just under the surface Joe knows who’s really to blame. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
June 19, 2025 12 mins

This week we meet Guy. Guy needs underwear. Heads for the mall. Where some white kids get tangled up with some black kids. The N-word careens around the food court. One kid pushes another kid. Fists fly. Blood spills. 
 
The cops arrive. Put the white kid in a chair, the black kid on the floor. Tempers flare. Guns drawn. 
 
What’s Guy going to do? What’s Guy going to say? 

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Mark as Played
June 12, 2025 12 mins

This week we meet Sara. And her father, Judge Sammy Deleto. Sara has been raped. Or so she says. The Judge is aghast. Appalled. Angry. 
 
And even more so when he finds out the rapist was... my God... Black. 
 
His Anger turns to Alarm when she tells him she’s... pregnant! 
 
“Good Lord!” shouts the Great Defender of the Womb. “This... this cannot stand!”...

Mark as Played
May 29, 2025 13 mins

This week we meet Sock. Every evening Sock and various companions meet at the park to go for a walk and discourse on a variety of lofty topics.  

On this particular evening, cold and blustery, it appears it will only be Sock and his faithful hound Sally. But just as they set off, a young lady appears and together the trio ambles up Lyceum Hill.  

Soon talk turns to Camus' Four Conditions for Happiness. A lively ...

Mark as Played
May 22, 2025 15 mins

This week we meet Jake. Cold and windy at the summit, but Jake's determined to make one last run. His buds say no way, done for the day, but Jake moves to the beat of his own drummer. He leaves the warmth and camaraderie of the lodge, steps into his Atomics, and heads for the lift. 
 
Trouble is, there's a perfect storm brewing. Wind, cold, snow, party at the tech billionaire's ski lodge, obstinance, and lift operat...

Mark as Played
May 15, 2025 13 mins

This week we meet Dick. Dick’s at wit’s end. Bill Monroe owes Patrolman Dick Benson ten grand. Has owed the police officer ten grand for nearly two years. Dick wants his dough.  

And more than wants it, Dick needs it. For his family. His wife and daughter. On several occasions he has begged and pleaded with Monroe to fork over the cash. All to no avail. 
 
Well now Dick has a plan. A crazy-ass ...

Mark as Played
May 8, 2025 12 mins

This week we meet Mac. Mac’s on vacation. With his wife and teenage kids. They drove down to Duck on the Outer Banks. For a week of sun and fun. 
 
Mac’s not happy. Mac dislikes vacations. Hates sitting around on his duff. But he has to tow the line. Can’t irritate the wife. Ruin it for the others. 
 
The days grind on. Mac starts to ruminate. Recalls his spring break to Key West ba...

Mark as Played
April 24, 2025 11 mins

This week we meet Noah. Noah’s known loneliness. Been well acquainted. Knew it as a kid when his older sibs left the nest. Knew it in college freshman year without a bud in sight. 

But he definitely didn’t expect to experience the emotion now. Not now as a middle-aged guy with a wife and three daughters. A crazy, chaotic life. Busy busy all the time.  

But here she blows, that old foe loneliness, roiling ...

Mark as Played
April 17, 2025 13 mins

This week we meet Sam. The suits at corporate tell Sam to go home. Relax. Enjoy life. He no longer needs to report to the office. 
 
Sam, baffled but delighted, heads home. Tells Shelley. She’s dubious. Wants the details. 
 
“Chill, Shel,” Sam tells her. “It’s the new economy.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
April 10, 2025 10 mins

This week we meet Bull. Tim Bull. Bull was a heck of a high school athlete. Big. Strong. Fast. 
 
Bull had a dream. He dreamed of a world without rancor. A world where cooperation, not competition, ruled the roost. 
 
Bull’s middle age now, where Dreams go to die.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
April 3, 2025 12 mins

This week we meet PFC Andy Walker. When the IED exploded and ripped through the Humvee, PFC Walker, on his very first patrol, survived, but with his brain scrambled.  
 
So now he walks. Walks and walks. Seven days a week. PFC Walker—another victim of The War. 
 
Any War. 
 
Every War.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
March 27, 2025 12 mins

This week we meet Carl. Carl’s made his dough. Occupies the corner office. He’s traveled the world. Bought the beach house and the fishing boat and the snazzy fleet of cars. 

Too bad he hasn’t been able to escape the past. The war. The damn war. He’s tried everything but he can’t silence the explosions. The relentless explosions.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
March 20, 2025 13 mins

This week we meet Reverend Johnson. Reverend Johnsonlikes to run out of gas. In the old days heliked to run out for spiritual reasons. These days his reasons are more bodily in nature.But no matter, spiritual or physical, the Revhas found a way, as humans so aptly do, to justify hiscarnal delights while pledging his faith to God. And to Jesus.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
March 13, 2025 14 mins

This week we meet Bev. Not so very long ago Bev was single, happy and wild. Then 30 hit, maternal hormones raged, and, well, here we are. With hubby in the suburbs and four kids under three.  
 
4 under 3! Yikes!  
 
Will she make it? Survive the gauntlet? Hard to say. She’s already at wit’s end. And the day has only just begun. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
March 6, 2025 15 mins

This week we meet the Smites. The Smites have dough. A large portfolio. And an almost desperate need to travel, even during the height of the Covid scare in the late summer of 2020 when they decide to take a little trip to the Bahamas. 

While up at MIT their only child, David, works eighteen hours a day on his messenger RNA research in the hope of finding a vaccine for the dreaded virus

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy i...

Mark as Played
February 27, 2025 13 mins

This week we meet Gordon. Or Gordo as he prefers to be called.

Gordo has a cushy job with the old man’s construction company. Record keeper for a big Port Authority job at the passenger ship terminals. Plenty of time to do his two favorite things: Read & Write. Gordo wants to be a novelist. Of import. A Twain. A Melville. A Marquez.

But can he withstand the pressures? The family pressures. Peer pressures. Financial pressu...

Mark as Played
February 6, 2025 11 mins

This week we meet Liam.Liam works for AAPT (Animals Are People Too). It’s a tough job, as dailyhe has to make sure livestock animals are being treated humanely before destruction.Prior to this employment, Liam worked as a deckhand on freighters that circled the globe. He led a wild, carefree life, boozing and whoring his way from Boston to Bangkok to Buenos Aires. Until that day on the Black Sea off the coast of Romania...

See...

Mark as Played

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Bill Simpson

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