About NightLull

I’m Joseph McGrath. My girlfriend has insomnia, and the only thing that consistently gets her to sleep is a bedtime story, read aloud, by me.

Before we met she fell asleep to audiobooks. They helped, a little. But a voice you trust and love, in the same room, a little too slow, is better than any narrator. It isn’t really about the story. It’s about being read to by someone who is there.

After a while I ran out of things to read. Children’s books are written for children. Novels are written to keep you awake. Sleep-story apps read to you in a stranger’s voice, which is the one thing I was trying not to do. So I started writing stories for her, and then I built NightLull so anyone who reads to someone they love has a good one ready every night.

The stories are short, calm and a little dry. Nothing frightening happens. Every one ends by slowing down, so the last page can be read at a whisper, and if she is asleep before the end, that is the story doing its job.

How the stories are written

The stories in the free library are drafted with the help of an AI model, then read aloud and edited by hand before they are published. Anything that stumbled when spoken, sounded generic, or broke the rules of a bedtime story was rewritten or cut. The rhyming ones are checked line by line for metre.

Inside the app, NightLull also writes new stories on request and the next chapter of a serial for tomorrow night. Those are written for the person you read to, using the same rules, and are private to your account. When one turns out especially well, it may be edited and added to the public library.

What it costs

Reading the library is free and needs no account. Signing in gives you tonight’s story chosen for you, a log of the nights you’ve read together, and serials. Those parts will be a small subscription once they leave beta.

If a story didn’t read well, or there is one you would like to see, tell me: hello@nightlull.com.