Solitaire Stories by Andy Hoover

About Solitaire Stories by Andy Hoover

After about a year of tinkering, I have invented a new method of quickly writing pieces of short fiction. I plan to spend 2026 testing and refining this method by using it to craft a brand-new short story… every single day of the year! This experimental storytelling method requires only a standard pack of playing cards (plus a notebook, or whatever) and a commitment to follow the suggested narrative road wherever it leads. I've always loved writing, but have struggled with finishing anything, largely because I'm an inveterate tinkerer with perfectionist tendencies, a penchant for over-complicated plot-lines and world-building, and a fear of failure (and probably success, too). I have decided to short-circuit these liabilities and confront these fears and leave my fate to the whims of cartomancy, which I understand is the practice of divining one's fate via playing cards. I did not research this practice much, nor will I do much research of any kind on behalf any of the stories emerging from this project; this inherent messiness, in the service of consistency and experimental fidelity, is my promise to you. The mission statement of this whole project is that short fiction is easy (or at least fun) to write if you don't particularly care about it being perfect, and are willing to allow certain quasi-structural guardrails to both challenge and guide your story as you go. I think short fiction writing is an important skill (or pursuit) to nurture for everyone who loves reading, writing, or storytelling. I hope this podcast will serve as a proof of concept of sorts: that there is an infinite number of possible stories out there waiting to be discovered, and we only need to give ourselves permission to discover them. I can't guarantee that any of these stories will be much good, but I'm going to write and share them anyway. With any luck you'll find one you like! For extra content (and to support Solitaire Stories, if you're so inclined), please check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AndyHoover (https://www.patreon.com/c/AndyHoover).

Publisher

Andy Hoover

Category

fiction

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

8 Jan 2026

Latest episode

29 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

40 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   29 Oct 2026

   Wanted Alive (Story #151)

   This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on 8/13/26. This one's set in a (decidedly ahistoric and pastiche-like) gold mining camp in the very early 20th Century. Into this hardscrabble community comes an Eastern city slicker, purportedly searching for his famous hermit father, the semi-legendary Old Man of Spider Hill. At first the camp is skeptical of his intentions, but in time they become inspired by the young man's tireless and uncomplaining search for his missing (and mythical) pa. Winter brings with it multiple reversals of fortune; will the camp survive the reckoning?

2. 

   22 Oct 2026

   Anyone But Lisa Fish (Story #146)

   This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on August 6th, 2026. In the waning days of the Ed Bashir Show, a junior talent booker tasked with assembling the venerable host's final panel feels a self-destructive impulse to tank the whole assignment. He waffles between wanting to do a good job and wanting to do a provocatively bad job, and struggles mightily with both endeavors. He has a bit of a breakdown by the end of it, but perhaps he'll come out better on the other side.

3. 

   14 Oct 2026

   The Adonis Situation (Story #167)

   This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on 9/10/26. In this one, an absurdly handsome and charismatic waiter causes unexpected problems for a consortium of restaurateurs, including their de facto leader, who since his second divorce has been really going through it. The latter man suffers a heart attack but comes through it a better (or at least less internally conflicted) sort of person.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

9 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

9 ratings

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.