254 avsnitt • Längd: 75 min • Veckovis: Tisdag
Conversations with the biggest names in horror fiction. A podcast for horror readers who want to know where their favourite stories came from . . . and what frightens the people who wrote them.
The podcast Talking Scared is created by Neil McRobert. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
Brian Keene has written so many damn books!
…and I had never read any of them.
This absolute horror faux-pas (and my embarrassment) is the reason that it’s taken so long to get Brian on the show. But I set a week aside and read as many Keene books as I could and here we are… on a leisurely stroll through Brian’s life and career,both of which he has devoted to stories of really nasty s*** happening to undeserving people.
We talk abouthis bleak coming-of-age novel, Ghoul, his story of a homicidal nightfrom hell, The Complex, and his sombre study of mortality and writing inthe 21st century, The End of the Road.
And between all that we cover hope and nihilism, we ask if horror could help shore up the failing centre, and Brian talks me through all the great writers I missed when I wasn’t paying enough attention to horror.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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I’ve been looking forward to releasing this one…
Nat Cassidy comes to Talk Scared about When the Wolf Comes Home, his new novel that I –and people like me – are already calling out as one of the Best Books of the Year™.
It’s a shaggy, undisciplined, sprinting beast of a book that obeys no rules. You may think it’s a werewolf novel, and you may be right... but also very wrong. It’s a book about transformations of many kinds, about fatherhood and the very nature of fear itself. But it’s also funny, scary and sad as hell.
You’ll love the damn thing, and this conversation.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy
Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy
Play Nice (forthcoming, 2025), by Rachel Harrison
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Back to the 80s this week for one of the most singular horror movies of the year – now streaming on Shudder.
Dead Mail is an ode to the era, but there are no neon fonts or leg warmers (or Olivia Newton Johns) here. Instead we’re in the drear of the decade, for a story about a synth-obsessed man who keeps his business partner captive in his flock-wallpapered bathroom. The poor victim’s only hope is the investigative ‘Dead Mail’ department of his local post office.
If that sounds mad… well, it is. And I’m joined by Kyle McConaghy, one half of the writing/directing duo behind the movie.
We talk about scripting the crazy, about the hands-on reality of low-budget filmmaking, replicating 80s aesthetics, and a big bucket full of rubber rats.
Enjoy!
Dead Mail is streaming on Shudder from Friday 18th April
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In the week that the world changed, we’re talking about the last time things got this crazy.
Katherine Arden is the author of The Warm Hands of Ghosts — a novel set in the trenches of the First World War and on the borderline between horror and fantasy. It’s a Faustian pact made in No-Man’s Land, where our memories are the price we pay for keeping ourselves alive.
In this episode we talk a lot about history, about inflection points and moments of no-return. We talk about how systems of power can seem so complex that they lead only to ruin – but we also talk devils and fairies and angels and brave, brave nurses with scarred hands.
It’s a joy of a conversation, about the most hideous time to be alive.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to [email protected]
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This week we go from Edinburgh, Scotland to Nashville, Tennessee, in the company of crime author Tariq Ashkanani.
Tariq’s The Midnight King is a tricky, quasi-metafictional murder mystery about cursed manuscripts, familial secrets and the most heinous murders. It’s also a love letter to the kind of occult-tinged American crime epics that both he and I grew up loving.
We talk about the challenge of writing about serial killing without exploitation, about the unstable boundary between crime and horror fiction, about the allure of Hannibal Lecter and the pressure of a good twist.
But mostly we just pay homage to the messy, bloodsoaked myth of America that inspired us so much over the years.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to [email protected]
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Time to throw ourselves around. We’re covering Punk Goes Horror.
The anthology of stories inspired by punk and alternative rock songs came out just a few weeks back. It brings together a mosh-pit full of authors, both new and established, to transmute their favourite songs into nasty little stories.
I invited the anthology editor, William Sterling, and two of his contributors, Wendy Dalrymple and Brian McCauley, to talk about punk, and horror and the affinity between the two.
We get into our favourite ever gig experiences, the creepy assumptions behind certain emo-songs, and why punk (and music generally) is such an important light in dark times.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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The second Let Us Palaver minisode – in which Nat Cassidy dig into the things we couldn't say about The Drawing of the Three, and give MAJOR SPOILERS about whole Dark Tower series.
We're really start to wonder if Chris is punking us.
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The Ka-tet picks up exactly where we left off: on the beaches of Midworld, with Roland Deschain. (If none of that makes any sense to you, go listen to episode one of the Dark Tower Deep Dive immediately)
Nat Cassidy, Chris Panatier and I gather for a long, philosophical, expletive-littered conversation about Book 2: The Drawing of the Three. We get further into the character of Roland and his quest, and spend some time with the gaggle of oddballs he meets along his scenic tour of the coast. The seafood is particularly tasty!
It’s good to be talking Tower again.
Enjoy.
Nnedi Okorafor's article on Odetta/Detta
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It’s always great when Stephen Graham Jones comes to Talk Scared with us – but for once we aren’t talking about slashers!
No, this time, we’re talking vampires! Or are we?
Stephen’s new novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, is his best yet. Or at least the one that I love the most. It’s an epic and brutal saga of American history and shame, told through three very distinctive voices, speaking across the centuries. There are monsters with fangs AND with flags.
We talk about Stephen’s relationship with so-called Indian stories…about his use and misuse of animals in fiction, and the white-knuckle, red-hot writing style that leads to some truly crazy things.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
Support Talking Scared on Patreon
Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch
Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to [email protected]
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Saddle up for a weird west week on Talking Scared. The start of a loose trilogy of sorts.
This first instalment features Alex Grecian, talking about his fantastical vision of the Old West (and East) in 2023’s Red Rabbit and the brand-new follow-up, Rose of Jericho.
We cover western inspirations, the melancholia of ghosts, Kansas legends and surprising witches. There’s also a nerdy little cryptid section thrown in there too cos you know I can’t resist.
It’s a charmer this week. With a glint in its eye.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch
Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to [email protected]
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No one is doing dystopia right now like Agustina Bazterrica.
After Tender is the Flesh made us all consider vegetarianism, now she’s back for a long hard look at patriarchy, religion and populism in The Unworthy.
It’s a quiet end of the world, set almost entirely in the confines of a strange convent, and the cult who will do anything to maintain their power.
We talk about how Agustina finds the necessary voice of her characters, why love is just another form of madness, how science-fiction just can’t look away from misogyny, and how she once read five books to find a new word for penis.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch
Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to [email protected]
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The latest Off Book episode has me facing my demons.
My guest is Scott Derrickson, one of the best horror movie makers to ever do it. He scared us with Sinister, moved us with The Black Phone, marvelled us with Doctor Strange, and ruined my life with The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
He’s back with The Gorge, a mad genre mashup, starring Anya-Taylor Joy and Miles Teller, currently streaming on Apple+.
Scott joins me for a leisurely conversation about making that artistically-inclined ‘drive-in’ movie, as well as a tour through the highs (and lows) of his filmography.
We get into the beauty and terror of super 8 film, his relationship with Joe Hill, and the challenge of the substantial, character led horror film. All complemented with blasts of lilting birdsong from Scott’s LA garden.
Plus, a little hint of what to expect from The Black Phone 2!
Enjoy!
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Ready to hear a conversation about some devastatingly dark things?
Sophie White and I have got you covered!
In this expansive chat, we talk about her calculatingly distressing novel, Where I End – in which an isolated island community plays host to the worst, cruellest kind of loneliness. And that books is a springboard for others things, psychosis, weaponised empathy, real-life atrocity and the way that all that darkness can seep into a place forever.
But then we also have a good old chat about books we love, and we swear a lot… so there’s a bright side.
This is a key conversation for me. A pivotal episode.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch
Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to [email protected]
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The title speaks volumes this week. It’s a mission statement.
Kirsty Logan is the master of certain kind of edgy, on-the-margins fiction, Queer in every meaning of the word. She can be witchy and folkloric, or contemporary and cutting edge – and all of that range is showcased in her new collection, No & Other Love Stories.
We talk about female desire and monstrous fantasy, formal experimentation and the personal logic of stories…and some reassuringly unsettling focus on the erotics of human flesh and menstruation.
Don’t say we shy away here at Talking Scared.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]
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Time to misbehave.
Virginia Feito’s new novel, Victorian Psycho, is all about good behaviour, positive standards and polite conduct…and what happens when you flout all that, by – I dunno – slaughtering a houseload of people.
It’s a much buzzed about book that takes the psychopathy of American Psycho back to the straightlaced, be-corseted world of the 19th Century, then let’s rip. We talk about glorious violence, the humour of extremity, Charles Dickens and Bret Easton Ellis…and have a deeply amusing conversation about infanticide.
Queen Victorian would be appalled.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]
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Are you hungry?
Depending on your…erm… tastes, the next hour of conversation will do strange things to your appetite. Our guest is Lucy Rose, whose debut novel, The Lamb renders muscle and fat and sorrow down into a rich stew of cannibalism and rural Gothic.
We talk about how rooted this book is in the landscape, history and folklore of Northern England – and we also talk a lot about eating people. How to make it sound gross… how to make it sound weirdly poetic.
This is a book that’s gonna get people talking.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Here is the first Let Us Palaver minisode – in which Nat Cassidy and I kick Chris off the call, and get to grips with the inner workings of The Dark Tower, without spoiling anything for him, or any of you on your first trip through these books.
If you still listen after this spoiler warning and the two I give in the first few minutes of the episode… well, you only have yourself to blame.
But for seasoned ‘slingers. I hope this is fun.
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“The man in black fled across the desert, and the podcaster followed…”
Welcome to the start of what is sure to be an epic journey. Step by step, over more than a dozen episodes, Talking Scared will be following the beam all the way to the Dark Tower – that mad edifice at the heart of Stephen King’s opus. Maybe it’s the heart of every story ever told… time will tell.
Unlike Roland Deschain, I don’t go alone. I’m joined by author and fellow King-nut, Nat Cassidy (Mary, Nestlings, When the Wolf Comes Home) and absolute newbie, Chris Panatier (The Phlebotomist, The Redemption of Morgan Bright) and in this first ever episode we tussle with the tricky, dusty, thorny opening that is Book One: The Gunslinger.
What follows dives deep into the book, but is 100% spoiler free about anything beyond it. So if you’ve only read The Gunslinger, you’re good to go.
I hope you enjoy our wanderings. I hope you tinct. I hope you darkle.
Other books mentioned:
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The latest Off Book episode takes you out to the American desert and leaves you there, cold, alone and confused.
We’re speaking with Dutch Marich, the surprisingly lovely mind behind the most terrifying found footage I’ve seen in years – The Horror in the High Desert series.
These films are full of a particular kind of fear. Never obscure, but always hidden – leaving you as fascinated as you are scared. It’s the kind of weird, collective storytelling that used to set internet forums alight!
In this 100% spoiler-free conversation, Dutch and I talk about withholding answers, we discuss the scary side of Nevada and his fascination with unexplained disappearances. And he even tell us the tenuous connection between his movies and Stephen King’s Desperation.
Plus, if you’re a fan of these movies, you’ll find out a little info on what’s coming in the next instalment.
Enjoy!
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Tyranny is the key this week on Talking Scared this week. How fitting.
Susan Barker’s Old Soul is a globe-trotting, decade-spanning supernatural tour of autocracies, from behind the Iron Curtain to contemporary China. If that isn’t frightening enough, it also features an ageless woman who curses anyone she meets, a grand cosmic entity, and the exhilaration and terror of deep time.
Heady stuff, and Susan and I talk about all of it – and just why she likes to write about as many times and places in each book as she can.
Enjoy.
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It’s a collegial week on Talking Scared. ‘Cos I’m talking dark, occult academia with someone very local to me.
Kate van der Borgh’s debut, And He Shall Appear is basically a sinister version of my own life. It’s about a young working class lad, like me, who goes to a prestigious university, like me… but there ours paths diverge, as he meets a fellow student who perhaps has diabolical powers.
It’s a twisted, obscure, psychological study of unreliable memory, inescapable guilt, and the haunting of not-knowing oneself. Kate and I talk about all of that, as well as the class divide, northern accents, the terror of infinity, favourite ghosts stories, and memories of underrage drinking in the same bars.
The book is great. I’m delighted to help celebrate it.
Enjoy.
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Welcome back and Happy New Year. 2025 looms ahead. Frightening. Uncertain. Crazy!!
Our first guest of the year has written the book that best captures this mad future we’re living in. Clay McLeod Chapman returns to Talking Scared, to talk about Wake Up And Open Your Eyes – his new novel of mass demonic possession, transmitted through poisonous media, and the destruction of families and communities.
It’s… disturbing.
It’s also gross as hell. Deliciously so. And we talk about that urge for the the ick! As well as his motivations in writing this book, his anxiety over releasing it, and the sadness that underlies our political echo chambers.
It’s a hell of a way to kick off a wild, weird year.
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How else to end 2024 than with an entirely subjective list of the best things I’ve read over the year?
How many of you will guess the number one spot? I bet none of you will guess the number two?
Let me know your thoughts – what you loved, and what you think I missed
Enjoy!
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It’s that time of year again. When I celebrate the winter solstice by getting some horror authors to come and talk in deep, emotional detail about a scary book that we like.
This time the Christmas Special Deep Dive kicks the tires and looks under the hood of Stephen King’s most underrated novel: From a Buick 8. My friends on this weird-ass-road trip are Ally Malinenko and Nat Cassidy. I asked them to do it for a coupla reasons. 1) They are lovely 2) hey really get King, and 3) they can speak to this book’s focus on grief and loss.
And oh boy do we talk grief, loss, afterlives and everything else. Turns out it’s not just a book about a car after all.
Don’t worry though, Ally is charming, Nat is snarky and together we’ll make you laugh.
And Christmas is supposed to be tinged with melancholy isn’t it…
Enjoy!
Other Books Mentioned
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… and we’re back! Just in time for this seasonal tradition. The State of the Horror Nation 2024 – our expert-led review of the best that the year had to offer in terms of horror writing and pen-and-ink nightmares.
I’m joined, as ever by my stalwart co-host for this gig, Emily Hughes, author of Horror For Weenies (go check her mammoth 2025 anticipated horror book list at ReadJumpScares.com)
Our special correspondents are Anna Dupre, reviewer and interviewer at Anna Rose Reads, and Stephani Gagnon of the landmark, can’t-be-beaten horror podcast, Books In the Freezer
They pick their books of 2024, and we talk about the things that have defined the year, whilst also looking forward to what’s next.
Enjoy!
https://filmfreakcentral.net/2024/10/terrifier-3-2024/
Books Picked
The Eyes Are the Best Part (2024), by Monika Kim
Cuckoo (2024), by Gretchen Felker-Martin
American Rapture (2024), by C.J. Leede
Woodworm (2024), by Layla Martinez
Horror Movie (2024) by Paul Tremblay
Night’s Edge (2024), by Liz Kerin
So Thirsty (2024), by Rachel Harrison
Model Home (2024), by Rivers Solomon
I Was a Teenage Slasher (2024), by Stephen Graham Jones
Books Anticipated
Victorian Psycho (2025), by Virginia Feito
The Poorly Made (2025), by Sam Rebelein
The Unworthy (2025), by Augustina Bazterrica
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025), by Stephen Graham Jones
Bat Eater (2025), by Kylie Lee Baker
Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread (2025), by Leila Taylor
The Haunting of Room 904 (2025), by Erika T. Wurth
8114 (2025),by Joshua Hull
When the Wolf Comes Home (2025), by Nat Cassidy
Senseless (2025), by Ronald Malfi
King Sorrow (2025), by Joe Hill
And He Shall Appear (2025), by Kate van der Borgh
Nowhere Burning (2025), by Catriona Ward
Girl in the Creek (2025), by Wendy Wagner
The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre (2025), by Philip Fracassi
The End of the World As We Know It: Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand (2025), edited by Brian Keene and Christopher Golden
Old Soul (2025), by Susan Barker
rekt (2025), by Alex Gonzalez
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (2025), by Clay McLeod Chapman
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This is the last way-back episode before the show returns with a scream next week.
But this is an episode worth remembering – my first ever conversation with Catriona Ward, about her game-changing The Last House on Needless Street too!
This was a big ask for a novice interviewer. How the hell do you talk about a book that hinges on such a huge secret. Somehow we managed to walk that tightrope, whilst also talking about cats (feline) serial killers, and the haunted bedroom of Cat’s (author) girlhood.
It’s fun to retread this grim path.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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A chance to revisit one of my favourite books and favourite ever conversations this week.
Zakiya Dalila Harris’s The Other Black Girl came out in early 2021, and for once I was ahead of the curve! Right from the start, I adored this novel of workplace micro-aggression and satirical horror in the publishing industry – and I’m glad to see the world has since agreed.
It’s a high-concept thriller that blends the paranoia of Rosemary’s Baby with the bite of Get Out – and for once it’s a story that deserves those comparisons. Zakiya talks about her own background in publishing and how it informed this nightmare. We talk about discussing racism in fiction, and (in a slightly meta way) we discuss how interviews LIKE THIS ONE may actually perpetuate a degree of othering. In short, I tie myself in white millennial knots, but Zakiya is wonderfully generous.
God I love this book. Some may say it’s not horror. I’d disagree so much that I stuck it on my list of best horror novels ever. Let’s see what you think.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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I’m feeling Gothic this week. Must be the weather.
In lieu of a new episode, I searched the vault and found this cracker from January 2021, in which Laura Purcell — doyenne of the contemporary British Gothic — talked me through her Victorian spookshow of mesmerism and haunted silhouettes, The Shape of Darkness.
We also get into the social nightmare of Victorian England – when life was even more gothic than it is now, believe it or not!
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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This From the Vault episode is not quite so dusty. Gemma and I recorded this in 2022, but it’s more pertinent than ever. One because Gemma’s great uncanny novella The Folly is being reissued this week, and two, because the world is a mad place right now, and we all need to take care of our minds.
This conversation is all about that. An epic conversation about the issue of mental health as creators and consumers of dark stories. We dig DEEP into our own neuroses, and talk about how great horror comes with great responsibility.
Yes, there is difficult, challenging stuff to churn through — but there’s also chat about the Uncanny Valley, Men in Black, Creepypasta and Black Mirror. And the ethics of vandalising racist statues.
Enjoy!
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Still on a break – still releasing episodes “From the Vault.”
But this week’s was carefully chosen. In a time of darkness and doom-laden days, laughter is the best thing I can lace your horror with. And thankfully T. Kingfisher exists in the world.
The funniest horror writer I know. We spoke WAAAAY back in October 2020, in episode 9, when The Hollow Places had just come out.
Yes Ursula and I talk about that book, and The Twisted Ones (2019) and how they twist Weird classics into fascinating new shapes. But we also cover building your own Golem, the homicidal value of pig farmers, and the anxiety of being a frog biologist.
I dunno guys… just liste! Hope it makes you smile.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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I’m on a break – but couldn’t resist releasing something.
Especially on today of all days, when lovers of democracy require audio sustenance whilst they wait in line to preserve America.
For the first From the Vault episode, I’ve gone back to December of 2020, for an interview with Michael Marshall Smith. We talk about his 30 years of writing horror, fantasy, science fiction and assorted dark imaginings – captured in his career-spanning Best Of collection.
Michael gives us all the good stuff about where ideas came from, why he writes the way he does, and all those details that literary voyeurs like us, want to know.
It’s also a trip back into the weirdness of the pandemic, and the dying days of the Trump presidency. Have your trauma shields up just in case.
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Halloween has finally arrived. I’m marking it in grim, macabre style.
For this Off Book Samhain Special, I’m joined by Kaelyn Moore, host and creator of Heart Starts Pounding – a podcast for the darkly curious, which offers up a new true-story of horror, hauntings and mystery every week.
Kaelyn is a treasure trove of haunted anecdote and freaky facts. We only touch the tip of her knowledge in this conversation, but still manage to cover the grimmest deaths at Disneyland, a South American Nazi cult, the most cursed book in history and Kaelyn’s own family history with an early American serial killer.
All that, plus a lot of recommendations for movies and the gruesome true-crime reading.
Stick around for the afterword, and plenty of updates on the future of Talking Scared,
Enjoy! Happy Halloween.
Books mentioned:
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Things are heating up as we approach Halloween.
I’m joined by a good friend of Talking Scared – Rachel Harrison – to talk about the hot kind of immortality
Her new novel, So Thirsty, does much more than that though. It weighs the weaponization of beauty culture, it asks how women can navigate a world in which youth seems to be everything, and it illustrates the sheer social awkwardness of immortality.
Plus – it prompts a frank reckoning with just how badly I would cope in an orgy.
This is a fun episode, a deep episode, the perfect kind of bookish sign off for a few weeks whilst I take a break. And maybe a good hour of respite from the manic news cycle.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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As we gear up for Halloween, we get all gussied up in Gothic.
Del Sandeen joins me to talk about the curses, colorism, and all the many influences in her Southern Gothic debut This Cursed House. It’s a novel that twists the sub-genre’s typical reliance on race, for a more subtle, pernicious form of prejudice.
But it’s also chock full of all the haunted house–cursed family–secret rooms–and weird incest that you could want from a truly Gothic novel. It’s a damn good time, as is this conversation.
We talk about New Orleans hauntings, the inspiration of Del’s grandmother, forgiveness as a theme, and the relative ickiness of incest.
Consider this your starting gun for spooky season.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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Things get disinhibited on Talking Scared this week, when CJ Leede joins us for a conversation about her new novel, American Rapture.
The novel plunges middle America into a torrid apocalypse, as a sexual plague spreads across the nation, creating “lust hell on earth.” In this framework, C.J crafts a story of sexual awakening, sacrifice, found family, hypocrisy and cruelty. It’s a book that is both extreme and comforting in equal measure.
We talk about that crazy balancing act, about the threat of fundamentalist thought, the terror of demons, the delights of Americana, and the cathartic power of killing your characters.
Oh…and gear up for some very forthright opinions on religion.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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Hold hands, we need to stick together.
This week’s episode plunges us into the impossible and endless dark, with Sofia Ajram and her experimental, existential headf*ck of a debut novella, Coup de Grâce. It’s the tale of a man who gets lost in an endless subway station – and the monsters inside (and inside himself)
We talk about everything from the mythical history of mazes, to legends of the early internet, the mystery of Elisa Lam and what Sonic the Hedgehog has to tell us about the readers role in a story. Plus, a fair bit of chat about mental health, depression and suicidal ideation.
That makes it sound a lot less fun than it is, but only fair to warn you.
This is an episode for the adventurous and terminally online.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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I started Off Book so that I could speak to some of the brightest dark stars in the wider universe of horror.
This week that plan comes to absolute fruition – ‘cos Kate Siegel is Talking Scared!
Yes, Kate Siegel, scream-queen of our generation, horror maven, acting superstar and now director of extraterrestrial found-footage nightmare (!!) ”Stowaway.” (a segment from the new V/H/S Beyond)
Kate talks to me about the steep learning curve of making that short, the camera techniques she uses to disorientate, bewilder and horrify. She talks about her approach to finding character, especially in her collaborations with her husband, Mike Flanagan – and she talks about the horror stories she loves most in the world.
She also calls me out very early on. How the hell did I recover??
Enjoy!
V/H/S Beyond is streaming now on Shudder
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Release your inner child!
…I mean through reading, not by letting it burst out of your stomach like some horrible sugar-coated xenomorph.
Lora Senf can help. Her Blight Harbor Trilogy is a piece of magic, an umbilicus of imagination between the tired old grump that you’re halfway to becoming, and the wide-eyed wonder you once were.
Lora and I talk about the challenge and reward of writing horror for kids, we talk about the influence of M.C Escher and his mad architecture, we talk about Bradbury and King and other inspirations (including the tiny role that I played in this story). And we also talk about the profound heartsick sorrow of loneliness.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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More devilish fun on Talking Scared this week when an old friend returns to talk about god, angels, demons and other things out there in the cold reaches of the universe.
Johnny Compton is the author of The Spite House, one of my most admired books from 2022. In his newest, Devils Kill Devils, he starts with a compelling question – “what if your Guardian Angel was a murderous threat” – and then heads off in grander directions.
We talk about how Johnny’s childhood religious confusion played a role in this book, what we both love about world-building and fan-theories, and our shared enthusiasm for the Alien universe. And Johnny gives my current favourite answer to the questions “what really freaked him out recently?”
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
The Spite House (2022), by Johnny Compton
Carrion Comfort (1989), by Dan Simmons
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Keith Rosson is our first guest to be personally recommended by Stephen King!
And the praise doesn’t stop there. Keith’s Fever House was one of the biggest hits of 2023, and now he’s back with the sequel, The Devil By Name, which takes the contained punk-rock fury of the first book in a whole different, nation-spanning direction.
This is an epic tale of occult magic, diabolical messages, punk rock, political machinations and, eventually, apocalypse. So there’s a lot to talk about. And I hope you enjoy the following. Especially the part where I crowbar Stevie Nicks into the conversation, because I’ve developed the world’s most belated obsession with her.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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Laird Barron is on the podcast. This feels like cause for celebration.
Not only is Laird Barron a phenomenal writer. Not only is it wonderful that he’s back to writing and talking about writing. Not only am I lucky to be able to speak to him…
We also talked about DOGS!
Granted, a cybernetic, immortal monster hound called Rex – but a dog nonetheless. That’s just one of the crazy concepts that make up the stories in Laird’s new collection, Not a Speck of Light… and I mean crazy. These stories involve evil fathers, strange invasions, billionaire bird-women and a disaster-addicted monster – and we talk about how Laird balances the bizarre and brutal, the cosmic and the cynical, the horrific and the hardboiled.
Plus a lot of info on a very exciting project he’s currently working hard on.
Let’s all just be happy, Laird Barron is back. He’s writing. And he’s Talking Scared.
Enjoy.
Join the Laird Barron Reddit Read-along
Other books mentioned:
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Are you a Weenie? Don’t be offended. I am.
Weenies are the curious-but-nervous. Those of us who love horror, but who never feel safe from its power to ruin our sleep (and a week of our life). If that’s you, or if you know someone who suffers from Weenie-ism, then Emily Hughes is here!
Emily’s new book, Horror For Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch is a public service for the scared. It will save relationships, help ease you into horror and hopefully teach you a thing or two about fear along the way.
In this conversation, we talk about how Emily came to write this most particular of books, and how she chose which films made the grade. We also hear about her own relationship with horror, from the film that haunted her as a child all the way to her grown-up reintroduction to scary movies.
And I finally try to back up my dislike for Hereditary.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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Anna Bogutskaya is one of the UK’s most prominent film critics, with a penchant for horror. She knows her scary onions. And in her new book, Feeding the Monster, she asks an important question (well, important to the likes of you and me) – Why does horror have a hold on us?
In concise but free-ranging essays, she looks at the prominent themes that sets the horror oft the last decade apart, peeling back the skin of the genre to see how it’s muscle flex and grip, and also give you tons of films to watch in the process.
We have a similarly freewheeling conversation in this episode, talking about everything from our primal horror movie experiences, to the meme-ification of monsters and why Mike Flanagan is both outlier and heart of the genre.
Also… Anna introduces me to the concept of Vecnussy, which may ruin Stranger Things for you, like it has for me.
Enjoy
Other books mentioned:
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Send in the clowns. Tell them not to forget their crossbows and chainsaws.
This week our guest is Adam Cesare, who’s Clown in a Cornfield trilogy reaches a climax (I won’t say end) in Book 3: The Church of Frendo. I read all three books in one mad rush and they confounded all of my horror-savvy, slasher-weary expectations. These books are a State of the Nation story for the ages – think George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but with fascist clowns rather than Bolshevik swine.
Adam and I have one of those very Talking Scared conversations. We get into the political and the personal, touching on his time as a teacher, the challenge of empathy, the role of guns in fiction and the rural/urban divide in America.
But also… clowns! Horrible face-painted bastards that they are.
Enjoy.
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Literary or genre fiction? Dumb question.
This week’s guest showcases just how dumb! With her debut collection of stories, Mystery Lights showing that horror is literary and literary is horror. These tales of the American desert are full of hauntings, monsters, killers, and other oddities, yet they take a non-typical approach to the strangeness. They care more about the human in the mix than the weird thing in the corner.
I loved them – and they proved that every time I think I know my own reading tastes, I find an exception to the rule.
Lena and I talk about her literary allegiance to the desert, about the literary establishment’s appetite for strange things, about women treating women poorly, and about how she writes stories that don’t need to “click.”
Enjoy.
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This week’s guest on Talking Scared: Off Book scares children.
I mean… that’s not his main job or intent (I don’t think) but he does it anyway. Trevor Henderson is the internet’s favourite horror artist. He creates digital nightmares that have become the fuel for a new generation of nightmares. Trust me, in the few moments that Gen Z aren’t being terrified by climate change or the slide into global racism… it’s Trevor’s “Cartoon Dog” or “Long Horse” – or his iconic Sirenhead – who are capering through their minds.
But his pictures are just the start of it. He works in movies, in video games, in podcasting and he’s even written a book. He’s horror’s renaissance man, and he joins me to talk about it – from how he started, to the secrets of great monster design.
And then we spend the end of the show just talking about some awesome movies you may not have seen or heard of.
This is a fun episode. Trevor is at the beating heart of horror.
Enjoy!
Movies mentioned:
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Finally, Gabino Iglesias is on the show.
I tried, and failed, to get him for his break-out Stoker-winning smash, The Devil Takes You Home. Now he’s here to talk about his brand new barrio-noir, House of Bone and Rain. It’s an amalgamation of brutal street violence and Lovecraftian otherness – all taking place in the sweltering eye of a Puerto Rican hurricane.
Gabino and I talk about the parts of the book that reflect his own life and youth. We talk about his rapid rise, and follow-up nerves. We talk about reclaiming Lovecraft. But mostly, we talk about violence – the horror of it, the reality, the sheer awful immediacy, and how the real thing is nothing like the stuff on a movie screen.
It’s a good chat, about the right kind of manhood.
Enjoy.
The Devil Takes You Home (2022) by Gabino Iglesias
Hungry Darkness (2015) by Gabino Iglesias
Zero Saints (2015), by Gabino Iglesias
The Ballad of Black Tom (2016), by Victor LaValle
Woodworm (2021), by Layla Martinez
Lost Man’s Lane (2024), by Scott Carson
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Remember those books you read in the summer when you were young? Kids fighting evil in their small town? Bikes, and blood brothers and promises to keep?
If you love those kinda stories then you’re in good company. This week Jonathan Janz joins me to talk about the coming-of-age horror in his ongoing epic, Children of the Dark. Book One was rereleased earlier this year, just in time for the sequel The Nightflyer’s to continue the story of Will Burgess and the monstrous secrets in his backyard.
As well as a whole lot of chat about favourite movies, a million book recommendations and Jonathan’s beautifully wholesome horror movie bond with his daughter – we also discuss the canon of coming of age horror, how to write honestly about childhood, the role of theme in a story, and where Jonathan’s monsters originated.
Climb up to our treehouse. Bring snacks.
Enjoy.
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Why is Adam Nevill so scary?
I don’t know. Do you? He’s a nice guy – as you’ll hear in this episode. Yet he tells stories that crawl under your skin and stay there. Stories that squat in your subconscious.
His latest novel, All the Fiends of Hell is no exception. Same elusive nightmare mystery, but expanded to a whole epic end-of-the-world canvas. And when Adam says end of the world, he means it.
In this conversation we talk about apocalyptic fantasy, about angels and demons, about the sea and its endless hope, and about his own unique style when it comes to fear and monsters.
Oh… and about a certain prog-rock masterpiece that plays a big part in this story and in each of our childhoods.
Enjoy.
Here is the link for Adam’s story - “Where Angels Come In” at Nightmare Magazine
And the link to the Shadows at the Door Kickstarter for EARWORM
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Part One was epic. Part Two is just as good. In that way, it’s much better than the adaptation of IT!
In the second part of this celebration of King short stories, a whole other roster of Constant Readers come along to talk about their favourites. We have writers for all ages, a fellow podcaster and a filmmaker with important updates.
All of them united by one thing – their love of these little twisted word-worlds that Stephen King has given us over the years.
This was a blast, but god I’m glad it’s finally done.
Enjoy!
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What’s your favourite Stephen King story? Everyone has one.
Hot off the back of the recent interview with the man himself, it seemed a neat idea to get a few friends on the show to talk about their own preferences from King’s huge back-catalogue of short fiction.
I am the architect of my own doom!
What was supposed to be a small side project grew, like Grey Matter, or unnatural mist, into FOUR HOURS of top-notch King chat, with some of the best and brightest constant readers. I’m not telling you who they are… why spoil the surprise.
But in this first of a double-bill you can hear old and new friends of Talking Scared talk about the King short that lights their fire, freezes their marrow, or breaks their heart. It’s a whole lot…and it’s only half.
Enjoy!
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Stephen King is back!
What other intro do you need?
Okay, fine. He talks to me about the stories behind the stories in his new collection, You Like it Darker. I had the audacity to ask him “where he got some of his ideas.”
He also updates us on the potential of a third Jack Sawyer book, to follow The Talisman and Black House. He hints at what’s next from him, and Holly Gibney. He gives a perspective on his view from the top of the horror pyramid, and I finally get to ask him about a beloved-yet-underappreciated novel.
Is that enough for you, or do I need go on?
Thought not…
Thanks for listening – and enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
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200 episodes! Madness. Who knew there could be so much to say about horror?
I knew. You knew. And here we are.
It turns out that the real cursed treasure was the friends we made along the way – and how better to celebrate the bicentennial, than by inviting some of the Talking Scared nearest and dearest, to tell us their scariest story?
I called, they answered – with tales of voyeuristic ghosts, horrifying roadside encounters, disappearing witches, whispering demons, damaged eyeballs, lost children and ….Richard Simmons!!
Enjoy this. You deserve it. Thank you so very much for your ear, your attention and your support over these last four years.
Onward.
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My unpaid cohost returns. Josh Malerman ladies and gentlemen.
Josh has been on the show many times before, but never have I been so excited to speak to him. His latest novel, Incidents Around the House is about as good a horror book as I’ve ever covered on this show… or possibly read in my life. It’s the story of a young girl, her family, and the entity pursuing them, but – as you’ll hear – it goes a whole lot deeper (and unforgivingly darker) than that.
Josh tells us about the unique process of writing this book. We discuss the challenges of child narrators. I beg insight into the demons and half-glimpsed horrors of his story… and I assault him with odd comparisons.
It’s all very freewheeling and fun. As the 199th episode should be, before we tip over the edge into a whole new century.
Enjoy – and read this damn book!
Other books mentioned:
The House of Last Resort (2024), Christopher Golden
Coraline (2002), by Neil Gaiman
The Exorcist (1971), by William Peter Blatty
Good Night Sleep Tight (2024), by Brian Evenson
Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993), by Stephen King
From a Buick 8 (2002), by Stephen King
11/22/63 (2011), by Stephen King
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In the second Off Book episode we get out of our armchairs and go on a real adventure. Well, not really – but we talk to two people who do.
Danielle and Cassie are the hosts of National Park After Dark – a podcast catering to the “morbid outdoor enthusiast.” They have skyrocketed to success, with well-researches stories of murder, maulings and mad incidents out in the world’s national parks.
I’ve listened for years now and I’m delighted to finally get the chance to ask them all the questions… what is their favourite flavour of outdoor macabre? Is there a particular unsolved mystery that burns a hole in their brain? What’s the scariest thing they’ve encountered out there… and should we reintroduce wolves to the UK? (Yes!)
You don’t need to like the outdoors to enjoy this episode. Danielle and Cassie do the hard work for us.
Just enjoy!
Books mentioned:
Wolfish: Wolf, Self and the Stories we Tell About Fear, Ferocity and Freedom (2023), by Erica Berry
A Bolt From the Blue: The Epic True Story of Danger, Daring ad Heroism at 15,000 Feet (2012), by Jennifer Woodlief
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999), by Stephen King
Where the Dead Wait (2023), by Ally Wilkes
Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience (1997), by Travis Walton
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Paul Tremblay returns to Talking Scared on a long orbit, like that fabled Planet X that’s going to kill us all.
He’s back after two years for another discussion of horror aesthetics, introspective terrors and mixed-media nightmares – this time in Horror Movie, his meta-take on cursed cinema and lethal creativity.
Horror Movie is about young filmmakers and the shoot that marks them all, even unto death. It’s also about the making of art, the machinery of fear and the cynicism of Hollywood. But beneath all that self-reflexive interrogation, it’s also just a damn creepy story. And Paul talks to me about all of it.
Note – there is jet lag aplenty in this episode. An arms race of confusion and forgetfulness. It makes for a good time. Bear with us.
Enjoy
Other books mentioned:
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Elle Nash’s Deliver Me ruined my week. In the best possible way.
This book, about a woman so desperate for a child that she does truly terrible, no-good things, contains some of the bleakest, most brutal scenes I’ve read in a while. And it’s not even really being treated as a horror novel.
Elle and I talk about that.
We also talk about the hot-button topics of the novel, the patriarchy, the toxic Christianity, the… insect erotica! But we also discuss her wandering heart and the empathy and provocation that drives her work.
It’s a lovely, laid back conversation about a challenging book.
Enjoy
Other books mentioned:
Geek Love (1989), by Katherine Dunn
Violent Faculties (2024), by Charlene Elsby
Frisk (1991), by Dennis Cooper
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Todd Keisling can write the hell out of a short story. So well, in fact, that they may convince you to resist a bully, stop going to church, or tell your boss to f**k off!
Cold, Black and Infinite is full of liminal tales of the between-places. Cosmic “Otherness” that defies religion or belief. Corporate soul-hells that take everything you have…and more.
Weird then, that they are so fun.
Todd and I talk about all of that connective tissue between his stories. Plus, we map The Southland, this “pocket cosmos” of weird Appalachia that is destined to be the stage for the next era in his career.
It’s a blast. And this conversation is the anti-corporate, anti-fundamentalism, anti-bully screed you’ve been waiting for.
Enjoy.
Cold, Black and Infinite was released September 2023, By Cemetery Dance
Other books mentioned:
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Something new for me this week. A bold venture into uncharted territory.
The graphic novel!!
As is proper, I’ve started with one of the best. Emil Ferris joins me to talk through the creation of her landmark epic, My Favourite Thing is Monsters. Volume 1 came out in 2017 to rapturous acclaim, and now, Volume 2 picks up exactly where that story of cute werewolves and cherished monsters let off. This is an EVENT!!
Emil talks me through this alternative form of storytelling. She tells me about the laborious process behind the books, and how it saved her life (literally). Most of all though, we talk creativity, and how art and monsters are the things that will preserve humanity.
Enjoy.
My Favourite Thing is Monsters is released May 28thth from Fantagraphics
Other books mentioned:
Maus (1986), by Art Spiegelman
The Talisman (1984), by Stephen King and Peter Straub
The Shape of Water (2018), by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus
Whalefall (2023), by Daniel Kraus
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Believe it or not, there is more to life than just books. Very little, granted… but there is more.
Talking Scared: Off Book is a chance for this show to spread its wings a little. To fly further, wider, deeper into the world of horror and come back carrying different kinds of guests in our bloody beak!
(ok, I may have stretched that metaphor too far).
Basically, I’ll be talking, now and then, to other kinds of horror creatives. Filmmakers, actors, musicians, podcasters, designers, comic book artists, whoever the hell takes my fancy. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
This first episode features Phil Nobile Jr. Editor-in-Chief of Fangoria, and a man with his finger on the bloody pulse of the genre. We talk about films, journalism, how to market horror and, yes, of course, a few books.
This is a good episode for the hopeful journalist.
Enjoy!
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We return to Australia for the second time in a month, to find that (once again), home invasion isn’t the worst thing to happen on a typical day.
Alan Baxter’s Blood Covenant is a violent, thrilling story of a threeway battle between an innocent family, a nasty criminal gang of bogans (see, I’m learning!) and an otherworldly force that is even worse! Think, what if The Strangers took place in the Overlook Hotel.
It’s a hugely enjoyable book that prompts a conversation about the influence of 70s and 80s paperback classics, the overlap of horror and crime in Australian fiction, some extreme horror movies and a whole long celebration of unpretentious storytelling.
Enjoy!
Blood Covenant is released May 24th from Cemetary Dance
Other books mentioned:
The Gulp (2021), by Alan Baxter
Hidden City (2018), by Alan Baxter
The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding (1986), by Robert Hughes
“Devil” by Glen Hirshberg, in Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (2022), edited by Ellen Datlow
The Fog (1975), by James Herbert
The Hunted (2021), by Gabriel Bergmoser
Terra Nullius (2017), by Claire G. Coleman
Dirty Heads (2021), by Aaron Dries
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A charming man approaches. With dark secrets to tell you.
Yeah, that L.P. Hernandez. Author of the novella In the Valley of the Headless Men and the forthcoming collection, No Gods, Only Chaos. Both are great; both are entirely different. One of them will expand your horizons. One of them will shrink you in horror.
I’ll let you find out which.
We talk about both books in this episode, digging into the real historical mystery behind the novella (it’s fascinating) and the craft and commitment that went into the collection. How to write emotion and character concisely, using action within metaphor, the presence (or lack of) military vets in horror, and when, exactly, LP knew he was becoming a better writer.
If you are starting out as a storyteller, I think you’ll find this episode enlightening and inspirational. I did. Kudos to L.P. for that!
Enjoy!
In the Valley of the Headless Men was published on January 29th by Cemetery Games
No Gods, Only Chaos is published on June 4th, by DarkLit Press
Other books mentioned:
Stargazers (2022), by L.P. Hernandez
The Militia House (2023), by John Milas
Mr Shivers (2010), by Robert Jackson Bennett
Bound Feet (2022), by Kelsea Yu
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Opinions are like assholes, they say. Everybody has one.
The subtext of that, is that you shouldn’t show them to people.
Well my guest and I don’t hold back on ours this week. Robert Ottone joins me for a conversation about his debut novel for adults, The Vile Thing We Created, which is almost exactly one year old.
I loved it, which is more than either of us can say for the one-year old little boy that it is about. This novel skewers the impulse to procreation – presenting a horror story of parenthood that will make the child-free sweat and the happily en-familied nod sagely (though hopefully your child isn’t a cosmic-horror menace.
Robert and I wade into the controversy over not having children? We ask, how people summoj the courage to do it in such a frightening world, and we also hold forth on other topics, such as why most colleagues are boring and some ill-advised movie opinions. I blame Robert, I’m usually so shy and retiring.
Seriously though, this is a great conversation. More disorganised and discursive than usual. Though for once, that is no bad thing.
Enjoy!
The Vile Thing We Created was published on April 18th 2023, by Hydra.
Other books mentioned:
The Triangle (2022), by Robert Ottone
Less Than Zero (1985), by Bret Easton Ellis
Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis
Imperial Bedrooms (2010), by Bret Easton Ellis
Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019), by John Langan
Watchmen (1987), by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Filthy Creation (2023), by Caroline Hagood
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Ah the madhouse. The loony bin. The ASYLUM!!
A classic horror location. One of my favourites, but problematic as hell in the wrong hands.
Thankfully, I have the right author for the topic. Christ Panatier has the talent and the sensitivity to ensure that his novel, The Redemption of Morgan Bright can engage with the tropes without perpetuating them. He brings something as old-as-time but very new to asylum horror, and the results are dizzying, terrifying, awful.
We talk about the perils of research for an empathetic horror writer, we discuss some hideous medical practices from the past, and we look hard at the desecration of rights that we all grew up assuming were here to stay.
Plus, the way to make friends in the horror community...
Enjoy!
The Redemption of Morgan Bright was published on April 23rd by Angry Robot Books
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We all love a good spooky house. And most of us enjoy a terrifying home-invasion ordeal (or at least, I know I do).
What happens when you put them together? Kaaron Warren’s The Underhistory is the answer, but it’s nothing at all like what you’d expect.
This new novel by the award-winning Australian writer is a story of memory, of rooms and architecture, of violence and misogyny, and of a very unusual old lady. We talk about all of that and more. It’s a great conversation, one in which we go hunting for the secrets of her book together.
Enjoy!
The Underhistory was published on April 11th by Viper
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I bite off a lot this week, in a five-way conversation with editors and contributors to the ever-so-of-the-moment anthology The Black Girl Survives in This One. That’s a promise right there on the title page, but as you will find out, survival is not always the same thing as living happily ever after.
Saraciea J. Fennell, Desiree S. Evans, Monica Brashears & Eden Royce talk to me about the vision (and necessity) of the project and where their stories came from? We discuss the role of urban and family legend, authentic dialogue, writing for younger readers and how horror’s treatment of Black writers and characters has changed.
Enjoy!
The Black Girl Survives in This One was published on April 2nd by Flatiron Books
Other books mentioned:
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I’m in literary hero territory again … at least this time it’s sunny!
My guest is Scarlett Thomas, the groundbreaking writer of PopCo, Oligarchy, The Seed Collectors and the (post)modern speculative classic, The End of Mr Y. She’s one of my favourite writers, who has never seen five or six separate genres she can’t mash together.
This time around we are talking “Hot Gothic” in The Sleepwalkers, a darkly playful tale of a vacation–and a marriage–gone horribly wrong.
We cover accidentally arriving at a structure, the many ways to build characters from scratch, the dark consequences of sex and desire taken too far – and we agree on how hotels are just inherently creepy.
Great book. Great guest.
Enjoy!
The Sleepwalkers was published on April 9th by Simon and Schuster
Other books mentioned:
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Carrie White turns 50 years old today!
April 5th, 1974 – the day King’s debut came out, and the world of horror we know live in changed forever.
To celebrate such an auspicious anniversary, there are only two people I could invite to this party. Step up Nat Cassidy and Ally Malinenko – writers who understand King and that bitter, brutal world between childhood and adulthood.
We talk about empathy and monsters, about the horror of high school, the abject and the menstruation taboo and about how we are all living in Margaret White’s America now…
Raise a glass to the prom queen of horror. She can light her own candles.
Enjoy!
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Alas, we come to the end!
Stephen Graham Jones’s The Angel of Indian Lake brings the most important horror trilogy of the century to its conclusion. For one last time we return to Proofrock, Idaho – to watch Jade Daniels do battle with monsters in the wood and the demons in her head.
SGJ also comes back to Talking Scared to finish our adjacent trilogy of conversations about these books. We talk about slashers and final girls for sure, but as ever with Stephen, these are windows onto something more profound – and he gives us his insight into how horror, justice, violence and luck operate in fiction.
This all sounds very profound. It is. But in the coolest way possible. The man is a rock star….
… but I STILL manage to freak him out with a ghost story.
Enjoy – it’s been a ride!
The Angel of Indian Lake was published on March 26thth by Saga Press and Titan Books
Other books mentioned:
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Chi-Town!!
We’re heading to the midwestern metropolis this week, for a conversation with Cina Pelayo – all about murder, mystery, history and strange things in the water.
Her new novel, Forgotten Sisters is a heady, dreamlike concoction of Chicago lore and much older horrors. It features a pair of very wyrd sisters and a house by a river that holds nothing good.
As well as all of that, we talk about Cina’s personal journey with the paranormal, mermaid sightings, writing law enforcement, and wrestling with weird voices in fiction.
Oh, and the abject horror of social media!!
Enjoy!
Forgotten Sisters was published on March 19th by Thomas & Mercer
Other books mentioned:
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Never mind the floor is lava. This week the ground has teeth.
Joshua Hull is our guest, to talk about his obsession with dangerous, weird holes. He wrote one into his hilarious, grisly horror movie, Glorious (on Shudder) and now he’s given a hole a whole personality in his debut novella, Mouth.
It’s a grindhouse, b-movie celebrations, with larger than life characters, grisly death, and the most lovable monster of the year.
We talk about writing endearing creature features, about forgotten American serial killers, about the difference between writing for books and writing screenplays and, yes, about HOLES!
Enjoy!
Mouth was published on March 15th by Tenebrous Press
Other books mentioned:
The Day of the Door (2024), by Laurel Hightower
Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley
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Time to get liminal and haunted.
Gwendolyn Kiste comes back to Talking Scared for another high-concept twist on the Gothic. In The Haunting of Velkwood, and entire street turns ghostly overnight. Yeah, I can’t explain that any more clearly, we’ll leave it to Gwendolyn.
Despite this being a book centered on trauma and angst, we do a whole lot of laughing. Amongst the chuckles we also sneak in conversation about the many meanings of the word haunted, child-free horror fiction televisual references, and just what makes the American suburbs so damn creepy!
Enjoy!
The Haunting of Velkwood was published on March 5th by Saga Press
Other books mentioned:
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Sometimes you meet someone who just gets you.
Like Tim Lebbon. A man who writes riotously good adventure-horror novels, and also likes running outrageous distances up big hills. What a pleasure it was to speak to him.
The main topic of conversation is his new novel eco-horror novel, Among the Living. A story of ancient buried history and ‘intelligent’ infection, it blends the paranoia of The Thing with the ragtag group heroism and intensity of Aliens. In short, it’s good!
Tim and I talk about eco-horror, about the biological menaces facing mankind in the future, we discuss how writing action helps with writing character, and I tell him why this book freaked me out so much.
Oh, and we do spend some time talking about running up big hills. But we try and keep it relevant to the horror and the writing… Give me a break, how often do I meet a soul-brother like this?
Enjoy!
Among the Living was published on February 6th by Titan Books
Other books mentioned:
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Back from a too-short break, but ready to delve into the greatest haunted house of them all! Shirley Jackson’s Hill House. The place where the scary things walk alone.
Thankfully, I am not alone. I’m joined by my own group of creepy ghost-hunters: Paul Tremblay (A Head Full of Ghosts, Cabin at the End of the World), Johnny Compton (The Spite House) and Catriona Ward (Last House on Needless Street, Looking Glass Sound). I can think of no better collective to explore the corridors of this book and house.
We get INTO it. The crafted magic of that infamous opening paragraph, the long legacy of creepy houses in American fiction, the choice between the haunted void and hideous, mundane reality. Plus, a raft of film recommendations, and a few brief forays into our favourite real haunted places.
This one was necessary. Hope you enjoy it.
Other books mentioned:
House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
Carrie (1974), by Stephen King
‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King
The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
The Spite House (2023), by Johnny Compton
The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers (1983), by John Gardner
The Letters of Shirley Jackson (2021), edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman
When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), ed. by Ellen Datlow
“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (1904), by M.R. James
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Yes I put sex in the title to make you download it. Did it work?
It shouldn’t be necessary, ‘cos this week’s guest is an absolute literary icon. Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, Haunted, Lullaby, Choke, and last year’s Not Forever, But For Now – a writer who helped shape the nihilism and extremity of 90s and noughties fiction. The man who makes people faint with his short stories.
He’s here, talking to us!
In this conversation Chuck and I roam all over the blasted map of his fiction. We talk about transgression and provocation, about extremity in life and story, about bad reviews, toxic interviews and toxic masculinity. And yes, we talk about “Guts.”
This was a privilege. I hope you are shocked and appalled.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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Are you hungry?
If so we have a chewy, salty, deeply flavoured feast for you this week. Ally Wilkes returns to Talking Scared to discuss the icebound horrors of her new novel, Where the Dead Wait. It’s a tale of Arctic exploration gone very wrong, complete with haunting, human suffering and the morbid fascination of cannibalism!
Don’t pretend that hasn’t whet your appetite.
Ally and I get into the raw details of consuming human meat, we talk about queerness in historical horror fiction, we discuss the nature of haunting and how a historical horror novel can have links to a sci-fi horror classic, and we talk reminisce about the time Ally nearly died on a Himalaya in an appalling coat.
Jolly good fun wot wot!
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilke
The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
What Cares the Sea (1960), by Kenneth Cooke
The Secret Sharer (1910), by Joseph Conrad
Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley
Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition (2000), by Scott Cookman
Sundial (2022), by Catriona Ward
Dead Silence (2022), by S.A. Barnes
Ghost Station (2024), by S.A. Barnes
Indianapolis: The True Story of the Greatest Naval Disaster in US History (2018), by Lynn Vincent and Sarah Vladic
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The first new book coverage of 2024 – and it starts us off on suitably horrific footing.
Jenny Kiefer’s debut novel, This Wretched Valley, has been getting a huge amount of early buzz in horror circles. It’s the story of four unlucky adventurers, who head into the Kentucky woods and meet all manner of nasty sh*t.
It’s a tightly wound tale of misadventure, that takes at least some inspiration from the Dyatlov Pass mystery. And if you don’t know what that is… boy have you got a wiki hole to disappear down.
Jenny and I talk about writing and selling a brutal debut, arthouse horror influences, the terror of climbing and research serendipity… plus, what she thinks happened to those poor Russian hikers over 60 years ago.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
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To kick off a new year of Talking Scared, I’ve gone and hooked us a big guest, with a whopper of a story.
John Langan is the author of The Fisherman. It’s one of the great works of supernatural fiction written this century, but its story doesn’t end at its back-cover. The strange mythology of The Fisherman extends beyond, swimming further downstream, to pop its monstrous head above the surface in John’s wider universe of short stories and novellas.
In this special episode, we talk at length about The Fisherman – about the classic books, real-world legends and cultural beliefs that inspired it, and about the process of building a whole new mythos.
John is the poet-scholar of horror. This is the class you wish you’d taken in college.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
House of Windows (2009), by John Langan
“Mother of Stone”, in The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies (2013), by John Langan
“Bor Urus”, in Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019), by John Langan
Our Share of Night (2023), by Mariana Enriquez
The Croning (2012), by Laird Barron
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (2013), by Laird Barron
Pet Sematary (1983), by Stephen King
“The Monkey’s Paw” (1902), by W. W. Jacobs
Absolom, Absolom (1951), by William Faulkner
“The Call of Cthulhu” (1928), by H.P. Lovecraft
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988), by Roberto Calasso
“Development” (1889), by Robert Browning
Ironweed (1983), by William Kennedy
Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran
Motherless Child (2012), by Glen Hirshberg
Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (2022), edited by Ellen Datlow (contains “Glen Hirshberg’s “Devil” and John Langan’s “Bludzuger”)
Furnace (2016), by Livia Llewelyn
Join the Laird Barron Readalong
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Another year done. We squeaked through without another plague or a nuclear apocalypse (don’t tempt fate Neil!!) and along the way, oh the stories we read!
The only thing left to do after mopping away the chalk pentagrams, is to run you through my very favourite books of the year. The so-called Best Horror Novels of 2023, as chosen by me. Ten of them to be precise, cos humans are obsessed with round numbers. Mwaha, in fact I talk about thirteen!!
Thanks again for listening and supporting the show. You give my addled rants a semblance of purpose, and it’s appreciated.
Onward into 2024 and its multitude of horrors!!!
Enjoy.
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Dickens said that Christmas Eve was a time for ghost stories, and who am I to argue?
It is my show though, so I get to pick the ghost story – and I picked Peter Straub’s classic novel of the name. A tale of old men with horror in their youths, seductive evil and a town besieged by winter and… worse things.
It’s a slippery beast though, this novel. So to really help pin it down, I needed help. I called and help came, in the form of Alan Baxter (author of Sallow Bend, The Gulp and many more), Lauren Bolger (Kill Radio) and John Langan, whose novel, The Fisherman, continues what I think is Straub’s American gothic legacy.
We talk about the book in granular detail – it’s monsters, it’s politics, it’s storytelling and, of course, it’s ghosts. It’s about as jolly a time as you can have talking about ancient evil visiting small towns. But enough about Santa.
Light the fire, pour a drink, enjoy! You’ve earned it.
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And so we come to the end of another year in horror. Time to look back at the best that 2023 has had to offer, as determined by three of the best in the business.
My trusted horror chancellor, Emily Hughes joins me – alongside C.J. Leede, the author of this year’s gloriously transgressive Maeve Fly, and the maestro of the macabre himself, Victor Lavalle. Together we cover the year’s freshest nightmares in the macro and the micro, looking at wider trends and picking our own favourite horror fiction from this year’s epic crop.
This is a blast. We laugh, we yell, and we declare that the nation is strong, and good, and frightening.
Enjoy!
Books Picked:
Books Anticipated:
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We’re going up in the world this week – longitudinally and latitudinally, with the GOAT of endurance, adventure Gothic, Michelle Paver.
Michelle joins me for a big conversation about her novels Dark Matter and Thin Air – two of the most effective ghost stories of the 21st century. One takes us to the Arctic, the other to a Himalayan peak, both places littered with the dead… who may still be around.
We talk about how ghost stories work, their tradition and what perhaps differentiates them from horror. We consider the challenge of writing heroes with imperial perspectives, and Michelle relates her own, eerie, dangerous experiences out in the frozen wilds.
This is perfect winter listening, even if we did record it in July.
Enjoy!
Books mentioned:
Wolf Brother (2004), by Michelle Paver
The Abominable (2013), by Dan Simmons
30 Days of Night (2002), by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith
The Others of Edenwell (2023), by Verity Holloway
“The Kit Bag” (1908), by Algernon Blackwood
Cold Earth (2009), by Sarah Moss
Number 90 and Other Ghost Stories (2000 rpt) B.M. Croker
A Beleaguered City (1871), by Margaret Oliphant
The Long Tale (Tail) of Dogs in Fiction (Esquire)
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Last time Gemma Amor came on the show we had a good ol’ chinwag about our haunted brains. This time around we get to some other ghosts, in her new novel, The Folly.
It’s a sharp slice of coastal Gothic; Cornwall’s answer to The Shining if you will. The story follows Morgan and her aging father to the weird structure of the tital, where they find hauntings of many stripes, some uncannily familiar.
It wouldn’t be a Gemma Amor episode if things didn’t get personal – and we talk about anxieties of identity, father/daughter dynamics and the trauma of the Covid years. But it doesn’t get too real or heavy, cos we the nature of cursed buildings and twists on possession to deal with.
Enjoy our rural Britishness. I think we hide our inner yokel well.
The Folly was published by Polis Books on in December 2023 (US) and January 2024 (UK)
Books mentioned:
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We’ve had Cowboys versus Aliens but have you ever considered a threeway fight between gunslingers, vampires and weird cosmic cultists to an Elder God?
If not why not? What do you even think about when you are washing the dishes? But fear not, C.S. Humble has you covered. His weird western trilogy, That Light Sublime is packed with all of the above and more. In The Massacre at Yellow Hill and A Red Winter in the West Seth introduces a cast of lovable rogues and the stakes of their battle against the worst that this and other worlds can offer. Now, in the concluding volume, The Light of Black Star, he brings it all home, with honour, humour and shattering heartbreak.
We talk about broadening the scope of the western, how That Light Sublime links with Seth’s Black Wells series, and he explains his fundamental disagreement with the tenets of cosmic horror. We cover what Mister Rogers has to oteach us about horror writing…and how to write stories that, in Seth’s words… “attain the high romance that the human heart is reaching for.”
He’s a poet and a raconteur. I’m also present.
Enjoy!
The Massacre at Yellow Hill, A Red Winter in the West and The Light of Black Star were all published in 2023 by Cemetery Dance.
Books mentioned:
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Sometimes two words can make a jaded horror reader sit up straight.
Ghost is one, Dinosaur is another.
Ghost. Dinosaur.
Have you ever heard a more beautiful combination, a sweeter symphony of syllables.
If “Ghost Dinosaur” doesn’t make you go squeeee and shake your fists in excitement, I don’t know how to help you.
Anyway, that’s the focus of Luke Dumas delightful new novel, The Paleontologist. It’s a story about a haunted man, a creepy museum, institutional intrigue, murder and GHOST GODDAMN DINOSAURS!!
We talk about all of that and lots more, including humour in horror, how far a book can stretch a reader’s empathy, and why privilege is such a complex issue to tackle.
But yeah. Also Ghost Dinosaurs.
Enjoy!
The Paleontologist was published 31st October by Atria Books
Books mentioned:
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Horror is about finding light in darkness.
That’s the mission statement of this podcast, at least. And it’s never been truer than in this week’s episode. Tyler Jones re-joins us on Talking Scared to talk about his new novel, Midas. We cover its original mix of western tropes, Gothic fantasy and cult horror, but it’s family that lies at the heart of both the book and the conversation. Tyler talks us through the real life emotional rollercoaster that inspired this story.
It’s a personal conversation. Upsetting in parts, but lit through with love and life and all the good stuff.
And if I’m sounding a little pompous and portentous here, don’t worry – we also slide seamlessly into some nerdy chat about biblical mysteries and ancient alien nonsense.
This is an important episode, for me and for Tyler. I hope you enjoy it.
p.s – here’s to Goliath the horse!
Enjoy!
Midas was published in October by Earthlings Publications
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History is haunted. Ghosts are injustice persevering.
So many horror stories hinge on that idea, but for Tananarive Due it’s more personal than that. Her new novel, The Reformatory, is borne from the ghosts hidden in her own family history.
The story takes place in a hideously cruel juvenile correction facility, in a racist town, in the 1950s. As you can imagine, very few good things happen to her child protagonist.
We talk about the link between horror and history, about writing from her family tree, about the very real reformatories that persisted into the modern era, and about looking cruelty full in the face and wrestling it into story.
This conversation is the perfect context for a near-perfect novel.
Enjoy!
The Reformatory was published October 31st by Saga and Titan Books
Books mentioned:
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Sometimes when you’re doing something scary good company can be a blessing.
Nat Cassidy is good company. And this week he talks me through the haunted hallways and avenues of his New York horror ode, Nestlings – but he also helps me tackle the very real world horror that is turning our newspapers into nightmare-fodder and the Middle East into a tinderbox.
But have no fear (well, always have a little fear!) this is no mere despairing, depressing look at reality. We also talk about gargoyles and vampire-adjacent things, about New York winters and longing for home … and of course, about Stephen King.
Enjoy!
Nestlings was published October 31st by Tor Nightfire
Books mentioned:
Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy
Nightmares in the Sky (1988), by Stephen King and F-Stop Fitzgerald
‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King
The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
From a Buick 8 (2002), by Stephen King
Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin
The Keep (1981), by F. Paul Wilson
I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves
The Guns of August (1962), by Barbara W. Tuchman
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Some stories are just too big for one podcast. Some stories should be too big for one book.
Sam Rebelein’s Edenville is one such story. This 300-something page novel has more crammed into it than your average fantasy trilogy. There is backstory upon backstory, a cosmic framework, and enough different monsters to fill Guillermo del Toro’s minibus. Yet somehow Sam corrals it all into a whimsical horror romp – a well-organised riot.
We talk about ideas… about thinking them up, letting them evolve and, most crucially, getting them on paper. We talk narcissistic writers, the power of dreams, the unique eeriness of the Hudson River Valley and the questionable nature of curses.
This conversation is a call to arms for writers. It’s a weary acceptance that maybe, just maybe, sitting your arse in the chair is the most important thing you can do all day.
Enjoy!
Edenville was published October 3rd by Titan Books and HarperCollins
Books mentioned:
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Some stories are too short, some are too long, but some stories are just right. It’s the Goldilocks zone: the novella.
What is the secret to crafting a longer story but not letting it run away from you? How do you sustain the terror beyond the shortest form? How do you know what to keep in and what to cut out?
This is the art of the novella, and I’m joined by a pair of expert practitioners to talk it through. Josh Malerman and Ronald Malfi have both published novella collections this year – Ron’s They Lurk and Josh’s Spin a Black Yarn contain multitudes. From motel-lot self-mutilation to deathbed serial killer confessions, via the Oregon backwoods and the core of Saturn(!!), these stories take us to places without wasting a word.
Josh and Ron provide a masterclass on the art of the novella, as well as ALL the enthusiasm you could ever pack into an hour of conversation. This one will put a smile on your face and inspiration in your typin’ fingers!
Enjoy.
They Lurk was published was published on July 18th by Titan; Spin a Black Yarn was published August 15th by Del Rey
Books mentioned:
Daphne (2022), by Josh Malerman
Goblin (2021), by Josh Malerman
Ghostwritten (2022), by Ronald Malfi
Pet Sematary (1983), by Stephen King
The Long Walk (1979), by Stephen King
Mrs Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf
Houses Without Doors (1990), by Peter Straub
Bloom (2023), by Delilah S. Dawson
The Turn of the Screw (1898), by Henry James
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This week is a special roundtable episode. An exciting, challenging and very very thought-provoking tour of contemporary Black horror, in the company of three writers at the bleeding edge.
Nnedi Okorafor, Maurice Broaddus and Lesley Nneka Arimah are just three of the contributors to Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror. It’s curated by Jordan Peele, who knows a thing or two about that particular landscape, and these three authors present a fantastic cross-section of how versatile Black horror is right now.
We talk about their stories, about the anthology as a whole and the broader topic of Black horror. What does that even mean? What is the role of history? Of trauma? And of the future? At times, these guests turn the interview around on me, asking me to reflect on my own presumptions and the baggage I bring to these stories.
Like I said, challenging and exciting. Hope you enjoy it.
Out There Screaming was published on October 3rd by Picador and Random House
Books mentioned:
“Africanfuturism Defined.” (2019), by Nnedi Okorafor
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Come home!! We have to come home!! The House is calling us.
Yep, this week we are going back to the most haunted house of all. Hill House. Shirley Jackson’s classic bad place. And we’re going in the company of three-time Shirley Jackson Award Winner, Elizabeth Hand, whose new novel is the first ever sanctioned sequel to Jackson’s classic.
A Haunting on the Hill submits four new unwitting victims to the horrors of Hill House. But that’s where the stories diverge. Liz’s take on this soured ground is a whole different thing, full of witchcraft, theatre-drama and weirdness even Jackson didn’t dream up.
We talk about Jackson’s huge legacy, the pressures and pleasures of playing in her sandbox, treating Hill House as a character and murder ballads.
Enjoy! Welcome home.
A Haunting on the Hill was published on October 3rd by Mulholland Books and Sphere
Books mentioned:
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This week on Talking Scared we are joining hands with Chuck Wendig to take the fight to Big Fruit. They have been lying to us about apples all our lives.
Chuck’s new novel, Black River Orchard is all about apples. Tasty, evil, corruptive. The book grows from the fertile soil of American small-town horror, and we talk about some texts in that storytelling style, as well as how Chuck himself approaches writing such big books with so many character arcs. We also cover apple-lore, how politics fits into horror fiction, the appeal of violent characters and a whole lot of books we think you should read.
Enjoy. This book is a great way to say goodbye to summer.
Black River Orchard was published on September 26th by Del Rey
Books mentioned:
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Clay McLeod Chapman returns to Talking Scared to answer some serious questions, the first being what the holy f**k Clay?!
Clay has never been a writer to shy away from a high concept challenge (haunted mushrooms, anyone?) but his latest novel, What Kind of Mother goes into the uncharted regions of the mind and soul, dredging the craziest of horrors from the murky waters of his native Chesapeake Bay.
We talk the terrors of both adolescence and parenthood, the terrible power of imagination, why Virginia still beckons his storytelling home … and crabs. Ohhhh we’ll get to the crabs!
Clay is a great writer, a wonderful person and a good friend of the show. I hope you enjoy this episode.
What Kind of Mother was published on September 12hth by Quirk Books
Books mentioned:
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I’m back, partially rested and with some romance lingering in my soul. Good timing, cos this week’s episode focuses on the heart as well as the blood that it pumps.
Isabel Cañas returns to the show to talk about her second novel, Vampires of El Norte – a sweeping historical love-story set against a backdrop of class tumult, war and … yeah… vampires. It’s not a spoiler guys – it’s in the title!
Isabel speaks so eloquently about the relationship between vampirism and cultural legacy, about how it isn’t only the undead who invade your space and drain your essence. She describes the intense, insane schedule of writing the book, how landscape invites the supernatural, Mexican boogeymen and boogeywomen, and historical fiction as feminist conundrum.
Enjoy. With heart, soul and viscera.
Vampires of El Norte was published on August 15hth by Berkley
Books mentioned:
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Why do we keep heading back to the woods? WHY?? Nothing good ever happens there.
Alexander James would argue otherwise, but he’s clearly made of sterner stuff than me. In his debut novel, The Woodkin, Alex parlays his love of the wild outdoors into a story that heads toward a familiar backwoods nightmares, before veering far off the beaten trail into something stranger and even scarier.
In this episode we talk about his love for the woods of the Pacific Northwest (and yes! I ask him about Bigfoot of course). We cover the controversy surrounding an earlier title choice, the influence of D&D on his writing and the trick to realistically depicting fear in fiction.
It’s a happy hike into darkness.
Enjoy
The Woodkin was published August 22nd by CamCat Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I Have Some Stories to Tell
CritStupid Podcast (Alex's D&D podcast)
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If you thought The Last House on Needless Street was tricksy, just wait until you hear about Looking Glass Sound. This is Cat’s ode to the Maine of Stephen King, the enigmatic narrators of Shirley Jackson and… well, a host of other comparisons that I foist upon her in the next hour.
Above all that though – the book is so typically, inimitably Catriona Ward. It’s a destined Gothic classic that takes the genre, crumples it into a ball before rewriting the whole thing.
We cover the purpose of metafiction in horror, how writing a book is like falling in love, the eeriness of the Maine coast and her fascination with the Neverland Ranch. If that isn’t enough Cat also tells us a ghost story that happened to her just the night before.
Tricksy, very tricksy…as Gollum would say.
Enjoy
Looking Glass Sound was published April 20th by Viper Books in the UK and 22nd August by Tor Nightfire in the US.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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We’re off to La La Land this week, to talk cursed films, 90s horror nostalgia and Winona Ryder(!!)
Our guest is Josh Winning – who has parlayed his years of writing from and about film sets into a horror novel. Burn the Negative is set in the backlots, soundstages, cutting rooms and dank motel rooms of Hollywood. It features a film with a fatal jinx and a whole lotta love for the 90s teen slasher.
Amongst all of that, Josh and I also tick off the uncanny creepiness of child stars, the validity of fun in horror and the power of the silhouette in making a really scary horror villain.
Enjoy
Burn the Negative was published on July 11th by Penguin Random House
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Sorry not sorry this week. Yes I’m going to destroy your wallet and your bookshelves…but you LOVE IT!!
Our guest is Sadie Hartmann, AKA Mother Horror to the likes of us. One of the most influential horror reviewers in the world. The editor in chief of Dark Hart Books and the co-owner of the Night Worms horror subscription service. She knows a thing or two about this haunted library.
And she’s written a book to guide the unwary, or the just-plain curious. Or anyone who wants a new book to read. 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered is Sadie’s guide to the horrid books that she loves – the ones that chill her blood, warm her heart and turn her stomach.
We talk about her selection process, her blogging origin story, the gatekeeper problem in horror, our shared fear of certain kinds of book and the joy of scary stories featuring kids on bikes.
Renew your library card or get ready to buy some books!
101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered was published on August 8th by Page Street Publishing
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Our guest this week is Stephen King.
That’s it. That’s the intro.
Stephen King. The architect of modern horror and the creative north star of my life, and many of yours. He’s on the show, talking about his new book, Holly and why the central character just won’t let him go. We cover his attitude to academia, horror and hope, how his worldview sits with a fractured reality, and we even hear some exciting, exclusive details about some upcoming books.
I lack the words to convey my delight.
Enjoy
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Holly is published on September 5th by Hodder and Scribner
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We’re off on a Goth pilgrimage this week folks, to the motherland, Transylvania, to talk folk-horror and more with Alex Woodroe.
Alex is a Romanian writer of dark fictions, the Editor in Chief of Tenebrous Press, and the debut author of Whisperwood. The book brings the monsters of Romanian myth and legend to the fore in a battle of wills with an isolated village. There isn’t a vampire in sight. Bram Stoker didn’t know what he was talking about.
Alex does! And we get into lots of things, from the difference between fantasy and folk-legend, political allegory and the recent history of dictatorship, to the very real undead myths in her own family tree.
I learned a lot from this conversation.
Enjoy!
Whisperwood was published by Flame Tree Press on July 11th
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This week we’re joined by the man, the myth, the mystery that is Chuck Tingle.
Who knows the truth of this enigmatic figure? What visage lies beneath the pink bag that forever encases his face? Does he really have a PhD in massage? Puzzles abound…
The one thing that’s certain is the brilliance of his new novel. Camp Damascus is a full-bloodied horror novel set in that most hideous of environs: a religious community and a gay conversion camp. Sounds triggering. It may well be … but Chuck has also invested this story with such hope and joy and yes, LOVE, that it more than salves all the human horror and demonic jump scares.
We cover tons in this episode – the stoic seriousness of fictional sex, the maligned trinity of genres, rattling the religious right, the simple trick to writing effective jumpscares and the final, full declaration of why love is real.
Enjoy!
Camp Damascus was published by Tor Nightfire on July 18th and Titan Books on July 27th
An article about Chuck – worth reading
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Straight (2021), by Chuck Tingle
Revival (2014), by Stephen King
Dark Matter (2010), by Michelle Paver
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This week I’m recording very close to home with Andrew Michael Hurley.
Andrew burst onto the folk-horror scene with subtle aplomb (can one burst subtly?) back in 2014, with The Loney. That slice of weirdness was set in the very town in which I spent my wet, dismal childhood holidays. It conjured shivers in more ways than one.
Now he is here to talk about the reissue of his 2019 novel, Starve Acre. It’s a bleak, bitter, wintery tale of isolation, grief and ritual, set in the Yorkshire Dales. Where I also spent some holidays – does Andrew know something I don’t? Hmmmm?
We talk about his relationship with folk horror, and how it helps us express our communal British angst. We make comparisons to some unexpected movies, discuss authorial freedom, and talk about deep knowledge, invented lore and horror as replacement for spirituality.
It’s all a good excuse to yell about the government.
Enjoy!
Starve Acre was re-issued by Penguin on July 4th.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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War, what is it good for? Absolutely noth…. well actually, it is quite good for horror stories.
Our guest this week doesn’t plumb the usual horrors-of-war route, though. Verity Holloway’s The Others of Edenwell is a supremely subtle, slow-burning excavation of trauma and national nightmares, set in a (supposedly) idyllic spa-cum-convalescent-hospital as battle rages elsewhere.
Of course, there are horrors much closer to home.
It’s possibly my first foray into the First World War on this podcast and Verity and I talk about her family connection to the story, her physical connection to the hospital setting, and her inspirations in the literature of the time. We also discuss cryptozoology, ghost stories, and why German helmets have such a creepy design.
Enjoy!
The Others of Edenwell was published by Titan on July 4th.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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This week Danielle Trussoni arrives at Talking Scared in a rush. She has a meeting to get to, and we have LOTS of things to talk about in less than an hour. Her new novel, The Puzzle Master crams in enough for a whole Discovery Channel series on conspiracy, mysticism and esoteric history, plus dolls, Golems, quantum computing and a cute little Dachshund named Conundrum.
How is a host supposed to cover all that at a rush. The answer, drink more coffee and don’t pause to breathe!
We manage it. We talk about all of the above, plus depictions of altered mental states, the curse of a Dan Brown comparison, and Danielle’s search for the perfect haunted house.
Enjoy!
The Puzzle Master was published by Penguin Random House on June 13th.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Thrust your fists against the post and still insist you see the…
…oh hello. You came back. Thank Gan. We have a monster to defeat this week.
Yes, this is the second part of the Talking Scared dive into Stephen King’s IT. This time we are getting weird.
Joined by stalwart friends, Ally Malinenko (Ghost Girl, This Appearing House) and Nat Cassidy (Mary: An Awakening of Terror), I’m delving below ground and into the cosmic tangle that underpins all of King’s fiction. We’re asking what is Pennywise? Where did he come from? What does he want and what the hell is that giant turtle doing?
It has been a labour of love, talking for hours with friends about my favourite book. Thank you so much for listening, and remember… we’re stronger together.
Enjoy!
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Come get a balloon, bring your slingshot, let’s float…it’s here!!!
Yes, finally we’re off to Derry, to do battle with that goddamn clown. But as everyone knows, we can’t fight Pennywise alone. That’s why I’m taking my trusty, loyal, brave band of Losers with me. Nat Cassidy (Mary: An Awakening of Terror) and Ally Malinenko (This Appearing House) are joining me for a tour of the sewers, subtext and sociological horrors at the heart of King’s IT.
Halfway through we realised this would to be a two-parter, ‘cos there is just too much to say. The horrors will follow in Part Two, this time we focus mainly on the heart. We talk about the characters, the depictions of childhood… and yes we get into that scene (with possibly surprising opinions).
I so hope you like this episode gang. I want to finally take the chance to explain what this book means to my enduring boyish heart.
Enjoy!
Read Grady Hendrix's essay HERE
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I’ve rarely been more excited about an episode – for you to hear it or, indeed, about its very contents.
We’re joined this week by Mike Flanagan. Yes, that Mike Flanagan. The genius loci of modern visual horror, the writer and director behind Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep, The Midnight Club and Oculus. Our most literary horror director and a man who understand that horror is where the heart is.
If you think my praise is too gushing then… we’ll just have to disagree.
He may be a filmmaker, but he sure does love books. In this conversation we talk about Mike’s deep love for horror stories, how his childhood reading continues to influence his career, and what he’s still loving about the genre. We discuss his upcoming take on Fall of the House of Usher, his next Stephen King adaptation, and a certain tower that looms in the distance.
Yes, Mike’s career – like all great things – follows the Beam.
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If horror is indeed a broad church, then our guest this week is preaching from the darkest of pulpits.
Paula D. Ashe is the author of We Are Here To Hurt Each Other – a collection of short stories that has accrued infamy and acclaim in equal measure over the last 12 months. Her stories are cruel. They present a depraved world of man (and woman’s) direst excesses, a world that rubs against the numinous and the cosmically amoral.
Can you say ‘trigger warnings needed’!
We talk at length about the allure of extreme horror, about whether an author can truly consider their readers’ feelings, about horrendous crimes and the difference between the horror of imagery and action. We also give a lot of love to Clive Barker and his influence on Paula’s own mythos-building.
This may be the most extreme episode of Talking Scared ever recorded.
Enjoy (whatever that means!)
We Are Here To Hurt Each Other was published on 21st Feb 2022, by Nictitating Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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What if the house that shaped you was a broken, haunted place?
That’s one of many questions we explore this week, in the company of Sarah Gailey. Their 2022 hit, Just Like Home is out in paperback and … hell … do we get our fingers right into its dusty, cobwebbed corners!
We talk about serial-killing fathers and monstrous mothers, the power and pitfalls of descriptive prose. We discuss Freudian metaphors and the profound fears of childhood, offer a fresh take on the thorny question of unlikeable female protagonists, and I present my ‘possession’ theory on the crimes of Ted Bundy (it’s bullsh*t.)
This is a lovely conversation about dark things.
Enjoy!
Just Like Home was published in paperback on May 30th by Tor and Hodder & Stoughton
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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In the immortal words of Creed’s Scott Stapp, “can you take me HIIIGHER?”
Yes, I can.
Our guest this week is Nicholas Binge, author the new buzzy, horror-sci-fi novel, Ascension. It’s about a very weird, very big mountain that appears out of nowhere to lure the unwary upwards. Nothing good occurs, of course. Again…much like a Creed concert.
This is where the comparison’s to terrible post-grunge rock ends (thankfully) cos Nick and I have much more fun making comparisons to the likes of Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft… to the classic Gothic and Adventure stories that Nick mixes with his oh-so-modern science-fiction themes. Ascension is a treat for fans of both traditions.
We also talk about the place of mountains in our literature, the shattering chaos of quantum mechanics, recontextualising neurodiverse characters and the occasional shoggoth!
Enjoy!
Ascension was published on April 25th by HarperVoyager and Riverhead Books.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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We are paying tribute to the best of us this week. The booksellers. Keepers of the flame, beacons in the night, purveyors of meaning in a cold, dark universe … usually.
Alice Slater used to be a member of that celebrated guild, now she’s written about the light and dark side of the trade in her debut smash, Death of a Bookseller. It pulls back the curtain on an industry we all care deeply about, to reveal the obsession, madness and … murder(?) behind the chai lattes and instagram posts.
In this conversation we cover a lot of ground… from the problems inherent in True Crime, book-fetishization, and the weird empathy we feel for serial killers’ pets. Plus, I get to talk about my favourite things (see: everything mentioned so far) with someone who genuinely once worked in my local bookshop.
This was a blast.
Enjoy!
Death of a Bookseller was published on April 25th by Hodder and Scarlet
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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No book has ever made me so painfully aware of my nipples as Katrina Monroe’s The Graveyard of Lost Children. And I won’t ever have to breastfeed.
Katrina’s novel is a full-treatment of the horrors involved in motherhood. Yes there is love, but there is also social pressure, paranoia, loneliness and chafing! And that’s before we even get to the spectral Black-Haired Woman who haunts the unlucky mothers of Katrina’s second novel. Parenting horror has seen a lot of great titles in recent years, but this may be my favourite.
In this episode we talk about changeling lore, about asylums, about the motif and metaphor of wells, and the creepiest mental health condition i’ve ever heard of.
And I guarantee this is the only horror lit podcast of the week to feature the phrase “stool sample.”
Enjoy!
The Graveyard of Lost Children was published on May 9th by Poison Pen Press
Link to The Burning of Bridget Cleary
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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You will know Justin Cronin as the author of the landmark The Passage. That trilogy set the world of horror and science fiction (and all points in between) alight in the early 2000s and he’s back after eight long years, with The Ferryman. This time he’s swapping vampire plagues for something wholly more subtle … but no less terrifying. I can’t tell you what ‘cos that would ruin it for everyone, but it may shake the very building blocks of your reality.
Justin and I discuss all manner of existential worries, from the nature of reality to the malign impact of ‘wellbeing’ lifestyles. We talk about Kazuo Ishiguro, Planet of the Apes and myriad other influences that flow into the wonder, horror and awe of The Ferryman. Don’t worry, we cover The Passage too…
And he also explains how telling any story is just like telling a joke really, really well.
Enjoy!
The Ferryman was published on May 2nd by Ballantine Books and Orion
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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What if the world ended, not with a bang, but a slow squelch?
That’s sort-of the premise of The Marigold, the brand-new novel from Andrew F. Sullivan. In this book a slow apocalypse is corroding Toronto. Above ground, urban development is driving ecological disaster, whilst in the basements and dark places a new fungal menace is squirming from the shadow. You may never look at your own athlete’s foot the same way.
Andrew and I talk about many things, mushrooms and mycology, the weird ‘third life’ of fungus and the cosmic horror to be found in the soil and loam. We also look at how grimy 80s exploitation movies influenced his book, and I discover an awful lot about raccoons.
A great conversation about a unique book.
Enjoy!
The Marigold was published on April 18th by ECW Press
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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This week we’re dissecting spectres and excavating the haunted house in Ai Jiang’s word-of-mouth smash, Linghun.
Ai’s novella is a blast. A read-in-one-sitting tale of grief and greed and ghosts and what the word HOME really means. We go deep, talking about different cultural iterations of the supernatural, the impact of location on writing style…and the horrors of the Edinburgh vaults.
Enjoy!
Linghun was published on April 4th by Dark Matter INK
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Back to the Island this week! With Rachel Eve Moulton and The Insatiable Volt Sisters.
Rachel sophomore novel is the weirdest island story since Lost, or Brexit. It features a strange family with a stranger secret, curses, killer quarry ponds and the wearing of other people’s skin. And yet you probably still want to visit Fowler Island (I did).
We talk about working with surrealism, about writing volatile sisters and gendered monsters, and about the wonderful horror-lure of island life.
It’s worth noting, we also spend time discussing famous suicide hotspots – this seems like something you should know in advance.
Enjoy!
The Insatiable Volt Sisters was published on April 4th by FSG
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Fairy tales are the first horror stories, right? Kids being eaten by witches, narcissistic imps who steal your babies. That’s the good stuff.
Kelly Link knows a thing or two about the darkness inside fairy tales, and how to (re)tell them for maximum effect. She is a superstar of the short story, a Pultizer nominee and someone who just plain knows a lot of interesting stuff.
Her new collection, White Cat, Black Dog takes some of your favourite stories and twists them into new shapes. Some you’ll recognise, most you won’t (unless you have a degree in folklore or just run to Wikipedia to look smart). We talk about how and why she reinvents stories, why she wishes every story was a ghost story, and how she controls the extreme weirdness in her fiction.
Oh, and she also indulges me as I ask her lots of questions about my favourite story in years. One she wrote. You’ll be sick of me saying the title by the end.
Enjoy!
White Cat, Black Dog was published on March 28th
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Terrible times and awful words await us this week. Thankfully, on this show that’s a good thing!
Our guest is Max Booth III, the wizard behind Ghoulish Books and the author of bathroom-set apocalypse, We Need to Do Something. He’s here to talk about his new collection of uber-dark stories, Abnormal Statistics.
These tales are pitch black, treacle-thick pieces of clotted nastiness. Bad things happen to lots of people, most frequently children (but never dogs). Many a mind is tortured and many a tooth is sucked (!!)
Max and I talk about how these stories reflect his own disjointed childhood. We talk about awful true crimes and why he’s addicted to information that is bad for him. We also try to pin down precisely what it is about human teeth that seem so universally unnerving… plus some references to my favourite creepypasta stories.
This is the best bad time you’ll have this week.
Enjoy!
Abnormal Statistics was published by Apocalypse Party on March 23rd
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Wagons West this week, with a guest I’ve been trying to get on the show since the early days. It’s Victor Lavalle.
I had always wanted to speak to him about The Ballad of Black Tom in the dream that we could join together to call Lovecraft names. As it turns out, that will have to wait, cos he’s brought out a brand-new novel … and it’s a Weird Western.
Cue squealing!! It’s one of my favourite sub-genres.
We talk about homesteading and wilderness, about bad neighbours and New York City, about family and fidelity to truth and the need for happy endings … and there’s an awful lot of chat about monsters.
This is one of the best episodes of the year so far. You’ll learn, you’ll laugh, you’ll almost certainly cry. Why aren’t you crying? What’s wrong with you? Are you heartless??
Enjoy!
Lone Women was published by on March 28thth by One World
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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There is no cool and collected way to introduce this week’s episode. Our guest is Margaret Atwood.
Yes, that Margaret Atwood. The author of The Handmaid’s Tale. One of the few writer’s who genuinely deserves to be called an icon (though she may be tired of the term). She published her first novel in 1969 and now as she enters her seventh decade of writing, her stories are no less challenging or surprising.
Her new collection, Old Babes in the Wood is a feast of darkness and light. It swerves from myth to sci-fi, to body horror, all bookended by stories about love and loss and grief. And she came on this little show to talk about it.
We unveil the inspirations behind some of the stories. We talk about disease and dystopia through history, the dangers of Canadian wilderness, men who turn into bears, the relationship of horror and slapstick, and her own haunted house.
It was a privilege.
Enjoy!
Old Babes in the Wood was published by on March 7th by Vintage and Doubleday
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Vampires, finally! After years of recording a horror podcast, I’ve finally recorded a conversation about the first thing you all probably think of if I said “horror monster.” Actually, at this very moment, maybe you’d name a Floridian politician but you get my drift…
I’m delighted to be joined by Jacqueline Holland, to talk about her new novel of bloodsucking and cursed immortality, The God of Endings. As with so many books featured on this show, it’s an offbeat look at an old trope, with a vampire that has no problem with garlic and who is not at all horny! She’s also a pre-school teacher in the 80s. That’s REALLY hardcore!
Jacqueline and I talk about horror imposter-syndrome, the history of New England vampires, monstrous mothers, the terror of living forever, and how she has always been…in her own words… a dark weirdo.
Enjoy!
The God of Endings was published by on February 7th by Flatiron Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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This week I take a road trip with Matt Ruff, into the more monstrous corners of the universe. Sure, some of them are alien planets… but some are here on earth, with the racists!
Matt is best known as the author of 2016’s Lovecraft Country. He never planned to write a sequel, yet here it is. The Destroyer of Worlds picks up several years later, when Atticus, Letetia, Montrose and Hipolyta et al are still battling malign forces both human and otherworldly.
I went into it nervously, thinking surely a white author can’t pull of a story about Black characters in Jim Crow America without really sh***ing the bed. I was wrong!
Matt and I debate the responsibility and potential pitfalls of the project, and what his books get right that other ventriloquised stories get wrong. But we also talk about monsters and comic horror and the terror and joy of a wide-open universe. And of course, Lovecraft. Though, not kindly.
Enjoy!
The Destroyer of Worlds was published by on February 21st by HarperCollins
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I like my ghosts like I like my podcasts – weird and slightly furious.
Thankfully, this week delivers on both counts – with Johnny Compton’s The Spite House delivering more ghosts than you think you could fit into 250-pages … and none of them are anything less than fuming!
Johnny talks us through the odd, off-kilter history of spite houses, we trace the legacy of the American haunted house novel, discuss ghost lore and dismiss orbs. We talk about complex father figures and I have my smuggest ever moment of being accidentally right about something.
It’s a blast. Johnny is a joy to talk to and his book gives great ghostliness.
Enjoy!
The Spite House was published by on February 7th by Tor Nightfire.
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It’s a Valentine’s day episode and what better to celebrate today than a conversation about cruelty, brutal folklore, political terror and black magic? Don’t tell me I don’t understand my audience.
I’m beyond delighted to welcome Mariana Enriquez to the show to talk about her massive novel, Our Share of Night. It features all of the above ingredients, in a 700+ page roam through decades of Argentinian history, demonic misconduct.
This ranks amongst the most unstructured conversations I’ve had on this show. I just say some words and then let Mariana let rip. But to give you a taster – we cover her current boredom with the short story, the double standard of harming kids in fiction, houses that eat people, Freddie Krueger and Heathclife and why horror is inevitable in Argentinian fiction
Enjoy!
Our Share of Night was published by Granta in the UK in October, 2022 and in the US on 7th February, 2023 by Hogarth
Other books mentioned in this episode:
READ: Smithsonian article about Chiloe and the imbunche
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Are you ready for another bloody confrontation? Same rules, different setting (actually still my attic bedroom) and more gore?
Stephen Graham Jones AKA Professor Slasher, returns to Talking Scared to discuss Don’t Fear the Reaper, the sequel to his zeitgeist-blasting slasher-ode, My Heart is a Chainsaw. Reaper takes us back to Proofrock, Idaho for a freezing night of rage and bloodshed, with returning favourites and a whole new killer who reads like the distillation of American carnage.
That all sounds suitably epic. Hopefully this conversation matches. Stephen and I talk about favourite slasher sequels, minority monsters in fiction, getting to know Jade Daniels even better, and the importance of writing yourself into a corner.
This is an episode a lot of you have been waiting for. Enjoy. And watch out for hook-handed men.
Enjoy!
Don’t Fear the Reaper was published by Saga and Titan Books on 7th February, 2023
Other books mentioned in this episode:
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It’s not even the end of January and we’re already dealing with the second apocalypse of the year.
This one is written by CJ Tudor, whose new novel, The Drift, moves her out of the crime chillers she is best-known for, into a whole other world of horror.
It’s a series of locked room mysteries, occurring in the hideous aftermath of global pandemic. And if you are a little sick of global pandemics (who isn’t?) then at least this one has rage zombies and lots of murder.
CJ and I talk about many things, from genre expectations, to failed novels, grief to TV adaptation – but the pandemic is a dominant theme. We talk about about some personal loss, so if that would be a trigger for you, go in pre-warned.
But mostly, it’s a lovely chat with “Britain’s answer to Stephen King.”
Enjoy!
The Drift was published by Penguin on Jan 19th in the UK and Jan 31st in the US.
Other books mentioned in this episode:
The Burning Girls (2021), by C.J. Tudor
The Chalk Man (2018), by C.J. Tudor
Sign Here (2022), by Claudia Lux
To contribute to Laird Barron’s GoFundMe, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/laird-barron-hospital-costs-medication-costs.
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When it comes to stress, they say selling a house is up there with divorce and death. Now imagine that house is haunted… by demonic puppets.
Yeah – that’s the premise of Grady Hendrix’s brand-new horror novel, How to Sell a Haunted House. It combines Grady’s trademark humour, genre-knowledge and playfulness, with a genuinely frightening story about homes, and all the things they contain, both comforting and downright nasty.
Grady and I dive into the economics of haunting, the value of earnestness in a world of irony, and we discover the difference between marionettes and hand puppets … which is more frightening that you would expect.
It’s a fun conversation, about a joyfully creepy book.
Enjoy!
How To Sell A Haunted House was published by Berkley on Jan 17th 2003.
Other books mentioned in this episode:
To donate to the fundraiser for Laird Barron, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/laird-barron-hospital-costs-medication-costs, and thanks SO much.
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…AAAND WE’RE BACK!
I hope you’re slipping into 2023 like it’s a warm bath, but either way this week’s episode will be a cold, sharp system shock.
The guest is Stephen Markley; the book is The Deluge – a 900-page beast of ecological and societal disintegration, and the best book I have read in decades. Imagine The Stand was based on rigorous scientific research and was, y’know, about to happen to us all for real.
Yeah! This is a scary one, even if it would never be listed in the horror part of the bookshop.
Stephen and I talk about (re)considering apocalyptic fiction, choosing characters, how real events outpaced the writing of the book, and how the climate crisis forces us to ask some uncomfortable questions about social issues.
Like the book I question, this episode is heavy and challenging and frightening, but maybe… just maybe… it will give you some hope.
Enjoy!
The Deluge was published by Simon & Schuster on Jan 10th 2003.
Other books mentioned in this episode:
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The year is almost over. What is left to do except offer you my last-minute ranking of the best books I’ve read and enjoyed in 2022.
I will warn you – I am poorly and my voice sounds like ten miles of bad gravel. This sounds like the Reba McIntyre book club. I am HUSKY!!
Hang around for the afterword when my voice finally gives out as I labour over a long and elaborate thank-you for listening and supporting the show this year. At times 2022 has felt like a waking nightmare, but here in Spookybooklandia, we’ve kept things ironically nice.
Love to you all.
Happy New Year. Here’s to the next.
Books mentioned:
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It’s that time of year again. A time to reflect, to look back over a tumultuous twelve months, and to talk about the horror books that helped us survive them.
2022 has been a helluva year for the good kind of horror. Far too much for one man to cover. So I’ve drafted in some highly qualified friends – Emily Hughes and Janelle Janson. They have their fingers right on the arterial spurt of the genre – and they have each read far more than me.
Together we deliver this year's State of the Horror Nation – talking about big issues in horror, the key books we’ve adored…and the dozens and dozens of titles we’re looking forward to in 2023.
We raise a glass to a late and beloved horror icon, we make some new year’s resolutions, and Janelle and Emily get a bit squeaky about their big horror crush. Bet you can guess who (it’s not me!)
Thanks for all your support this year.
Books picked:
Books anticipated:
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It’s the Christmas Special and with the obligatory requirement to do something different – we’re turning the tables.
Yes, I’m the one being interviewed this week.
To make that a palatable offering for listeners, the guest interviewers are none other than Rachel Harrison and Josh Malerman. Friends of the show and horror superstars who, out of the goodness of their hearts, devoted an evening to asking me questions. Don’t listen for me; listen for them.
Amongst other parts of my odd life, we cover my early gorilla terrors, my unhealthy relationship with running, and my time as an alpaca farmer. Oh and of course, Stephen King comes up a time or two.
What have we learned in this self-important project – 1) the hubris of the male podcaster knows no bounds and 2) I become a lot less articulate when talking aboiut myself.
Oh … and also, I have an idea that you may, or may not like.
Enjoy, and merry Christmas.
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Are you ready for some learnin’?
This week rather than focusing on any single book, or any single author – I thought we’d have a little look at … y’know … the entire friggin’ history of Horror and Gothic across the centuries. After all, what’s a Christmas break from podcasting if you aren’t doubling the length of your episodes and making the scope infinite?
Thankfully, I’m joined by a bona fide expert. Professor Roger Luckhurst, from Birkbeck College, London comes with me to talk about the history of dark culture. We use his great new book, Gothic: An Illustrated History as a guide.
We cover everything we can in a couple of hours – from the birth of the genre in the 1700s, through Shelley and Stoker and all the way across the Atlantic to pick up with Poe and Lovecraft and Jackson. And as we get into the modern era we see the genre split and fracture in fascinating ways.
I hope you enjoy this immensely. Prof Rog is the best guide an eager Goth or horror nerd could hope for.
**Note – this episode was originally released on Talking Scared Patreon as a series of 3 shorter episodes.
Gothic: An Illustrated is out now from Palgrave.
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This week I’m beginning my supposed ‘break’ from reading.
There is still an episode, however, and it’s a doozy. You may be glad to hear I’ve put down the books for a short while, ‘cos my guest is a huge name from the cinematic aisle of the horror world – Craig Engler, GM of Shudder is in the house!!
He joined me for a conversation back in October, when we were both in the throes of the Halloween build up. Now, listening to this weeks later, you can hardly hear the strain in our voices at all.
We talk about Craig’s creative life and work – from his role in the show, Z-nation, to the helm of Shudder. We debate dream book-to-movie adaptations and, of course, I ask him which films he thinks are the scariest on Shudder. Most of them I’m too afraid to watch.
Oh, and I may use this interview to apply for a non-existent job.
Enjoy – this will have your Christmas TV binge covered.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Get ready to be sickened by my praise.
My guest this week is Philip Fracassi. Last year his historical horror, The Boys in the Valley got the Stephen King endorsement. He’s already following up with A Child Alone With Strangers - his second novel (or is it his first, or his third – as you’ll hear it’s complicated).
This book is an all-timer. It blends the relaxed, character driven storytelling of the best 80s horror, with a contemporary cross-genre style that keeps you shocked … and shook. I tell you now, this book will take your heart, put it in a velvet box – and then stamp on that box until it’s mush.
We talk about a lot of things in this 70-minute conversation. Writing believable children, creating great villains, and conceiving original monsters and true otherness. We explore insectile horror, empathy overloads and setcking to your guns on word-length.
This is my last author-interview of the year and I couldn’t have hoped for a better book to discuss.
Enjoy!
A Child Alone With Strangers was released on October 25th by Talos Press
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Are you a city mouse or a country mouse?
That’s the question at the heart of my conversation with Charlotte Northedge. Her new novel, The People Before argues that though the city may be a hassle, it’s a lot less scary than what waits out there in the fields and farmhouses of this pleasant land.
Charlotte is very much a city mouse. She’s also the Head of Books for The Guardian Newspaper, which makes her superbly well-euipped to talk about fiction in general, and this is an episode that really gets into the Gothic tradition of which The People Before is part.
We talk about the unique nature of the female gothic, domestic loads and mortgage terror, the economics of haunted houses, and I stand by my argument that rural axe-murders are fairly rare.
Enjoy!
The People Before was released on November 10th by HarperCollins
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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It’s coming home, it’s coming … horror’s coming home!
Alright, no one panic – this isn’t about football. We’ll avoid that particular nightmare of human corruption and talk about something much more nourishing – the delights of British Folk Horror.
Our guest is Fiona Barnett, and these days it’s seems like a mini-celebration everytime I have a fellow Brit on the show. Her debut novel The Dark Between the Trees is also quintessentially British, mired in the myth and lore and landscape of these sceptic isles. Her novel follows two groups into the cursed Moresby Woods. One is a group of soldiers from the 16th Century; the other is a research group in the present day. Neither expedition goes at all well…
Amongst many things, Fiona and I talk about writing female groups, about propelling the plot in the face of paralysis weirdness, we discuss the nature of folktale and truth, and we look into the abyss of Deep Time.
And in case that all sounds awfully hifalutin – I make sure to talk about monsters as much as I can. Though this week, I promise, there is no Bigfoot.
Enjoy!
The Dark Between the Trees was released on October 11th by Solaris
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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I don’t always talk about Bigfoot … but when I do it’s with the BEST people.
Our guest this week is Erika T. Wurth, author, narrative artist and creative writing guru. She is of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent and she pours all of that skill and heritage into her new novel White Horse. It’s a tale of haunting, hard-living and violence, with a certain hairy indigenous monster that pops up in your dreams.
This is NOT the Bigfoot that you expect, or want to meet.
As well as that brief foray into hairy hominid lore (I restrained myself; you’re welcome), Erika and I also talk about the dreaded dream sequence, the German phenomenon of Sonder, the real Overlook hotel and Jack Kerouac, of all people.
Enjoy!
White Horse was released on November 1st by Flatiron Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Halloween may be over but I trust you aren’t tired of horror?
No? Good. ‘Cos this week’s guest packs a double-whammy – horror novels and horror movies all in one. Brian McAuley is a screenwriter and debut novelist. His first book, Curse of the Reaper is a behind-the-scenes look at how the horror movie sausage gets made, featuring the greatest slasher icon never to actually exist, and some of the best ‘bad’ scriptwriting you’ll ever read.
Brian and I talk about Hollywood as a place of both cinematic and spiritual horror. We compare our favourite franchises and our love for Robert Englund. We discuss why the genre needs to remember to be fun, and how you can judge a lot from someone’s reaction to the latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
All in all, it’s the perfect book for the day after Halloween – when we just need to keep the horror train rollin’
Enjoy!
Curse of the Reaper was released on October 4th by Talos Press.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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The last episode before Halloween and it’s suitably about my favourite book of the year: Andy Davidson’s The Hollow Kind
Andy is the Stoker-nominated author of In the Valley of the Sun and The Boatman’s Daughter. The Hollow Kind is his third book and it packs a lot into its 400 pages. It’s as dense and weighty as an imploding paper star.
It’s a haunted house story (of sorts), a creature feature (of sorts) and a whole lot of Southern Gothic of many kinds. The prose is lush and wow, does Andy know a lot about the history of Georgia both human and natural.
We talk about that, as well as the link between industry and horror, the allure of extreme violence, and the sheer delight of finding a map at the front of a book. Plus, we go a little deeper than usual into the nature and origins of the evil at the heart of the story.
Enjoy and have a happy Halloween my horror-loving siblings!
The Hollow Kind was released on October 11th by MCD
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Jo Koch interview with Andy at Southwest Review
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It was Thomas Wolfe who wrote “you can never go home again.” Huh, what did he know? (yes, I understand the metaphor – move on!)
This week’s guest proves that whilst you can go home, you may not want to. Erin E. Adams is an actor, playwright and now the debut author of JACKAL, a novel of homecomings horrid and awful.
Each year, in the small Pennsylvania town of Johnstown, a young Black girl goes missing, taken by whatever lurks in the woods surrounding the town. Helluva premise!!
Erin takes us on a tour of Johnstown, both the real and the sorta fictional version. We talk about justification and paranoia, about anger as a superpower and the notion that horror is a genre for white people. She explores the epochal moments from her town’s history and goes deep on her feelings about Black horror’s handling of trauma.
Then we compare our memories of small-town adolescence – finding that some sh*t is the same all around the world.
Enjoy!
Jackal was released on October 4th by Bantam.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Do you know anyone with hairy palms?
Weird question, but as this week’s novel-in-question will convince you, it’s best to be careful around the hirsute.
Our guest is Rachel Harrison, returning to Talking Scared with her brand new SUCH SHARP TEETH. It’s a tale of small-town relationships, female transformation, love and … werewolves.
Anyone who has read either of Rachel’s previous novels, The Return or Cackle, will know that she has a knack for reinventing horror tropes within snarky satire. Such Sharp Teeth is no different in that regard. Rachel and I talk about messy characters, beastly metaphors, and rage filled rooms. We get into the unexpected earnestness of romance, and we wonder if horror comedy may well be the best genre to represent contemporary existence.
And stick around because Rachel also has the best ever answer to the question, what truly scares you…
Enjoy!
Such Sharp Teeth is released on October 4th by Berkley.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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The best and spookiest season starts in earnest, this year on Talking Scared.
Our guest is Jamie Flanagan, actor, screenwriter, and part of the team who delivered such televisual delights as The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and now, The Midnight Club.
With The Midnight Club due to land on Netflix worldwide this Friday – I rejigged the schedule to sneak in a chat with Jamie about his work on the show, his relationship with horror-maestro director, Mike Flanagan, and some of the magic that bubbled to the surface in Midnight Mass.
Jamie pulls back the veil on the mythical ‘writers room’. He talks about the difficulty of getting anything to screen. And we talk, of course, about the influence of Stephen King.
It’s a pleasant detour this week, away from books, without leaving the literary entirely behind.
Enjoy!
The Midnight Club is released worldwide on Netflix, October 7th.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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It’s not only vampires that drink blood. That’s what we find out on this week’s episode.
Our guest is Alexis Henderson – author of The Year of the Witching and now, her sophomore novel, House of Hunger. It’s a luscious, lurid tale of dark fantasy, blood and sex. Y’know … all the good stuff.
Oh, and it’s one of my favourite books of the year.
Alexis and I discuss the collision of horror and fantasy, the erotics and politics of blood, and the double standards when it comes to female perversion. We also talk a little about a certain Bloody Countess, who plays a big part in the background of House of Hunger.
Enjoy!
House of Hunger is released September 27th by Ace Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Wanna get haunted?
That’s the delightful proposition offered by Clay McLeod Chapman’s Ghost Eaters – a novel of ghosts, grief and ghastly narcotics. Just take one pill and you can sell all the phantoms that surround you. What a premise!
It’s Clay’s second time on Talking Scared and he’s always welcome. There are few more honest, open, and thoughtful writers out there. This time around we go deep, into the real emotional core of Ghost Eaters, talking about lost friends and long-ago dreams. We discuss 90s indie art, postmodernism’s pains-in-the-ass, and our drug experiences (turns out we’re lame).
Oh, and there are Machine Elves. What are Machine Elves, you ask? Listen to find out.
Enjoy!
Ghost Eaters is released September 20th by Quirk Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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The time has finally come to go to the scariest place imaginable – the inside of the human mind.
Thankfully, we have a friend to accompany us on this most hideous of trips. I’m joined this week by Gemma Amor, author of the brand-new techno-horror FULL IMMERSION. It’s a book that deals with trauma, psychosis and experimental treatment, and it’s the perfect springboard for an epic conversation about mental health in horror.
Gemma and I cover the autobiographical elements of her novel and how it helped her recovery. I lay bare my own neurosis and explain why this genre is not necessarily a safe space. And Gemma explains the dangerous reality of being a woman in the horror game.
If that all sounds a tad sombre, don’t worry – there is also chat about the Uncanny Valley, Men in Black, Creepypasta and Black Mirror. As well as the pros and cons of pushing over racist statues.
It’s a long episode this one. You won’t get this level of self-indulgence every week. But it was just too good a conversation to cut short.
Let’s head into my head, it’s scary there!!
Enjoy!
Full Immersion is released September 13th by Angry Robot
Read Gemma’s essay - The Female Experience of Fear
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Finally, she’s here!
After months of waiting for schedules and book releases to align, Hailey Piper is on the show. She’s here to talk about both of her 2022 releases – each is a kidnapping experience.
The novella Your Mind is a Terrible Thing takes us up into the void and into creepy inner space. Her forthcoming novel No Gods for Drowning transports us somewhere else entirely.
Hailey lets me blather on about social commentary and metaphor before reminding me gently that sometimes it’s ok to enjoy the story. We talk about concise world-building (how!!), zombie capitalism, police brutality, anxiety and body autonomy, and why Queer characters don’t need an agenda to be worthy of inclusion.
By the time this goes live Hailey has probably written another two books!! But for now, I’m just delighted to have her on the show to discuss these two.
Enjoy!
Your Mind is a Terrible Thing was released May 2022 by Off Limits Press; No Gods for Drowning is published September 7th, 2022 by Polis Books.
Other books mentioned in the episode include:
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Time to get weird and wiggy and wondrous.
Our guest this week is Zin E. Rocklyn, author of many short fictions, and her (very) recently award-winning novella Flowers for the Sea.
It’s an afro-speculative blend of science fiction, horror, fantasy, myth, dystopia, pre-history and apocalypse – all confined to a single boat in a big, bad ocean, and all told within 100 pages.
Phew – it’s dense!
Zin and I cover a lot this week. We barrel through her the twin crises of reproductive rights and climate change – and look at how inequality is a huge component of both. We talk about writing the body, evoking smell and how pain has many uses.
That sounds dark. It is. But there is also light, including an unexpected reference to an old British sitcom, the juxtaposition of Zin and Hyacinth Bouquet made me laugh!!
Enjoy this one.
Flowers for the Sea was released October 2021, by Tor
Other books mentioned in the episode include:
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Get your bell bottoms, your peace sign, your tie dye and your … crucifix!
This week’s guest is Gwendolyn Kiste and her new novel, Reluctant Immortals, transports us to San Francisco in 1968, the summer after the Summer of Love, when the sun is setting on the hippie movement. Into this chaos comes a quarter of iconic Gothic characters, ready to fight it out all over again.
Like the book, the surface of this conversation belies its inner darkness. Yes we talk hippies. Yes we talk Haunted Hollywood. Yes we talk cheesy movies. But we also get into the horrific implications of vampires for sexual consent, the true hideous power of the patriarchy, and how women are weaponised against women.
There is substantial conversation about domestic and sexual abuse in the second half of the conversation. Just a warning in case this is a problem for you.
It’s a tough conversation, but a good one.
Enjoy!
Reluctant Immortals is released in North America on August 23rd by and in the UK on November 22nd by Titan.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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This week we’re crossing the podcast streams again – and broadening our reading at the same time.
Agatha Andrews is the host of She Wore Black, a Texas-based podcast of Gothic, Mystery and Horror. She’s also my horror-podcasting buddy, the romantic yin to my dark, depraved yang. And she knows a thing or two about Gothic Romance.
It turns out it’s not all virgins in nightgowns (though they do make an appearance). Agatha talks me through the complex, overlapping relationships between Romance, Gothic, horror and erotica. We talk about how love combines with fear, why happy endings are an ironclad rule and the joy of the Danger-Bang. She also helps me navigate some recent twitter beef that had me utterly confused.
This is a little diversion for the show, a ramble down a different path for this week. But hey, give love a chance!
(plus, we also talk about House of Leaves)
Episodes of She Wore Black are released weekly and you can find Agatha at @sheworeblackpod
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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Are your doors and windows locked? Good. ‘Cos this one is going to scare you!
This week I’m joined by Michael J. Seidlinger, author of the new home-invasion nightmare, Anybody Home. You’ve read this scenario before – invasion, torture, death and suffering – but never like this.
We talk about why home invasion is so singularly frightening, about the role of movies and lenses in our hyper-surveillant culture, we disagree on the current state of experimental fiction, and Michael gives perhaps the most startling answer yet to the question of where did the idea for this book come from…
All that, plus my rantings on the morality of torture porn, some really geeky video game chat, heavy metal metaphors, and an afterword containing some important questions for the future of this show.
Enjoy!
Anybody Home is published August 16th by CLASH books
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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What scared you as a kid? Monsters? Ghosts? The thing in your closet? The perilous state of the environment and the terrible carbon footprint of children’s toys?
If it’s any of the former then you’re in good company. (If it’s the latter then boy did we need you in 1987!) This week’s guests understand the fear that makes the childlike mind tick and tock, they know how to get under young skin, and they know how to inject a little hope into the horror.
Ally Malinenko, Dan Poblocki and Lora Senf are three of the finest middle-grade authors around. Their books, This Appearing House, Tales to Keep You Up at Night and The Clackity present three very different kinds of nightmares to challenge, inspire and slightly terrify readers age 8-12.
In this middle-grade special we dive deep into each of their book, to examine how horror works for younger readers. When does a lot become too much? And what can we say to the gatekeepers and politicians who would rather these precious children not read such awful things. It’s an important question, cos, after all, kids are the ones who are going to have to both survive and save this world – so let’s at least prepare them with some horrors they can conquer in the here and now.
This is a longer episode, and a slightly left-turn. But it’s also a lot of fun and surprisingly dark.
Enjoy!
The Clackity is published June 28th by Atheneum
This Appearing House is published August 16th by Katherine Tegen Books
Tales to Keep You Up at Night is published August 16th by Penguin Workshop
Other books discussed in this episode include:
To find out more about my friend Amy Sarthou and her Portable Magic project to increase inclusive school reading – you can follow her on instagram at PortableMagic_reads_books
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Do you like scary movies? Yes, course you do – you’re listening to a horror podcast.
Okay, cliched horror quote asides – this week is something a little different for the show. It’s been a minute since we’ve had some non-fiction, and how better to scratch that itch-for-facts than with a discussion of BRAINZZZZZ?
Our guest is Nina Nesseth: scientist, researcher and author of Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films. It does what it says on the cover. Nina guides us through a century of horror cinema, looking at how we, as a species, react neurologically and physiologically to scenes of blood, violence and carnage. Think of it, perhaps, as a tour of the most haunted house of all, the human mind.
We dissect everything – movies, culture, eyeballs (prepare yourself!), and the trailer for Rob Zombie’s The Munsters. We also talk about communicating science in the new age of anti-rationality, how our brains can tell screens and real life apart, the best ever decade for horror, and we mock the phrase elevated horror in all the ways that stupid term deserves.
Enjoy!
Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films was published on July 19th by Tor Nightfire
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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We’re heading into largely uncharted horror waters this week with our guest Nat Cassidy.
Nat’s debut horror novel, Mary: An Awakening of Terror dares to confront one of the last true taboos of horror fiction. No, it’s not cannibalism, or necrophilia, or the bowel movements of Tucker Carlson … no… it’s the menopause.
That’s right. Female physiology. The horror, the terror, think of the children!!!
Nat and I talk about why horror shies away from the topic of middle age and menopause, and why he was inspired to tell this story when he was just thirteen years old. We talk about Stephen King and Carrie and their lasting influence. And we look back at the worse year of Nat’s life, and how it helped fuel the writing of Mary.
We also promise (and fail) to talk about Bruce Springsteen, our shared north star. Watch this space for more on that in the future.
Enjoy!
Mary: An Awakening of Terror is published on July 19thth by Tor Nightfire
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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DUM DUM DUM!!! 100 episodes!!
We did it. We reached an utterly abstract threshold together guys and we are DELIGHTED to be here.
I’m also delighted to welcome Paul Tremblay back to the show for a neat bit of circularity (as he was the one to kick things off way back in episode 1). Paul’s new novel, The Pallbearer’s Club came out just at the right time to make him the 100th guest. I’m convinced he planned it that way.
It’s a tale of weird adolescence, New England folklore, Punk Rock and loneliness. Sounds typically bleak right? Well it is, but it also has jokes, a heartwarming friendship and argumentative notes in the margins – so it’s both a homecoming and a departure for Paul.
We talk about his early desire to be a musician, his obsessions with misinformation, the art of fictionalising the truth, and the fear that inspires his uniquely uncanny set-pieces.
Oh, and we also mention a certain film adaptation that may be in the works.
Enjoy!
The Pallbearers Club was published on July 5th by William Morrow and Titan Books
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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It’s been a rough couple of weeks. So, let’s have a laugh: Poe-style!
Our guest is T. Kingfisher. She’s an expert in taking dry, dark horror classics and investing them with newfound life. In What Moves the Dead she manages to find the gruesome joy in even the most dolorous of text.
What Moves the Dead reconfigures and reapproaches Poe’s classic, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” It updates the year, introduces some gender fluidity, and even adds Beatrix Potter’s aunt. Yes, this is not your usual rewrite.
It also involves mushrooms. Lots and lots of mushrooms.
Consequently, we talk a lot about mycology – but we also get plenty of other fun stuff. Like whether we enjoy explanations in horror, how Albanian inheritance laws inspired her novella’s gender dynamics, and how her grandmother would have excelled at polygamy had it been invented.
This episode is a sprinkle of zest into the rancid stew of life.
Enjoy!
What Moves the Dead is published on July 12th by Tor Nightfire
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]
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Things are a bit fishy this week, as I’m joined by long-time friend-of-the-show Tim McGregor (@TimMcGregor1) to talk about the long history of fish-tailed women and why we find them so frightening … and sexy!
Tim’s forthcoming novella, Lure, is a mermaid story with bite! No Ariel here; Sebastian the Crab is hiding. Instead it’s about the war of attrition between a brutal patriarchal settlement and the sea-she-creature who holds them to account.
(a little fitting for this week’s misogyny-a-thon in the Supreme Court)
As well as mermaid lore, we also talk about Tim’s upbringing in the Ontarian wilds … and his father’s axe … as well as disagreeing on heroes and villains, and delving into Tim’s experiences on the periphery of one of the year’s biggest horror meltdowns.
Enjoy!
Lure is published on July 18th by Tenebrous Press
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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This week on Talking Scared it’s monsters all day, every day.
To celebrate the release of Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous, we gather around the campfire with editor Ellen Datlow and three of her contributors – no less than Nathan Ballingrud, Chikodili Emelumadu and the great Joe R. Lansdale.
As a result, this is not your average Talking Scared episode. There is interruption, overlap, argument much good humour.
Amidst the chaos we still manage a fascinating conversation about the creatures that lurk in the wilds and those who walk amongst us. We talk about what makes a monster, why we love them, and where they fit in our modern hyperconnected world.
(and they have the audacity to tell me that Bigfoot isn’t real!)
Enjoy!
Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous was published on June 7th by Tor Nightfire
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]
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We’re closing out our (very) loose trilogy of episodes devoted to sinister schools and magical children. This week it involves pentagrams and witch-burnings, which are always a good time.
Our guest, Stephen Lloyd, is better known for his comedy than his horror. He has spent a career crafting some of the biggest sitcoms of the century (some of which helped my marriage survive lockdown). Now, he has turned his pen to something much less wholesome, in his first novel, Friend of the Devil.
We talk about Satanism and D&D and the aftermath of Vietnam – all that stuff that made the 80s such a goddamn fun decade for so many. But we also look at how those tendrils reach into the present set of existential crises. Socio-political shi*tshows aside, Stephen discusses the difference between writing horror and writing comedy, he explains the inner workings of a TV writer’s room – and how penning a novel in isolation is a whole other thing.
I even ask him for advice on screenwriting, because my ill-conceived ambition knows no bounds…
Enjoy!
Friend of the Devil was published on May 30th by G.P. Putnam
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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This week we go to magic school, but there isn’t a f***ing owl or a talking hat in sight.
Instead, it’s a much more macabre affair, as J. M. Miro begins his trilogy of dark sorcery with Ordinary Monsters.
J. M. goes by a different name in his other, more prosaic writing life, but here, with us, in the blood and the shadows he writes as his second self. Which is a long-winded and torturous way to say this is a pseudonym.
We talk about the creative and practical reasons behind that, as well as his tragic family history, his obsession with Victorian London, female detectives in history and how to write a compelling action scene.
And we manage to do all that without saying a single hateful or prejudiced thing. Imagine!
Enjoy!
Ordinary Monsters was published on June 7th by Bloomsbury and Flatiron Books
Other books discussed in this episode include:
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This week we go behind the curtain to look at the inner workings of a bona-fide modern classic.
Our guest is Scott Hawkins, whose debut novel, The Library At Mount Char delighted genre fans back in 2015. Now, to commemorate its first UK publication, Scott joins me for a conversation about its many madcap secrets.
We talk about everything from cosmic ethics to kidney stone – he gives us a little until-now-unknown backstory on some of the most mysterious characters, and I take umbrage at how awfully he treats the poor, poor pooches that guard his goddamned library!!
This is a lovely conversation about the loveliest book you’ve ever read … that contains scenes of children being roasted alive.
Enjoy!
The Library At Mount Char was published in the UK on 10th May, by Titan Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Here I come, ready or not!
Our guest this week is Kiersten White. She’s the award-winning author of numerous macabre YA fictions, but now she’s making her debut in adult fiction (not that kind!) with Hide – a tale of life-or-death hide-and-seek.
It’s a fantastic premise to begin with. Think The Hunger Games meets Squid Game, or any other kind of game but nastier and with more socio-political heft.
Yeah, that’s right. Once again on Talking Scared the guest and I deconstruct society, in particular the capitalist nightmare that is at the core of Kiersten’s novel.
We talk about economic inequality horror, American fairytales, the conflict between boomers and millennials, and the difference between mazes and labyrinths. I even ask some good questions about craft.
We laugh a lot, but be warned, there is a burning rage behind this book.
Enjoy!
Hide is published on May 24th by Penguin and Del Rey
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This week’s episode couldn’t have come at a more pertinent time. As women’s reproductive rights come under assault in the US, as Roe V Wade gets rolled back and fat, sweaty men in suits make rules they will never have to obey – I’m joined by a writer who wrote a book about the cult of having babies.
Anne Heltzel is the author of Just Like Mother, a contemporary Gothic techno-thriller about fertility, pressure, choice and cults. Okay, the real-world context may be heavy, but the book is a blast. It’s both a surface-level thriller and a deep indictment of the way that modern life has got us all under pressure and running just to keep up.
Anne and I talk about the creepiness of dolls, whether we give too much importance to twists, our shared experiences of feeling off-course in our twenties, and how everything, anything can be a cult if you just tweak it hard enough.
Enjoy!
Just Like Mother is published on May 17th by Tor Nightfire
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
You can download your free copy of Ash by Dan Soule from Amazon in your region until May 19th.
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Do think kids’ drawings are creepy? They are, right? All big smiles and suns with eyes and weird flowers the size of people… and the dead girls in the background.
Right?
Our guest this week has built a whole horror story around these little paper nightmares. Hidden Pictures is a novel that blends text and image in ways that I’ve never seen done before, or never as well. It’s a story of childhood imagination, suburban murder and summer terror. Think Gone Girl with Crayola ghosts.
Jason and I talk about lots of things – the rise of 1% horror; the relationship between image and text, and how to adapt an experimental book for audio. We get into the fairy tale details that I missed, and ask kid’s imaginary friends are just so damn freaky.
Trust me, you’ll never look at your little cherub’s artistic offerings the same way ever again.
Enjoy
Hidden Pictures is published on May 10th by Flatiron Books and Sphere.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
My article in Esquire on ‘The 50 Best Horror Novels of All Time’
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It’s a week of deep-dives, haunted-houses and academic horror-stories this week on Talking Scared.
Our guest is Isabel Cañas. And she’s having the busiest week known to (wo)mankind. Not only is she defending her doctoral thesis on Medieval Turkish Poetry, she also has the small matter of her debut novel – a sweetly sinister piece of Latin Gothic called The Hacienda
We talk about everything that could possibly have influenced the novel. From the creepy house she once lived in, to her worldwide travels and her academic studies. It also plays a part – but nothing more so than a childhood spent reading.
As well as diving deep into what made Isabel who she is, we also talk about Latinx horror generally, about mixing Catholicism with something even stranger, how she will never be frightened by the same things as Stephen King, and why it’s so important to keep the literary door ajar once you’ve kicked it open.
It was a pleasure to speak to Isabel. I can’t believe she found the time.
Enjoy
The Hacienda is published on May 3rd by Berkley
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
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This week Alma Katsu brings her brand of immaculate historical horror to Talking Scared.
After the The Hunger upped the ante on the Donner Party, and The Deep gave us a sinking feeling about the Titanic, Alma is back with The Fervor – a book too dark to write a pun about.
It’s a tale of haunting and conspiracy during the years of Japanese internment in the US. Spanning multiple states, and multiple POV’s, it weaves a story of anger, prejudice and hate that seems all too familiar today.
We talk a lot about the history of internment and anti-asian prejudice in the US, about Alma’s heritage and career, and the unique perspective it gives her on the topic. But don’t worry, just as it’s all about to get worryingly serious –the spider demons pop in to lighten the mood!
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
The Fervor is published on April 26th, by G.P. Putnam. It will be released in the UK in October, by Titan.
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After much recent politickin’ and metaphor – we’re back with a good old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness ghost story.
And from a friend, no less.
V. L. Valentine came on the show last year (ep.31) to talk about her debut medical horror whodunnit, The Plague Letters. Now she’s back with her sophomore novel, a ripe Gothic treat called Begars Abbey.
It plays with the tropes beautifully. There are secret rooms, sinister histories, mad old relatives, torture, crypts, sinister servants and lots of ghosts. Why the shift, from surgeons to spooks, you may ask.
Well, Vikki and I talk about that. As well as what she learned between book 1 and 2, the elements of pacing, writing problematic women in the age of twitter, the macabre history of old dungeons and the perilous evils of Downton Abbey (ok – that last one is more my soapbox).
Also, Vikki takes me to task about not yet finishing my own novel. Consider me chastened and now writing!
Enjoy!
Begars Abbey is published on April 26th, by Viper.
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I promise this week isn’t a pandemic novel. I know … we all need a break.
No, Malcolm Devlin’s And Then I Woke Up IS about a disease, but not one that makes you cough, vomit or melt. Instead it’s a disease (drum roll), OF THE MIND!!
But even then, it’s not what you think – no rage monsters here. Well, not really.
Instead, this novella is a perfect allegory of how narratives can infect, distort and corrupt. How reality is contingent, and how the truth is more elusive by the day. All that, with zombies (sorta)
Malcolm is a very polite man. So polite that he lets me use his book as a jumping-off point for all manner of cracked pseudo-philosophical theories. I basically forget the first rule of podcasting – DON’T talk more than the guest.
Sorry.
But when I give Malcolm chance to speak, he says great things. We talk about everything from the power of story and culture, to the problems with zombie narratives and how, in times of horror, Left and Right wing doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. Plus, we reminisce about the blue/gold dress illusion, the Bath Salts Cannibal, and other great noughties memes.
Enjoy!
And Then I Woke Up is published on April 12th, by Tor.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Alan Baxter is the Lord of Weird Australia. I said it before, he liked it, so I’ll say it again. Alan Baxter is the Lord of Weird Australia.
Perhaps nothing he has written is as weird, or as Australian as the stories set in and around the town of Gulpepper. He took us there in The Gulp and now he’s taking us back in The Fall, the second collection of linked novellas outlining the town and its weird inhabitants.
Bear in mind, when I say nothing he’s written is as weird or as Australian – this is a man who wrote a book about a homicidal kangaroo!
So yeah, The Gulp and The Fall are weird. Weird as hell. Weirdness on toast (with or without vegemite). We talk about that weirdness, about how to make it work and when to reign it in or let it ride. We talk the beauty and threat of Australian wilderness and the monstrous potential of the ocean. We talk winging it when it comes to mythology and how even Alan isn’t sure where Gulpepper goes next.
We talk about all sorts of things. It’s a blast.
Enjoy!
The Fall: Tales from the Gulp 2 is published on April 12th.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Imagine it’s just you and two other people stuck in a single building for weeks on end. Everyone’s bad habits on display. How long would it take you to turn murderous?
That’s just one of the possible questions asked in Emma Stonex’s The Lamplighters. Inspired by the real-world vanishing of the Flannan Isle Lighthouse keepers, but full of incident and weirdness all it’s own, The Lamplighters is equally poetic and paranoid, gentle and cruel, haunting and horrifying. It may be the best thing I’ve read this year.
It will either make you want to move to a lighthouse immediately, or never again set foot anywhere but dry land.
Emma and I talk about the sea, about bad places and lonely buildings, and we come back again and again to the inexhaustible metaphor of the lighthouse.
It all gets very lyrical, but we do also use the word “bonkbuster” at one point, to puncture the profundity.
This is a truly fantastic book, and a great conversation with someone who shares our love for the windswept, memory-stained places of the world.
Enjoy!
The Lamplighters is published in paperback on March 1st in the US and March 31st in the UK.
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This week is an orgy of horror. There are four of us. That makes it an orgy right? (I’ve never been to one – never got the invitation).
Ahem … sorry. I'll start again.
This week I am joined by not one, but THREE guests.
John F. D. Taff, Livia Llewellyn, and of course, Josh Malerman. We could call them stars from the firmament of horror. Dark Stars perhaps.
That would be fitting, considering that’s what they are here to discuss (amongst many, many things). Dark Stars is a benchmark spook fest. An anthology of fiction that attempts to set the tone for where we are in our collective horror moment.
John is the editor, Josh and Livia are contributors – amongst nine other names from the very forefront of the genre. Each story is different, with few tropes, little tradition and zero constricting theme. It’s just a collection of darkness, depravity and delight.
John, Livia and Josh are old friends, old battle-companions from the horror vanguard. As such I’m essentially redundant this week. I just turned the show over to them and got out of the way.
I make an attempt at order and structure – we talk about making horror weird as hell, about drawing fiction from life, about how we use and abuse tropes in this new horror landscape, but mostly it’s about community, friendship and weird, perverse joy in being creepy together.
Oh, and Josh and I talk bad drug experiences, whilst Livia joins my fight to put sex back in horror!
Enjoy!
Dark Stars: New Tales of Darkest Horror is published on May 10th by Tor Nightfire in the US and Titan in the UK.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Hey horrorfam – ready for a good ol’ murder mystery? Y’know, with ghosts…
Our guest is Simone St. James, the doyenne of ‘Supernatural Suspense’ (as the marketeers love to call it). Her 2020 smash hit The Sundown Motel put her name up in lights, and her latest – The Book of Cold Cases keeps it there, shining cold and bright.
It’s a tale of murder, media and misogyny – told in the classic dual-timeline manner that seems to feature in all good supernatural suspense novels – and it features a female serial killer (or is she?), a haunted house (or is it?) and a VERY millennial true crime blogger (or is… yes, yes she is!)
It was exactly the kind of story that I needed to blow the nuclear cobwebs off in our freshly frightening times.
Simone and I talk about the struggle of plotting, and its rewards for enjoyable stories. We wonder why we don’t get more female serial killers in fiction and the complexity of flipping gender roles within genre. We also tussle with the troubles of setting horror in Canada.
…oh, and I try to convince her to start a podcast.
Enjoy!
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Are you ready for another apocalypse? Covid and nukes not enough for ya?
Well here you go then. Something slightly different.
Mike Meginnis’ Drowning Practice is an odder than usual end-of-days. It’s a book in which everyone knows that time is up, and yet they just don’t seem to care. There are few (I won’t say zero) ravening lunatics in this book – but the more chilling realisation is that even at the end of the world, you still have to go to work.
Mike and I talk about art and NFT monkeys, about poisoned capitalism and how his book mirrors our own pre-apocalyptic malaise. We also talk about the link between depression and creativity, and we have a friendly disagreement about whether the protagonist of this book is a deeply sinister character.
This is a gentler end-of-days than most, but no less horrifying in its implications.
Enjoy!
Drowning Practice is published March 15th by Ecco Books.
Other books mentioned in this conversation include:
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Tyler Jones’ Burn the Plans reminds me of the first time I picked up Stephen King’s Night Shift. I didn’t know who this King guy was, only that his stories were varied, scary, funny, awful and sweet and sweetly awful. In short, a great time.
Burn the Plans is the same.
The collection dashes from an ever-so-American-Gothic farm to a bloodsoaked art gallery, CIA psychic experimentation to invisible Frankensteinian limb-monsters. Tyler’s imagination runs amok and breaks the crockery.
We talk about small presses and self-publishing, the discipline of being your own editor, the writing from the POV of kids and the problems with perfect prose.
We also discuss the collection’s theme – that life isn’t safe, that we should learn to expect the unexpected, be ready to live with (and survive crisis).
That message has never been so clear as in recent news … and if you listen to this episode, please stick around for my outro as I have something to say, and dedications to make.
Enjoy!
Burn the Plans was published February 28th by Cemetary Gates Media
Other books mentioned in this conversation include:
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Have you ever wondered what fresh testicles taste like? No? I don’t believe you.
Our guest this week wants to get you thinking about it … well, that and many more important things. Gretchen Felker-Martin is the author of Manhunt – potentially the most buzzed-about horror novel of 2022. The story follows a pair of trans- protagonists through a blighted landscape of monstrous men and militant feminists – with the prized scrotal orbs being the key to continued life, and the pursuit of happiness.
Quite a lot to chew on, right (I’ll stop!). On top of that pulpy set up, the book goes deep, turning the end-of-the-world into the perfect allegory for anti-trans thinking, but also sparing much empathy for the confused, the ignorant and the self-loathing. It’s an angry book, but a thoughtful one.
Gretchen and I talk about love and hate, about the fear of involuntary transitioning, about victimhood and caring and fighting back against facism. I went in expecting a polemic but ended the conversation feeling strangely better about the world.
I hope you do too.
Enjoy!
Manhunt is published February 22nd by Tor Nightfire
Other books mentioned in this conversation include:
Gretchen’s interview with Heat Death can be found here.
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February’s focus on the best new Women-in-Horror continues with Leon Craig and her debut collection, Parallel Hells.
Leon is a North London writer with a globalised imagination. She’s been published all over the place, but is also a member of the Future’s in the Making, Queer writer’s collective. That perspective is inescapable in this collection. Wherever her stories take us, from an Eastern European pogrom, to a Viking settlement, or a BDSM dungeon frequented by denizens of the underworld – Leon maintains an outsider’s eye and a clear knowledge of the deliciously Gothic possibilities of Queerness.
We talk Jewish folklore, emotional angst, mid-20s ennui, and the bright, healthy, happy side of sadomasochism. All that with some demonic-inflection and a good dose of the odd and downright weird. What’s not to like?
Enjoy!
Parallel Hells is published February 17th by Sceptre Books.
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This week is my personal Everest.
Thomas Olde Heuvelt, bestselling Euro-horror whizzkid author of HEX, joins me to to talk about his newest novel – Echo. It’s a story of mountaineering, and madness, and monsters of the soul.
If you follow me on any form of social media you may have seen that this book utterly distressed me. I can’t even say why myself; it just tweaked a nerve.
Echo is a wonderfully easter-egg-laden novel, full of references to other horror masterworks. As you’ll hear in this conversation, that is no surprise. Thomas knows what he’s doing. He knows how to twist the knife (or the climbing axe) for maximum effect.
We talk about mountains, of rock and of the mind. We talk about the role that those grand peaks play in horror through the ages, and how his own relationship with the mountains is one of both fascination and terror – whereas, for me, it’s just the latter. We also discuss writing horror in translation, about the role of erotic love in horror fiction, and the creepy mountain stories that led to the creation of this nightmarish book.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned on the show include:
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In space no one can hear you read!
This week our guest is S.A. Barnes – who’s new novel Dead Silence answers the (stupid) question, once and for all, of whether horror can take place in space. It’s a tale of a blue-collar crew, who encounter more than they reckoned for when salvaging a fabled spaceship. You think you’ve seen this play out before, I know.
You haven’t.
Stacey and I talk about all things “space-horror”, from the looming shadow of Alien and Event Horizon, to the most truly terrifying thing you can now encounter in orbit: a tech bro.
We also talk romance in horror, Scottish ghosts, classic X Files episodes, what makes for a great haunted house (corners, amongst other things), and we both lament our shared anxiety when we hear a sound we can’t recognise.
This is just a pure fun book, and delightful conversation that boldly goes … etc, etc.
Dead Silence is published on February 8th by Tor Nightfire.
Enjoy!
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Is it cold where you are? If so, do I have the book for you.
Our guest is Ally Wilkes, whose debut novel, All the White Spaces was my pick for the most anticipated horror novel of early 2022. I was NOT disappointed.
The book takes us to Antarctica in 1919, just months after the end of the First World War, in the dying years of the Heroic Age of Exploration. There, trapped in the frozen ‘overwinter’ the team of men are forced to confront a malignant presence that draws them out into the cold.
Did that give you a shiver? The good kind? Yes!
Ally’s book is the springboard for a great conversation about exploration and hauntings. We debate over what the thing in the darkness is. Is it a ghost, a god, an evil sense of anti-human geography?
But beyond that we also get into all kinds of meaty, chewy topics, such as how her novel unpicks and deconstructs the long-celebrated ideas of masculinity, heroism, nationhood and empire.
Yet, despite all that, the Daily Mail still gave it a good review. It’s THAT good a book.
Enjoy!!
All the White Spaces is released in the UK on January 25th by Titan Books, and on Mach 22nd by Atria in North America.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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This week it’s time for good girls and bad girls to unite.
Our guest is Kristi DeMeester whose new novel, Such A Pretty Smile sinks its teeth deep into the raised hand of misogyny. It’s a tale of violence and viciousness and vivid nightmares – and a whole new apparatus to explore the evils that men do.
At this point I assume we’ve already weeded out the guys who roll their eyes at #metoo!?
That’s for the best cos this is a feminism-heavy week. We talk about how horror treats women, from monstering menstruation to imagining female puberty as a threshold into hell. Along the way we cover the awful concept of the ‘lesser’ dead, the question of whether pretty girl privilege is a thing, and whether men really think women are too delicate to write such awful things.
We also consider why dogs can be much scarier than wolves.
This book started my year off right. Ambiguous, though-provoking, and ANGRY. Kristi is not f*cking around here.
Enjoy!!
Such a Pretty Smile is released January 18th by St Martin’s Press.
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Kicking off the New Year right, by interviewing one of my favourite living writers.
John Connolly is the author of the bestselling Charlie Parker series, a 19 book odyssey that takes us from the Maine coast to the darkest corners of the USA (and elsewhere), in the process, transmuting hardboiled detective noir into cosmic horror.
After two decades of reading about Parker, you can be sure I have plenty to ask John – about writing American horror as an Irishman, Maine’s hostile spaces, the thrilling allure of literary violence, and whether he has an end in sight.
But John is also here to talk about a whole other beast. Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction is his mammoth attempt to map the contours of his native literature, and expose the snobbery that has suppressed it. We talk a lot about how genre works (and doesn’t work), and how Irish fiction is at the very bedrock of this horror thing we all love.
I’m a fanboy this week, no point denying it. I just did my best not to embarrass myself – especially as we were both enjoying a festive drink!
Enjoy!!
Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction was published October 2021 by Hodder and Stoughton.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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It’s just me this week – sneaking one last episode in to talk about my own personal top-10 horror novels (or horror-ish) from the last twelve months.
It’s been a stellar year, and picking just ten books was a nightmare all of it’s own. But these things must be done. The world MUST know what one more straight, white guy thinks about culture, or society will collapse.
I hope you enjoy this as I get more and more animated as things go on. It’s a good job I’m taking next week off – I’m starting to sound manic.
Have a great new year folks, and thanks for all your kindness and support this year.
Here’s to 2022… it surely can’t be any worse.
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Well, we made it to the end of this nightmare of a year. And though there has been plenty of horrific stuff along the way – war, plague, corruption … literal armed insurrection, at least the fictional horror has been fun.
To commemorate a special year in horror, I’m getting the band back together. Sadie Hartmann, AKA Mother Horror, and Emily Hughes of Tor Nightfire (and various other parishes) join me to talk about the stuff they have loved from the second half** of 2021.
**if you missed our coverage of Jan-June, you can find it in episode 46.
We pick the books that really stood out for us, plus many more that we enjoyed. We discuss the TV and movies that have shaken and stirred us since July, and we look ahead to the bright (dead)lights of horror to come in the New Year.
We also pick apart some thorny issues plaguing the genre, like the ridiculousness of rating books by stars, and my own irritation at everything being compared to Get Out.
Each of the books we mention is listed below, including an episode number if it has been previously featured on Talking Scared. Don’t look at that yet though; it’ll spoil the surprise.
Enjoy, and well done for getting through the year.
Books picked
Coming soon
Other books mentioned
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This week I bring you a ghost story, as befitting the season. Though it’s a little more lurid than Charles Dickens would have liked.
The guest is A.J. West; the book is The Spirit Engineer. It’s one of my very favourites of 2021.
Set in Belfast between the sinking of the Titanic and the outbreak of war, it’s a tale of science and the supernatural. Of William Crawford, a man who wants proof of the beyond, and will risk everything to grasp it. It’s actually based on real people and events, which I didn’t know, and still find incredible.
A.J and I talk about spiritualism and deceit, about the links between sex and seances, and about the rare appearance of a truly unlikeable male protagonist. We disagree a little, AJ thinks William’s he’s an antihero, I think he’s an asshole, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the standout character of the year for me.
I hope you get chance to pour a drink, pull up a chair, and read this book over Christmas.
Enjoy
You can read more about the story behind The Spirit Engineer on A.J’s website, ajwestauthor.com
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This week I am going to utterly ruin your festive mood!
My guest is Ross Jeffery – author of Juniper, Tome (for which he was Bram Stoker nominated) and numerous short stories. His work is grim, gritty, gory and other words beginning with G - but they are nothing compared to the sheer horror of his latest work, Only the Stains Remain.
Yeah, this is one of those special episodes in which I feel duty-bound to roll out the trigger warnings. Only the Stains Remain is about child abuse, and it pulls no punches. Feeling festive yet, Ho Ho Ho, etc. The novella is a savage revenge-trip of blood and guts in which awful things happen – but thankfully – often to awful people.
So, you’ve been warned.
But also be reassured. Neither the conversation, nor Ross’s book goes into exploitative details – and we manage to talk about a surprising number of very jolly things - from why Ross is drawn to such extreme projects, why writing for shock alone never really works, what it was like to be Bram Stoker-ed out of the blue, and what the members of Ross’ church make of his writing.
It’s a mix of the horrific and the wholesome this week. Which could describe most of my Christmases.
Enjoy
Books discussed in this episode include:
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I know it’s the middle of winter but this week the book in question is taking us back to summer. And not our current plague-summer – but the halcyon days of 1989. Think kids on bikes, running wild, fights and first loves, demonic deer gods … wait … what?
Our guest, Wendy N. Wagner is the editor-in-chief of the prestigious Nightmare Magazine, and the author of epic coming-of-age horror The Deer Kings, as well as the ‘Sawmill Gothic’, The Secret Skin. We talk about both books and how Wendy has transposed both the classic British Gothic and the traditional New England small-town horror story to a Pacific Northwest setting.
Bigfoot doesn’t even show his face.
We talk about the fervid popularity of coming-of-age horror right now, we plumb the dark, seamy underbelly of rural Oregon, we compare notes on the small towns of our childhoods, and I have the temerity to ask Wendy the best way to get published in Nightmare.
There is even doughnut chat.
Enjoy!
Books discussed in this episode include:
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If you are feeling depressed, what with OMICRON emerging like the worst villain in some direct-to-streaming video game adaptation, then do I have the tonic for you.
Josh Malerman is back for his second bout of Talking Scared, only 6 months after he was last here. This time, more than ever, he brings joy, wonder, inspiration and a 700 page book that will work your triceps as well as your mind and soul.
Ghoul n’ the Cape is Josh’s magnum opus, so far. So far! It’s the truly epic tale of two men fleeing a unique evil across the entire landmass of the United States. It takes in politics, violence, spectacle, horror, friendship, a nation-eating star and a man made entirely of blood. This is not your average horror paperback.
Therefore, it gives us plenty to talk about. The Great American Novel™ and the quest narrative amongst much more. But again, and again we come back to the crucial, pivotal role of awe and wonder in our lives. And we talk about how horror, of all things, can help us achieve that.
Oh, and at one point I make Josh teary. Win!
Enjoy!
Books discussed in this episode include:
Ghoul n’ the Cape is published in a limited run in December by Earthling Press. You can buy one of the remaining copies here.
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And now for something a little different.
This is a show about scary stories and writing horror… but that doesn’t mean everything has to be on the page. Our guest this week is Richard Maclean Smith, host and producer of Unexplained Podcast, the best show out there on the creepy, mysterious and mystifying events that people like me spend hours reading about on Wikipedia.
There is everything from true crime to strange disappearances, ghosts and demons, monsters and UFOs, as well as some more unique oddities, like a woman killed by the ‘little folk’ and a computer that may have communicated through time.
God I love me some High Strangeness.
Ok, I’ll throw you a bone, he also has a book to complement the podcast. That book – Unexplained: Real Life Supernatural Stories for Uncertain Times delves deeper into a selection of particularly weird events, whilst also giving Richard more room to expand beyond the mystery, into the areas of philosophy, psychology and humanism that really fascinates him. Cos that’s what set’s Unexplained apart – that reflection and interrogation of the human condition.
We talk about all that, but I’m a mystery nerd, and I insist on simpler questions like, “what’s your favourite mystery” too, and we talk about vanishing hikers, cursed boxes and possessed murderers, as well as fear of the dark and dreams about Mikhail Gorbachev.
I’m always there for you listeners, ready to dumb it down.
Enjoy!
Follow the link for Richard’s horror fiction podcast, The Fountain Road Files
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For over three decades Ellen Datlow has been at the centre of the horror community. She is the queen of editors, the doyenne of anthologisers, the person who gets to declare what is the Best Horror of the Year.
And she has come back to talk to me after I lost the conversation file the first time around…!
That major mishap may have been a blessing in disguise, as since then she has published two standout anthologies, dealing with very different branches of horror. Body Shocks is a bumper collection of extremely nasty body horror; When It Gets Dark is a collection of stories inspired by the life and work of Shirley Jackson. One is icky, one is spooky, one makes you cringe, the other makes you shiver. And both are packed with stellar names.
As well as discussing these anthologies, we talk about Ellen’s career in horror, how she does what she does, and what words like ‘horror’ and ‘scary’ mean to her. She talks about big names she worked with, and gives us some ideas on who the big names of tomorrow will be.
Oh, and she also lets slip that she collects doll limbs … a perfect little nugget to season this mix.
Enjoy.
Body Shocks: Extreme Tales of Body Horror is out now from Tachyon Press
When Things Gets Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson is out now from Titan Press
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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This week I’m feeling warm and fuzzy (don’t worry it won’t last). Halloween is over, the weather has turned dark, we’ve all got the central heating on and are hunkering down for the end of the year. What better time for a slightly more cosy read?
Our guest this week is Mark Stay, author, screenwriter, and one half of the quite wonderful Bestseller Experiment podcast. Usually Mark is in my chair, asking author’s all about how to be a successful writer – but this week I’ve literally turned the table on him.
Mark’s latest novel – Babes in the Wood – is the second in his Witches of Woodville series. It continues the small village exploits of Faye, magical ingenue, budding witch, and all-round take-no-nonsense-from-nobody heroine. As the second world war rages over the sea, the tiny village of Woodville comes under attack once more from dark, sorcerous forces (this time it’s NAZIS!!)
Told you it sounded cosy!
No worries though. Aside from the inherent darkness beneath Mark’s whimsy, we also pack in enough nightmare fuel with a lengthy discussion of the most horrifying 80s kids’ TV characters, the all-too-real horrors of nostalgic nationalism, and I ask Mark for some gossip about the author’s he’s spoken to.
There’s a lot to enjoy here. Get the kettle on!
Babes in the Wood was published on October 28th by Simon & Schuster
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Trailer for Mark’s new horror-movie Unwelcome
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Halloween is over for another year but there are still plenty of monsters to go around.
Our guest this week is Kim Newman, the writer, critic and encyclopaedic authority on horror, pulp and the dark recesses of cinematic history. You may know him as the author of the Anno Dracula series, but that’s only the tip of his imaginative iceberg.
Kim’s new novel, Something More than Night, takes all of that arcane knowledge and puts it to use – transporting us back to the Hollywood of the 1930s when fascism is on the rise and it’s hard to tell the movie monsters from the real madmen. Cue the pairing of horror-icon Boris Karloff and gumshoe writer Raymond Chandler, who unite to confront some very strange goings on behind the scenes.
In between educating me on the finer points of Hollywood history, Kim talks about the enduring legacy of Frankenstein, imitating Chandler’s unique style, writing novels in a connected universe - and we realise just how similar he is to Quention Tarantino.
This one is an absolute blast.
Enjoy!
Something More than Night was published on November 2nd by Titan Books.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
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Normally we talk books - but horror movies are a Hallowe’en staple. Turn the lights down, wrap yourself in a blanket, choose your snack of choice and then torment yourself terribly. It’s what we do.
Now, Mark Kermode knows a thing or two about scary movies. The UK’s most prominent film critic has a special fondness for horror movies, as well as a grounding in the books that inspired many of the best. I asked him on the show for this Hallowe’en special episode, to talk about his favourite book-to-movie horror adaptations.
No one who has ever heard Mark speak for more than ten minutes will have any doubt what his number one is – but the others may surprise you. At the very least, you’ll came away with suggestions for books to read and movies to watch over this most frightful of weekends.
Oh, and if you like Mickey Rourke, then just hold out for the last five minutes…
Enjoy!
Books mentioned in this episode include:
Link to the Guardian Article on the state of the horror novel – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/29/chapter-and-curse-is-the-horror-novel-entering-a-golden-age
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Perfect places breed hideous crimes – that’s my understanding at least.
If you like The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, or Twin Peaks (or anything by David Lynch) then you’ll get a kick out of Catherynne M. Valente’s Comfort Me with Apples.
Despite being a novella of less than 130 pages, it crams in everything from the whole rotten tradition of awful things – from the book of Genesis, via fairytales and the Gothic, all the way up to the most cutting-edge dystopian sci-fi. This tiny tale of a perfect small town and a perfect marriage, all undercut with the sour tang of wrongness.
Catherynne talks in detail about the various strands that she has knotted together into this story. We cover religion and the potential for evil within, Disney towns and cartoon police, and we discuss why Bluebeard and his locked cellar door is such a key and recurrent trope in domestic horror.
And, as ever, I take the chance to go off on a frothing political rant.
Enjoy!
Comfort Me with Apples is published by Tor on November 9th
Check out Mark Kermode’s rant about the movie Entourage – to prepare for the Hallowe’en special.
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
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I’m on holiday but I still give you goodies. ‘Cos that’s the kind of all-round good guy that I am.
And what a dark treat of a trick we have this week. The guest is Cassandra Khaw and their novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth will use it’s liquorice-stained smile to chew you up.
The book transports us to a crumbling mansion in Japan, where a hideous spectre haunts a group of utterly loathsome tourists. Honestly, you’ll want them dead for their taste in music alone!
Despite the slimness of the volume, Cass packs a lot into this book, just as we pack a lot into this conversation. As well as discussing the novella specifically, we also talk our fear and fondness for Ellen Datlow, the rich heritage of South East Asian ghost stories and the haunting house as colonised space.
She also gives perhaps the best ever answer to the question “what really scares you?” It is a life lesson.
Excuse my whining about my dog.
Enjoy
Nothing But Blackened Teeth was published on Tor Nightfire on 20th October
Books discussed on this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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Hello kids. Wanna see a magic trick?
Rather than pulling a rabbit from a hat, I offer you Caitlin Starling, author of The Luminous Dead and her new Gothic chiller, The Death of Jane Lawrence.
Caitlin’s novel takes a familiar Gothic set-up and kicks it around until it is only recognisable from the colour of its blood. Dilapidated house – check. Deceitful husband – check. Magical rites, mysterious walls and ghosts that feed on shame – yeah that’s new!
We talk all about magical rites and occult practices, but before things get too esoteric and in-the-weeds, we also discuss Hannibal the TV show, whether there is life after death, and how best to incorporate neurodivergence into a dark gothic fantasy.
You’ll come out of this one, entertained, entranced AND with a whole new reading and viewing list.
Enjoy
The Death of Jane Lawrence was published on October 5th by St Martin’s Press.
Unexplained podcast episode featuring Aleister Crowley:
http://www.unexplainedpodcast.com/episodes/2016/6/18/episode-10-the-spaces-that-linger
Books discussed on this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to Hallowe’en ’21. If ever a year required us to find the fun in all things grim, dark and depressing then this is the absolute best year since last year.
Appropriately for the lead-in to Spooky Season, our guest this week wrote a book all about fear as an attraction. James Han Mattson is the author of Reprieve – a mouthwatering prospect of a novel set in an extreme, full-contact, haunted house escape room. What could go wrong, right?
Well, as you’ll hear, James’ novel is less interested in fake blood and rubber axes than it is in the very real damage caused by prejudice and discrimination. That’s what Reprieve has been likened, in yawn-inducing fashion, to Get Out. In fact, it’s something much more interesting than just another social horror satire.
James and I talk about a whole lot of heavy stuff, from racial fetishization to the psychology behind liking to be afraid. Meanwhile, I repeatedly seize the chance to put my foot in my mouth with some untypically (according to you guys) dumb questions.
Happy October. The fun starts here.
Enjoy!
Reprieve was published October 5th by William Morrow in North American and Bloomsbury in the UK.
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
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Vroom vroom! This week’s book is automatic, systematic, highly dramatic … it’s G…G…G…G… Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo.
That painful Grease reference is due to the fact that this book marries teenage angst with fast cars and hot boys – with or without the quiffs. In reality though, it’s closer to a Springsteen Song – all tortured youth, broken hearts, racing the in the street and darkness on the edge of town.
It tells the tale of Andrew – a sexually confused young man who relocates to a Tennessee University town in the wake of his friend’s death. What, and who, he finds there changes his life and his understanding of who, exactly, he is. And it’s all haunted by a fearsomely possessive phantom that just won’t leave Andrew alone.
Ghosts aside though, Summer Sons still packs a punch. Lee blends the two sides of southern gothic fiction. On one hand, there’s the supernatural, on the other the very real drama of history and violence that permeates the genre. It also showcases modern masculinity in all its ugliness, with a few strands of beauty, and refracts the whole thing through a dark version of the campus novel.
Lee and I talk about how white masculinity often escapes critical appraisal, how academia is the perfect setting for horror, the thrill of living lives that span the class barrier, and we try to pin down exactly what we mean by ‘Southern Gothic’.
Oh, and we both complain bitterly about the nightmare that is postgraduate study.
Enjoy!
Summer Sons was published September 28th by Tor.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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Oh eck! This week I get very northern and my working class roots come to the fore.
It’s all my guest’s fault. Tina Baker, the author of Call Me Mummy, is an infectious presence. My typical transatlantic restraint falls away and I follow Tina down endless rabbit-holes – her time as a TV presenter, her childhood mishaps, her cats!
Thankfully, her book is fantastic, and gives us something to focus on at least a little.
Call Me Mummy is a dark psychological tale of stolen children, toxic media, mental illness and class warfare. That’s a lot to fit into one book but, as you’ll hear, I think Tina pulls it off with aplomb, and delightful black humour.
A warning, this episode does feature discussion of infertility and miscarriage. Tina, of course, delivers her own personal experiences with typical good humour, but it is worth mentioning.
We also talk about ideals of parenthood, social media trolls, alcoholism, welsh nuns, babies with horns, and the particular British disdain for the middle class
Enjoy!
Call Me Mummy was published in paperback on 2nd September by Viper
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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Growth is good, right? That’s what they tell us.
Our guest this week might have other ideas. Aliya Whiteley’s is a novelist, short story writer and poet, whose writing is all about growth. In her strange worlds people, plants, entire worlds sprawl and mutate, but often the change is anything but wholesome.
In her new collection, From the Neck Up she introduces us to disembodied heads, fleshy scarecrows, parasitical towns, dark ecology and violent agricultural rites. These stories sit on the cusp of a world gone sour, and peel back the curtain to show us how the past and the present may (ahem) grow into an awful future.
Before you go thinking these are just run-of-the-mill apocalypses though, be warned and reassured that Aliya’s writing is anything but normal. She blends horror, science-fiction, fantasy, the surreal and absurd and even a sprinkling of dark comedy – all transmuted into something she calls the strange.
We try (and fail) to pin her stories down. We talk about how she crafts her stories, where they start and why the often end where we least expect. Along the way we take in the climate crisis, ecology and evolving change, the history of science fiction, the future of folk horror, and the legends of her native Devon.
Enjoy!
From the Neck Up was published by Titan Books on 14th September
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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Our show this week is part interview, part homage, all zombie!
Daniel Kraus, the author of zombie magnum opus, The Living Dead is in the hotseat. But he isn’t alone. Both he and his novel are accompanied by the spectral presence of the master himself, George Romero.
When Romero passed in 2017, he left behind years of work and ambition in telling the whole story of his zombie uprising in novel form. It’s a project that was passed on to Daniel, and he joins us to talk about that book, how it came to be, and what it was like collaborating posthumously with his idol.
We also get DEEP into zombie ethics. What they are, how they work, and what they mean! We talk about the pleasure and pressure of playing in Romero’s sandbox, how to integrate detailed research without ruining the flow of story, and I start to sound a bit paranoid in my theories on zombie’s as cultural propaganda.
It’s a great chat. Insightful as hell. And I think George would be delighted with how Daniel talks about their work.
Enjoy!
The Living Dead was published September 7th by Tor Nightfire
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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Talking Scared is a whole year old today, and to celebrate I’ve brought you one of the brightest stars in the horror sky, someone who is getting bigger, better and badder with each book he releases.
It’s Stephen Graham Jones!
Stephen is here to discuss My Heart is a Chainsaw – his oh-so-meta revision of the slasher movie and the final girl. The book starts dark and gets darker, with references to every single slasher that you’ve seen, as well as plenty you haven’t. If you say you’ve seen them all, you’re lying.
This isn’t just a rehash of Wes Craven’s Scream, though. As well as the tricks and references, My Heart is a Chainsaw has… well … HEART. Plenty of it. Just as Stephen says in this conversation: sincerity matters. The story matters.
Stephen and I talk about our favourite slashers, the joy of childhood horror viewing, the pros and cons of the final girl trope and how you blend irony and sincerity in a work of fiction. I take him to task for always killing animals in his stories and he DOES not make it better by telling me why.
Oh, and we both spend a bit of time idolising Joe R. Lansdale.
Thanks to everyone who has listened this past year. I can’t believe how far we’ve come and this show wouldn’t be what it is without you. Thanks so much.
Ok, sweetness over with. On with the bloodshed!
Enjoy.
My Heart is a Chainsaw was published August 31st by Gallery / Saga in North America and Titan in the UK.
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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Morning campers!
This week we’re off to the great outdoors for a hike, a night under the stars and a spot of psychological terror.
Our guest is Zoje Stage. In her previous novels, Babyteeth and Wonderland she took us to dark houses and interior spaces. Her new novel, Getaway, does the opposite, dragging us on the adventure of a lifetime. A week hiking in the Grand Canyon. Just the ticket to blow away the covid claustrophobia.
Shame it all goes so horribly wrong!
We talk a lot about characters in this conversation – how to build them, how to make them interesting, and why no-one ever thinks they are the villain of the story. Zoje also relates the eerie incident in the Great Outdoors that inspires her novel, and I go on a rant about Thanos and Negan from the Walking Dead (keeping it highbrow!)
What we learn, most of all, is that a tent is only a psychological barrier against whatever else is roaming the wilds.
Enjoy!
Getaway was published August 17th by Mulholland Books
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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This week the walls between reality and fiction begin to break down. What is truth, what is a lie? Can a story be both?
These are the kinds of questions my guest, Richard Chizmar, has become an expert at answering. His new novel (if we can call it that) is Chasing the Boogeyman and it’s a unique beast. Part memoir, part true-crime, part horror fiction – it takes the streets of Rich’s boyhood home, colours them sepia and then lets a serial killer run loose.
We talk about the illusion of storytelling, about true-crime and false memories, and the golden-hued horror that we both love. Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and others loom in the background, but Chasing the Boogeyman is uniquely Chizmar, in all the ways a book can be.
If that all sounds gorge-risingly poetic then, well, first of all, sod-off, it’s my podcast and I’ll rhapsodise if I want to. Secondly, don’t worry we also talk about monsters and mayhem and the time Rich’s friend crapped in his own hand. In short, something for everyone.
Enjoy!! (I really did!)
Chasing the Boogeyman was published August 17th by Gallery Books in North America and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.
Other books mentioned include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
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This week’s guest couldn’t be better timed. In a week when we find out the world is not only screwed, it’s REALLY screwed, our guest is Brian Evenson, with his new collection, The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell – which could be a description of many places on the globe right now.
These stories transport the reader to strange, deformed, blasted landscapes. Like the worlds they depict, Brian’s tales are harsh and dark and frightening but, as you’ll hear me say, they are also a surprising amount of fun. As well as the end of all things, there are also cults, flying cities, terrifying feathered men, and a murderous leg.
So read them and enjoy them – but heed the wakeup call. These monstrous worlds could all too easily be our own
(if you want some light relief, here’s the wiki on the Human Interference Task Force – cats and cults and wizards-a-plenty)
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.
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Sisters are doing it for themselves – literally!
Our guest this week is Sara Flannery Murphy, author of Girl One – which is either a feminist dystopian nightmare or a superhero origin story, or both. It is an alternative history of genetic science that asks the question of what would happen if women no longer needed men to conceive a child. The answer is simultaneously complex and chilling.
Sara and I talk about writing as a feminist in the time of Trump (and living in a Red State), and whether her characters are witches in any sense of the word. We discuss how pathogenesis has always had a home in the horror genre. And I demand to know why, if she was going to rewrite history, she didn’t save poor Kurt Cobain.
Enjoy!
Girl One was published by on 1st June by FSG in the US and on August 5th by Raven Books in the UK.
Other books mentioned in the show include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why isn’t there more horror about marriage?
Think about it. You marry someone. Spend your life with them. But do you really know them, or what they are capable of.
Ronald Malfi’s Come With Me pries open these secrets, sending the protagonist on a tailspinning road trip in pursuit of the truth about the woman he has loved and lost. It’s a big, satisfying, chunky summer novel packed full of murder and monstrosity and motel-stays in the creepier corners of the country. You’ll love it.
Ronald joins me to talk about the book, about writing grief and the very real tragedy that underpins Come With Me. Despite the absurd heat at either end of the conversation, we soldier on heroically, taking in local lore, the link between leaded petrol and serial killers, and why ecology may be the new haunting. And yes, we talk about how marriage should be a bigger theme in horror! Next time your wife, or husband, or significant other gets up in the night – think about that. What are they up to in the bathroom? Could be the usual. Could be something evil. Mwah ha ha!
Enjoy.
Come With Me was published by Titan on 20th July.
Other books mentioned in the show include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Weather this hot demands the cool balm of a book, and do I have one for you.
The Book of Accidents is the latest horror-epic from Chuck Wendig – the seeming literary successor to King, Straub, McCammon and Barker. Wendig’s books take you in their embrace and say “you’re mine now” or maybe “we all float down here.” Here, in this case, being a mineshaft in the rural vacancy of Pennsylvania.
There is plenty of hype around The Book of Accidents and I’m delighted to say it’s all earned. This is quite simply the kind of big, bombastic storytelling you don’t get much of anymore, a steak-and-lobster-with-ice-cream for after sort of novel that fills you up and leaves you satisfied.
The book is so big, and the ideas so grand, that Chuck and I end up forgetting to talk much about the actual story. Instead we discuss what it has to say about society – good and bad – about kindness, and love and the comfort of horror that we all-too often ignore in favour of the viscera. In short, it’s a wholesome conversation about a wholesome book, about a very unwholesome scenario.
Oh – and Chuck tells us all about the very real haunted house that inspired it. A house he happens to have grown up in.
Enjoy!
The Book of Accidents was published by Del Rey on 20th July.
Other books mentioned in the show include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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Hello fellow horror-fiends. This week we’re going retro, to the heyday of horror, when men wore masks and women checked basements in their negligee.
Our guest is Grady Hendrix, a writer perpetually interested in taking tropes, only to stab them, kill them, and resurrect them as something new. He’s done it with exorcisms, vampires, the devil and … erm .. IKEA.
Now he’s taking on the slasher and his counterpart, in The Final Girl Support Group. A novel that takes the bloody, weary body of the female heroine, and gives her the chance to kick the hell out of the monster chasing her. It’s meta, funny, wry and ironic – but it’s also a story with heart. I enjoyed it immensely.
Grady and I talk about our favourite slashers (and final girls), why we’re obsessed with nostalgia, what it means that we enjoy films about killing women, and I – once again – give away too much of my own psychological frailty. This time it’s my all-consuming terror of Freddy Kruger.
This is a book and conversation that will REALLY please the true horror lovers.
Enjoy!
The Final Girl Support Group is published July 13th by Berkley in North American and Titan in the UK.
Books mentioned in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week we’re doing something different. No author and no single book. Instead it’s a roundtable discussion, with Sadie Hartmann (AKA Mother Horror) and Emily Hughes, the genius loci behind Tor Nightfire. Together we look back over the last six months – the highs, the not-so-many-lows and all the endless twitter controversies – to address the state of the horror nation at the midpoint of 2021.
All three of us talk about the books we have loved the most so far this year, what else we are looking forward to in the months ahead, and what our hopes are for horror writing in general.
We also address the concerns around trauma, trigger warnings, twitter subtweeting and the endless, vice-like grip of Goodreads.
If you want to get a true sense of the breadth and depth of the horror being created right now, then this is designed for you. Also, if you just want to listen to three horror nerds talk about scary stuff whilst you do the ironing, then it’s also for you.
Basically, it’s for everyone.
Cos I’m a giver.
Enjoy!
Emily Hughes’ list of horror books to be excited about in 2021 is HERE.
The (huger-than-normal) list of books mentioned in this episode includes:
The Picks
Coming Soon
Assorted Others
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week I have been forced to up my game.
Our guest is Carmen Maria Machado, and her works is not for the lazy or faint-hearted. From her dizzying collection of short fiction, Her Body and Other Parties, to her one-of-a-kind memoir, In the Dream House, Carmen’s writing forces a humble interviewer such as me, to question how we talk about books, author, character, truth, fiction and all the messy space in between.
In the Dream House deconstructs what a memoir is and can do, and I had to really think about the questions I wanted to ask, and how to ask them. It is, nominally, a narrative of domestic abuse in a same-sex relationship, but Carmen chooses to tell that story using every literary tool in her (and everyone else’s) toolbox. The result is electrifying.
We talk about privacy versus public, what it’s like to write about sex you’ve actually had, hypochondria, double-standards and the lure of horror and gothic as a way to tell a real-life story of violence and trauma.
It’s not all dark though. We laugh a lot. Mostly at my awkwardness.
Enjoy!
Her Body and Other Parties and In the Dream House are both published by Greywolf Press in North America and Serpent’s Tail in the UK.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s a dirty, grim, glorious time on Talking Scared this week. After a last-minute schedule reshuffle we have Eric LaRocca, here to talk about his word-of-mouth sensation of a novella – Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.
Gotten worse is quite the understatement. This book goes so far beyond the pale in terms of horror’s usual comfort level these days. It’s a simple tale of online love, BDSM and self-mutilation, all tinged with some wonderful early noughties nostalgia. This book does for MSN messenger what the Blair Witch Project did for the woods.
Eric and I talk about all of that, as well as transgressive fiction, the beauty to be found in disgust, and our shared love of books and movies that have achieved legendary status as things that you probably shouldn’t experience (if you know what's good for you)!
Enjoy!!
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is out now from WeirdPunk Books.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pour yourself a whisky, grab a seat and listen to the best voice in dark fiction tell you some stories.
Our guest is Joe Lansdale author of so many books I can’t even begin to list them. Oh, ok, I will. Edge of Dark Water, Paradise Sky, The Bottoms, The Thicket, Fender Lizard … “Bubba Ho Tep”, Cold in July … the entire Hap and Leonard series.
And he joins me to talk about his newest, Moon Lake. A tale of dark nostalgia, small town politics and murder set on the banks of a drowned village. It’s a sun-soaked, shadow-tinged summer read of the best, and most twisted kind.
As much as Joe is nominally on the show to talk about Moon Lake, he’s a hard man to pin down to mere self-promotion. He has tales to tell and opinions to offer and you’d better goddamn LISTEN!! We discuss blue collar youth, Texas attitude, and whether having some hardship in life makes you a better writer. He tells me how he comes up with his unique metaphors, and why he defended Stephen King when twitter turned against him.
All in all, it’s a friendly conversation about the perils of tribalism, why we should all be a little bit more tolerant, and why choosing stupidity is scary as hell.
This is a bucket-list interview for me.
Enjoy!
Moon Lake is published by Mulholland Books on June 22nd.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Maybe it’s the heat but this week we’re getting angry on Talking Scared.
Our guest is V. Castro – author of Goddess of Filth and her newest, Queen of the Cicadas – and she’s full of rage. Thankfully, it’s not directed at me, despite my hideous attempts at Spanish pronunciation.
Queen of the Cicadas is about identity, folklore and the residue of a decades-old crime that stands as representative of all crimes against Latinx people by an uncaring world. The death of a young girl brings forth the wrath of a violent goddess from the Aztec past …. and stuff goes DOWN!!
V (short for Violet) and I talk about rage, and hate and blood and myth, which all sounds deeply profound. However, we also talk about sex and Candyman, and we put the boot into some other books, so rest assured we don’t take ourselves too seriously!!
But yeah, this is one to get your blood up.
Enjoy!
Queen of the Cicadas is published by Flame Tree Press on June 22nd.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s not often you speak to the author of a book that EVERYONE has heard of. This week I got the chance.
Max Brooks. Max-freaking-Brooks, author of global bestseller World War Z is here. But rather than the undead, we’re talking hairy things in the woods, technological dependence and woke hipsters being eaten.
Max’s latest novel, Devolution, regales us with the lives (and deaths) of an eco-community living deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Stranded by a disaster, they fall prey first to their own inadequacy and then to the very adequate hunger of roaming sasquatch,
We’ve talked Bigfoot and cryptozoology a lot on this show in recent weeks. But this is the big bad daddy of them all. A satire, a found-footage document, an adventure story, but also a blood, guts and claw-filled horror novel. It’s much grimmer than you may expect.
As well as monsters, Max and I discuss hokey documentaries, primate research, driverless cars, the cursed legacy of Steve Jobs and skewering our own liberal echo chamber. But it all centres on how patently unprepared our society really is for crisis.
Enjoy.
Devolution is published in paperback on June 10th by Del Rey.
Other books and documentaries discussed in this episode include:
My review of Devolution in the UK Guardian can be found HERE.
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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If you’re returning to the office any time soon and you’re really bummed about it – this week’s guest will make you feel better …. cos it could be so much worse.
Zakiya Dalila Harris is the author of the much-anticipated debut, The Other Black Girl. It’s been touted as Jordan Peele’s Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada and that’s true, there is white conspiracy and awful bosses aplenty, but I’d also suggest more than a little of the paranoid frisson of Rosemary’s Baby and the toe-curling embarrassment of The Office.
Basically, it’s a big, fun book all about workplace prejudice, micro-aggressions and the thin veneer of equality – but, this being Talking Scared, rest assured it’s more than the sum of those everyday parts. It also goes into some weird and wicked places.
Zakiya and I talk about her own career as the ‘only black girl in a publishing house’, the way well-meaning comments can do the most damage, and I express my anxiety about asking her ALL the questions about Blackness, like the awkward white guy at the party who insists he’d have voted for a third Obama term.
Oh, and we get into hair care. Something that’s more than a little important in this book … and y’know, in life
I love this book and insist you all read it.
Enjoy!
The Other Black Girl is published June 1st by Bloomsbury in the UK and Atria in North America.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
The Stephen Graham Jones open letter “from the Indians no longer in the background of a John Wayne movie” can be found HERE.
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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Josh Malerman, bestselling wunderkinder of horror, author of Birdbox, Malorie, Unbury Carol and now Goblin, has graced Talking Scared with his presence. We’re talking about Goblin specifically, his new ‘novel in six novellas’ detailing the lives and losses of people in the weirdest small-town west of Castle Rock.
It’s got monstrous owls and more monstrous police, an impossible hedge maze, things in boxes that MUST NOT BE OPENED, and the fear of fear itself. As Josh points out (and I hadn’t noticed) the book is about all the different kinds of obsession that make up a life and a town.
And we get into Josh’s own obsession with writing, from his ridiculously prolific output, to writing whilst touring with his band. We talk about how he got published, an odd route involving a friend from school and a stoned conversation with a lawyer. Plus, he tells me all about the time he saw a ghost or something in his house after listening to his mom’s taped sessions with a psychic (scary story!).
He’s a little bit rock n roll and a little bit culture-geek, and the conversation follows suit – with me essentially trying not to gush “thank you for talking to me” over and over again. I love this interview.
Enjoy!
Goblin is published May 18th by Del Rey
Other books we discussed include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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This week the Queen of black horror is Talking Scared. Tananarive Due is bestowing her patronage on little ol’ me and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.
Tananarive ranks amongst the most respected horror writers of the 21st Century, from her breakout effort, The Between, to her British Fantasy Award winning collection, Ghost Summer and her magnum opus (so far at least) The Good House.
She took the time to talk me through her career, from breaking free of the MFA fixation on white guys and their naval-gazing, to the time she used good old rock ‘n’ roll to coerce Stephen King into blurbing her book. We also take in the volcanic impact of Jordan Peele and why black horror lit is ready to follow in film’s footsteps.
If you are interested in horror generally then this is not a conversation to miss. Especially when Tananarive gets into her forthcoming novel, The Reformatory – seven years in the making, and inspired by her own ancestry and the bloody history of a brutal prison.
Enjoy
Books mentions in this conversation include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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Do you ever feel you’re being watched? Ever caught a flicker from the corner of your eye that you can’t explain? Do you run out of milk more than you think you should?
Maybe, just maybe, there is someone living in your house.
It’s a worldwide phenomenon (just check google) and this week’s guest has turned it into a genre-bending novel that’s tipped as one of THE Gothic reads of 2021.
A.J. Gnuse’s debut, Girl in the Walls is a literary chiller about grief, loneliness and what the word HOME really means. He joined me to talk through how the book came to be, why a conclusive ending was needed and how the spectre of Hurricane Katrina haunts his fiction. He also tell an especially creepy anecdote about a hidden door in his own home.
Oh, and I tell a story about a woman who lived inside a stranger’s kitchen cupboard for a year. You can see the chilling footage of her reveal HERE.
Enjoy!
Girl in the Walls is published in the UK Fourth Estate and in North American by Ecco Books
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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Jeff VanderMeer is our guest. Need I say more?
First things first though, rest easy, the episode title doesn’t refer to either me or Jeff. We both make it out alive.
Not everything does though. Listen on for the most on-the-nose display of savage nature, so perfect a backdrop to a conversation about animals, ecological crisis and the horror of extinction. What starts with the brave little hummingbird could end up killing us all.
Jeff’s new novel, Hummingbird Salamander is an eco-noir, an accelerating ride to a point “ten seconds in the future” at the end of the world. It’s a deeply challenging book, both in style and message, and in a rare moment of seriousness, it brought our shared ecological plight and our wrongdoing home to me like nothing before.
Jeff and I talk about how humanity can live with the peril of ecological disaster hanging over our heads, and how fiction can help bring that reality home. In lighter moments Jeff also tells me about how he thinks up stories involving giant flying bears, gives a lot of info on his upcoming collection of horror novellas, and horrifies me with the reason behind his phobia of cockroaches. Seriously … JESUS CHRIST JEFF!!
Oh, and I introduce my new Patreon membership perks. Trust me, you wanna!
Enjoy!
Hummingbird Salamander was published in the UK by Fourth Estate Books and in North America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on 6th April.
Books discussed include:
Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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This week, I bring you MOAR monsters!!!
Our guest is Christina Henry, whose new novel, Near the Bone fits so nicely as the unofficial second part to a cryptozoology-inflected series that began with Danielle Trussoni last week. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about the Loch Ness Monster for an hour, but the novel does feature a monster, some cryptid hunters and the very violent evils of both man and beast.
Christina does manage to get me off the subject of monsters for a while, to give some insight into her surprisingly relaxed approach to writing, to her love of the outdoors and running (and how that provides a backdrop for her horror stories. And we even dip a toe into the pressing question of the age – CAN HORROR TAKE PLACE IN SPACE??
We ask who determines what a horror novel is, and whether YouTube and the discovery channel have changed monsters forever. Oh, and I get the chance to reminisce about the time I nearly got eaten by a bear (sort of. It looked at me at least!)
Enjoy!
Near the Bone was published by Titan Books on April 13th.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
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When was the last time a story took you completely by surprise? Danielle Trussoni’s The Ancestor ambushed me into loving it. What seems a standard Gothic fiction turns into something wholly weirder … and wilder … as a young American woman inherits a creaky European castle, and the monstrous baggage that comes with it.
Dani came on the show – somehow finding time between writing her new novel and being the New York Times’ horror columnist – to talk about The Ancestor’s paperback release. We tiptoe around the book’s many, many secrets, and somehow find ourselves all the way to a discussion about Bigfoot. It’s that kind of chat.
We also discuss how her own roots and heritage inspired the novel, why there are so many double standards about women authors and horror, how she fits existing myth and lore into her stories so well … and I regale her with one of my favourite pieces of British legend. She’s kind enough to pretend that she doesn’t obviously know more about horror than me – and she also exposes me as someone who mentions that I have a degree a little too much.
It’s interesting, enlightening, and more than a little bit shocking.
Enjoy!
The Ancestor is out in paperback from Custom House on April 13th.
Other books we discussed include:
Support the show by donating: https://ko-fi.com/talkingscaredpod
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
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Welcome to the Green Mountain State, lovely, liberal . . . haunted!!
Our guest is to ghost-stories what Ben and Jerry are to ice cream – Vermont’s resident ghost-writer-in-chief, Jennifer McMahon. Her new novel, The Drowning Kind takes us back to the small towns, local stores and eerie histories typical of her fiction, but with an added turning of the screw – it’s not the house that’s haunted, it’s the pool out back.
If that sounds cheesy, it ISN’T. The Drowning Kind is an alternative type of ghost story – how alternative, and whether what lurks in the pool is even a ghost – are both subjects we dive into. Jen tells me about why she finds such darkness in Vermont’s pleasant green hills, and I get very excited to talk to someone about the state’s folklore!
Oh, and there are index cards. Many, many index cards. For the technique-geek, or the aspiring novelist, this is some serious insight into the creative process of a master plotter. As promised in the show, here is some further detail on her system.
Enjoy!
The Drowning Kind is out from Gallery Books on April 6th.
Other books we discussed include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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Does your child draw pentagrams? Have you noticed the neighbours hanging their robes over the washing line? Worst of all, have they started listening to …. HEAVY METAL??
You may be experiencing a satanic panic. Worry not, our guest, Clay McLeod Chapman can diagnose this for you. Clay’s new novel, Whisper Down the Lane is both a homage to the horror of the 80s, and an exploration of how that decade's battle with truth, memory and Satan(!!) lives on today. His story riffs on the very real scandal at the McMartin Preschool, as well as the wider hysteria that led to people being sacked, vilified and even imprisoned based upon absolute bulls*t.
As you’ll hear, it’s a darker tale than I had imagined, but it’s also jam-packed with references, easter-eggs and allusions to the horror that made the decade. Along the way Clay talks to me about how the satanic panic never really went away, how it ties into our very modern sense of ‘truth’ and he tells me why he never wants his kids to read his stories.
On my part, I tell him the world is ok and other unconscionably optimistic things!
Oh, and I’m convinced that Clay orchestrated Lil Nas X’s ’Satan Shoes’ to help him sell more copies.
Enjoy!
Whisper Down the Lane is published by Quirk Books on April 6th 2021.
Other books we discussed this week include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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We’ve covered our share of plagues on this show during our all-too-real year of sitting indoors and waiting for the pandemic to sod off. Do you have the guts for one more? You should, but you may empty them.
Our guest is V.L. Valentine and her debut novel The Plague Letters transports us to London in 1665. The Great Plague is scouring the population, with only the barest medical expertise to hold it at bay. Into this ghastly furnace comes a killer, hiding in plain sight.
It’s a fantastic premise for a novel and Vikki does the idea great service. In this episode you’ll hear my general dislike of historical detective fiction – and how The Plague Letters is a very different beast. We also talk Ebola, c-sections, lockdown ethics, and the problem with passive characters – as well as wondering what the serial killers are doing during social distancing. This is not for the faint-hearted, or the weak of stomach.
Enjoy!
The Plague Letters is published by Viper Books on April 1st, 2001.
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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This is a big one.
The Last House on Needless Street may be the best pure horror novel I’ve read this decade. Okay, the decade is only 3 months old, but check back with me in 9 years and I may still be saying the same.
I’m delighted to speak to the author of this latter-day classic, Catriona Ward, about secrets and lies and how the hell you begin to describe a book that is one big spoiler!
Once Cat and I work out how to even talk about the novel without ruining for everyone, we then spend a happy hour navigating the nooks and crannies of the book and its titular house. We start with Ted Bundy, end with Ed Gein, and in between we cover why cats are inscrutable, how you write mental illness responsibly, and Cat tell us about the times a ghost pushed her out of bed.
It’s been a long wait to discuss this book, and I’m delighted I finally can. If you have read it get in touch. I’m dying to know what other’s think.
Enjoy!
The Last House on Needless Street is published by in the UK on Mrch 18th by Viper Books. It will be published in North America on Septmeber 28th by Tor Nightfire.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a young woman, bad men, and some homicidal mermaids. It’s fairy tale time.
Our guest is Angela Slatter, who’s new novel All the Murmuring Bones turns the fairy stories that comforted you as a child, into a horrid tale of murder, inheritance, death, sex and entrapment. In this world Hansel and Gretel would be a very tasty pie-filling.
Angela has spent years studying the fairy tale tradition and turning it against her readers. All the Murmuring Bones is her first full length novel taking place in the dark world he has created. This conversation is half about her book, and half about the tradition as a whole. Think of it as a compact university course without the fees, the homework or the risk of STIs.
We talk about the darker versions of old tales, why all fairytales seem inherently feminist, and why they are coming back into force. I also make a big mistake about mythical creatures that makes me sound more than a little creepy, until rectified.
Enjoy!
All the Murmuring Bones is published by Titan Books on March 9th in Australia and North America, and on March 29th in the UK.
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Isolation is a bitch, but it could be worse!
Our guest is Bethany Clift and her debut novel is Last One at the Party – a pandemic novel that reminds you that at least we have Netflix, facetime and the chance to call our friends.
Beth’s novel follows an unnamed woman, the last survivor of a global plague that has emptied out the world in just a few weeks. As she struggles through the ruins of a posta-apocalyptic Britain, she also confronts the wreckage of her life in the ‘before times’.
If that all sounds dreadfully grim, and not at all what you want to read in our current plight, then remember three things:
1) WE have a vaccine (and it’s working)
2) This book is also laugh out loud hilarious
3) There is a dog called Lucky that you will love with all your heart.
Beth and I have a bit of laugh on this one – perhaps inappropriately so considering we’re discussing the end of the world – but we also cover what it’s like to actually write about Covid-19 in retrospect, why ‘stroking the dog’ is not a euphemism, but a very clever trick, and whether we still have space for apocalyptic glee in our reading.
Forgive the title of the episode, all will make sense when you listen … and read the book.
Enjoy!
Last One at the Party was published in the UK by Hodder on 4th Feb 2021 and will be published in other territories soon.
Other books discussed include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you’ve been homeschooling, in labour, or generally responsible for the life of a small human during lockdown, then this episode is for you. There are people out there, writers with great skill and empathy, who share your pain, and know how you feel.
This week’s guest is Julia Fine, the author of Bram Stoker Award Nominated What Should Be Wild, and now the postpartum nightmare, The Upstairs House.
Julia’s novel is about new motherhood, societal expectation, the horror of lost self, and ghosts. Really weird ghosts, of literary figures who demand she write their story, or else they may take her child.
During our conversation we cover a whole host of things, from the lack of literary representation for postpartum sufferers, to the haunting legacy of famous children’s authors … oh, and I also inadvertently compare Julia’s child to my puppy – and I await the rage of any listeners with a new baby.
But yeah, this is a good book that raises a lot of questions, and a good chat that answers some of them really well.
Enjoy!
The Upstairs House is published on February 23rd by Harper.
Other books discussed in this episode include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hands up who wants a holiday!
Sarah Pearse’s The Sanatorium could be just the thing to purge your lockdown travel desires. It will either transport you to the ice-white peaks of the Swiss Alps, to luxuriate in the views inside your mind. Or, it’ll make you never ever want to stay in a hotel again.
The Sanatorium is Sarah’s debut thriller, a novel that sits uncomfortably (in the best possible way) between crime, mystery and horror – with a hospital-cum-hotel that would rank VERY low on TripAdvisor.
Cleanliness = 5*
Location = 5*
Facilities = 5*
Chance of survival = 1*
Sarah and I discuss the tussle to define a debut novel, we share stories of living in Switzerland and ponder what it is about all that beauty that chills the bone, and we pick apart the comparisons to Stephen King and Agatha Christie.
The Sanatorium is published Feb 2nd in North America by Pamela Dorman and Feb 18th 2021 in the UK, by Bantam Press.
Stick around after the interview to hear all the big news about what’s coming to Talked Scared later this year. I’m excited, I hope you are.
Enjoy!
Books discussed in this episode include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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Have you ever had a book scare you so much that part of you wishes you hadn’t read it? That’s the experience I had reading Gemma Files’ latest collection, In That Endlessness, Our End. I don’t know how Gemma does it, but with each story she finds a psychological pressure point that feels specifically mine, and the presses down on it hard with her pen.
On more than one occasion I had to stop reading this book because it freaked me out too much. And I mean that as the highest praise. In That Endlessness, Our End is full of stories of multimedia gone mad, sensory overload, mad gods and strange houses, and an alleyway that may take your child and give you something else in return.
Gemma is a wealth of fact and opinion on horror. In our conversation we go deep, into the mechanics of horror writing as well as the inspiration behind some of the tales. We get into night terrors, how you evoke panic on the page, and how neurodiversity informs her unique brand of horror. But despite all this fear and intensity, we also have a good laugh. Gemma even takes the time to tell us as fairytale!!
Enjoy!
In That Endlessness, Our End is published by Grimscribe Press on 15th February 2021.
Other books we mention include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When your guest calls herself the “Master of the Bitch” you do wonder what you’re getting into. Courtney Summers, by her own admission, wants to upset people.
Yet she’s a delight! To kick of Women in Horror week we discuss her new novel, The Project, which follows a young woman as she investigates the New York based cult that has swallowed up her sister.
This is FAR from your standard cult novel. As Courtney explains, she wanted to get away from the exploitation and the obvious horrors and instead consider why people search for belonging in such dark places, and whether we would be impervious to The Project’s allure.
We also talk about her penchant for ‘unlikeable’ female protagonists, and whether there’s a double standard in how fiction treats challenging women. We celebrate Biden’s inauguration, I tell her about my worst ever spider encounter, and she takes me to school for dissing YA fiction.
Enjoy!
The Project was published by Wednesday Books on February 2nd 2021.
Other books mentioned include:
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Let’s get Gothic! Our guest this week is Laura Purcell, doyenne of the dark, heiress of historical fiction (and other alliterative titles). Laura blew away the cobwebs wrapped around spooky period fiction with her breakout smash, The Silent Companions in 2017. She followed up with The Corset and Bone China and now she’s back with her newest Gothic novel, The Shape of Darkness.
The novel examines all the wrinkles and crannies in the Victorian underbelly, from spirit mediums, to mesmerism, and the uncanny art of silhouette portraits. Trust me, you’ll want one for yourself.
We talk about the line between gothic and horror, why writing historical fiction can be a way to sneak your horror under the radar, and whether the stereotypes of the period make it frustrating to write about Victorian women. After all, how many times a day can a woman swoon?
In an unrelated anecdote, Laura also divulges her secret terror of sloths.
Oh, and I waffle on about the history of gothic fiction cos I just can’t resist lecturing people.
Other books discussed include:
Enjoy!
The Shape of Darkness was published by Raven Books on January 21st 2021.
Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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In a week in which the White House becomes a little less orange, it’s hard to dwell on the nasty side of life. But this is Talking Scared and we can find the grim and creepy on even the most optimistic days.
Our guest is C.J. Tudor – the current queen of the British thriller. She sits quite comfortably on the cusp of horror and crime, and we get into the subject of exactly where that borderline is. Her new novel, The Burning Girls continues her blending of the fast-paced American thriller, with the folk-tradition of the British horror story. A tale about a vicar, who moves with her daughter to a small Sussex town, with a terrible history of child sacrifice, and a more recent taste for murder and suicide – what’s not to like?
C.J and I talk in depth about the perils of causing offence in your fiction, how to write a vicar protagonist, and what it felt like when Stephen King said he liked her book! Oh, and I may cause a bit of controversy when I give Kubrick’s adaption of The Shining a good kicking.
The Burning Girls is published by Michael Joseph Books on January 21st 2021.
Other books discussed include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ready for the first GREAT book you’ll read this year? Our guest this week is Will Dean, calling all the way from the middle of a Scandinavian forest to talk about his new novel, The Last Thing To Burn.
I’ve been banging on about this book since I read it in December. It’s a latter-day masterpiece, a read-in-one-sitting, this-has-to-be-a-movie kind of book. Think Misery, think Room and then think how much worse could the horrors be. The truth, a lot worse.
Will and I talk about off-grid living, both his bucolic existence and his protagonist’s torment. We talk about the difference between writing the English and Swedish landscapes, and why the English fens are much scarier than the Scandi woods. We also talk about how you capture a monster’s voice, and whether you know you are going too far in a novel. It’s a great conversation, and you’ll end up inspired you to quit your job, build a house, and live in it! If you want advice on how to do it, or just to peer into his idyllic life, you can find Will on Youtube @ Will Dean Forest Author
Along the way we discuss a range of classic novels, including:
Enjoy!
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing and Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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I like this year better than last year already. Ok, we may be plunged back into lockdown 3.0 and it may be cold, and the cinemas may still be shut. But we have a vaccine, Trump looks like he’s got nappy rash … and there’s a whole year of horror fiction to look forward to.
Unfortunately for you, there’s no guest this week. Instead, you’re stuck with me as I talk you through the highlights and predicted hits of horror fiction 2021. I’ve already read two books that are fighting their way into my ALL TIME BEST HORROR list, could there be more.
We have new books from the likes of Grady Hendrix, Stephen Graham Jones, Christina Henry, Cassandra Khaw, Laura Purcell, Catriona Ward, Richard Chizmar, Zoje Stage, Zakiya Dalalila Harris, Chuck Wendig and more.
Listen, consider, argue, rant, email me and tell me I’m wrong. But get ready to take the horror out of the nightly news and back into your bedtime reading.
Enjoy!
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing and Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2020 is nearly behind us (woohoo!) but we have time for one more interview with a master of horror. Our guest this week is Michael Marshall Smith the genre polymath and man of a thousand pseudonyms (all of them involving ‘Michael’.)
He is joining me to discuss his new career retrospective, The Best of Michael Marshall Smith, published in a beautiful volume by Subterranean Press. It’s a huge collection of stories, covering Michael’s 30 years of writing, from his recent work, all the way back to his debut story “The Man Who Drew Cats” – which won the British Fantasy Award.
Along the way we talk about living and writing on both sides of the Atlantic, our shared love of Stephen King and why Michael writes about cats so much. We also establish that I’m a dog person. And just to make sure we cover all the bases, we also devote a few minutes to discussing the orange baby currently tantrum-ing his way out of the White House, cos it is 2020 still, after all.
Lastly, if that isn’t enough for you, I run through the first “Talking Scared Top-Ten Horror of the Year” list. Next year there might be prizes, who knows. It’s been an astonishing year for horror and the first few months of this show have exposed me to writing and thinking that I may otherwise have missed. I can only hope it’s done the same for some of you.
So, see you in 2021, when the skies will be blue, the birds singing, and the ghosts moaning a bit more cheerfully.
Enjoy!
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing and Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Merry Christmas and/or time-off-work-week! For all of you currently freezing your asses off in cold climes, this week’s episode may make you feel a little too warm under the collar. Our guest is Gabriel Bergmoser, an author who exploded onto the horror scene in early 2020 with The Hunted, a pulpy, violent, visceral hell ride through the Australian wilderness in the company of very human prey and predators.
Considering the amount of people hanging from hooks and suffering violent deaths in his fiction, Gabriel proves to be a thoroughly charming guest. We talk at length about the problem of masculinity down under (and, as it turns out, everywhere else!). Gabe’s thesis includes anecdotes from Australian history and the time that he was personally chased down the street by a kid with a nail-studded cricket bat.
The Hunted is an EXCEPTIONAL horror novel. It flaunts its genre credentials, allowing us to get back to the blood and guts basics of the genre. At the same time, though, it’s got a lot to say about a lot of things. You’ll read it in one night and still think about it months later.
The Hunted was published in May by Faber and Faber
Oh, and a listener asked me to finally flesh out the list of my top-ten horror novels of all time. You don’t have to ask me twice, so at the end of this episode you’ll get some extra bonus content (whether you want it or not) whilst I indulge myself in banging on about books I love. I get quite pretentious in parts.
Red Dragon (1981), by Thomas Harris
The Golden Age (1985), by Louis Nowra
Soon (2017), by Lois Murphy
A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), by Paul Tremblay
The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson
Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis
The Terror (2007), by Dan Simmons
Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
Ghost Story (1971), by Peter Straub
The Little Stranger (2009), by Sarah Waters
Swan Song (1987), by Robert R. McCammon
The Stand (1978), by Stephen Kind
House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
IT (1986), by Stephen King
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing and Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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This late into 2020 we are all craving a) a holiday and b) time with friends. Our guest this week may cast a slightly different perspective on both.
Rachel Harrison is the author of The Return, a novel that looks into the dark heart of friendship and asks “do you REALLY know who your friends are?” The book was published all the way back in March, by Berkley in the US and Hodder in the UK. I finally found time to catch up with Rachel and to tell her why this book scared me so badly.
Yep, this may be the single most unnerving novel I’ve read in 2020 (and that includes a couple of fictional pandemics in the middle of our real pandemic). The Return presents female friendship in all its complexity, compassion and cruelty. As you’ll hear, I didn’t always get on with the women in this book, but they left a lasting impression on me (and on Rachel). Plus, it prompts Rachel to tell me hew own personal ghost story. It’s a lot more benign than the one in her story.
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing and Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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Stand back! Our Guest this week is Christopher Golden, author of all manner of horror, adventure and generally freaky fiction. His latest book is Red Hands, the third featuring Ben Walker, action-hero and expert in the batsh*t weird!
I have used the words ‘relevant’ and ‘prescient’ more than ever in 2020 – this being, after all, the year that all our horror stories became true. Even by that standard Red Hands is creepily on the money though. It’s the story of a plague that is transmitted by simple touch, and kills in seconds. That may sound like grim reading right now, but trust me, it’s a hell of a good time. Action-packed and surprisingly philosophical in approach, it also features a KILLER first chapter.
Christopher and I talk about our shared love of historical mystery and folklore, the pros and cons of writing series fiction, and how you balance pace and character in a book that wants to raise your pulse and make you care.
Red Hands would have been too horrible to bear a few months ago. Now, with a vaccine on the way, it is the propulsive popcorn read that may perfectly pair with your holiday.
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing and Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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This week our guest is Sam J. Miller, author of The Blade Between - a novel for anyone who loves or loathes their hometown.
It’s a story of small-town ghosts, hidden hatreds and sudden violence. And behind it all looms the issue of gentrification, in all its ugliness and beauty. Listening to Sam talk, you may think differently about that cute little bistro that’s opened down the street. Y’know, the one that took over from that local place that had been there for years . . .
Sam’s previous works include The Art of Starving (2017) and Blackfish City (2018), both novels that take no truck with easy ideas of genre. They, like The Blade Itself are freewheeling stories, and as you’ll here, Sam is more than willing go down some weird alleyways and to spill his own blood on the page.
He’s also got a lot of things to say about queer identity in horror, about how no-one ever thinks they are the villain in the story, and the worry of how people in your hometown may feel when you savage it in your story.
The Blade Between was published December 1st 2020, by Ecco Books.
Books we mentioned include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing and Adrian Flounders for graphic design.
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If you’re a fan of podcasts and horror (and of course you are!) then chances are you’ll recognise our guest. Jonathan Sims is the author of Thirteen Storeys, but you may know him (or his voice) as the creator and narrator of The Magnus Archives. Yep, that’s right, I’m interviewing The Archivist himself.
Thirteen Storeys takes a lot of what makes The Magnus Archives great, and blends it with contemporary social realism to create a book that’s horrifying in more ways than one. It’s an anthology novel that comprises … well … thirteen stories, all about the haunted corridors of an inner-city tower block. Horrible things happen to good and bad people and, true to form, stuff gets very, very weird!
Jonny is every bit as good an interviewee as you’d expect from someone who does his day job. We get into all sorts of nooks and crannies about both the book and the show. We discuss how to create a singularly horrifying image, why M.R. James is still the man, and delve into the birth and forthcoming end of The Magnus Archives. Oh … and Kenny Loggins makes an appearance.
Enjoy!
Thirteen Stories is published by Gollancz on November 26th, 2020.
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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Things get a little cultish this week on Talking Scared. Our guest is Craig DiLouie, author of the brand-spanking-new creepy commune novel, The Children of Red Peak – released November 18th from RedHook Books. It’s a tale of crazy goings-on in the desert, of ritual mutilation and lasting trauma. All that fun stuff!
Craig immediately has me in his thrall, even without the Kool-Aid. (interesting fact, it was actually Flavour Aid that the Jonestown cultists drank). We talk about the difference between a religion and a cult, how to capture the spiritual essence of music in prose, and we also get deep into what is so scary about religion and faith tipping over into something darker.
On top of that, Craig confronts us all with one of the big moral questions – how many arms would YOU feed to a shredder if you had to?
Along the way we mention some other books, including:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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This week Rumaan Alam presents us with a wholly ambiguous end of the world. Rumaan’s new novel, Leave the World Behind has taken the publishing landscape by storm. Reviews are everywhere and critics are shouting its name from the rooftops, with good reason.
Leave the World Behind is a strange, uneasy tale of the world going wrong. What begins as a family getaway to Long Island spirals into fear as strangers arrive, bringing news of a blackout in New York City. From there, things only get worse as the possibilities of what is actually happening become terrifyingly limitless.
We spend a good hour talking crises of masculinity, why kids are better equipped for apocalypse than their parents, and why literary fiction needs to get the chip off its shoulder a little. We also both realise that we’d be functionally useless in any kind of real crisis.
A few books mentioned in this episode include:
Enjoy!
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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If you are feeling nervous today, or just want something to distract you from the doomscrolling, then welcome to our Election Day special. Our guest is Andrew Pyper whose latest novel, The Residence, is an historical tour around a White House under siege from a demon. This particular spirit is arrogant, spiteful and determined to use the Oval Office for dire purposes – but he’s not orange at least!
Andrew is no stranger to creepy, spirit-infested fiction. His previous work includes The Guardians (2011), The Demonologist (2013) and The Damned (2015), amongst many others. We talk about the nature of evil, both personal and political, and consider the sex life of a president (no, not this one!) Andrew also takes us on a tour through the intriguingly haunted history of Pennsylvania Avenue. Who knew the White House had so many ghosts?
Enjoy!
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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It’s Halloween and in lieu of any trick and/or treating this plague year, I offer you a conversation with Colin Dickey, mystery-maestro and curator of the creepy. Colin is the author of Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (2016) and The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters and our Obsession with the Unexplained – books that plumb the depths of the human mind and our fixation on the creepy things at the margins of the known world.
In this wide-ranging discussion, we touch upon the remnants of lost civilisations, cryptozoology and the link between wonder, fear and the conspiracy theory. I also offer my favourite (and fool proof) theory as to why all photos of Bigfoot are blurry.
I hope you all have the best Halloween possible in current circumstances. It’s been great creating this podcast so far and, today, on a horror-fan’s favourite holiday, I hope you are all well and enjoyably scared.
Enjoy!
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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Where do you stand on horror and comedy? Can a book be too funny to be scary, or too terrifying to raise a chuckle? Our guest this week would argue not. T. Kingfisher is the author of the critically-acclaimed The Twisted Ones (2019) and her brand-new release The Hollow Places. Both are scorching horror tales, with some hideous imagery, exquisite world-building and nightmare-fuel ideas . . . but they are also both laugh-out-loud funny, at least to us sickos anyway!
T (short for ‘The’ or ‘Terrence’, depending on her mood) and I discuss the world’s maddest museums, the practical issues with making your own golem, and whether America is really overrun with phantom kangaroos! We also manage to sneak in some ‘serious’ conversation about how the genre works, and why she finds classic tales such an inspiration.
This one will put a smile on your face as October draws to an end.
Some of the books discussed in this episode include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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This week Emily Danforth takes us back to school. Her new novel, Plain Bad Heroines has a lot to say about the history of queer women, the price of fame, and whether found footage horror is any good. Plain Bad Heroines features heavily on all the best-of lists for the season, and it’s an early reputation that’s well deserved. This tricksy, twisty novel spans centuries to tell the tale of a very peculiar school and the horror film made about it two hundred years later.
If you have any interest in experimental fiction, queer writing or American Gothic then, somehow, this book covers all those bases.
Emily also tells one hell of a story about why she’s frightened of home invasion. Come, gather round the teacher’s desk and listen . . .
Books mentioned in this episode include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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Kate Summerscale is our first guest working in the realms of non-fiction. Her back-catalogue proves that the real world is every bit as dark and terrifying as the inside of Stephen King’s head. She’s covered murder in the famous The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008) and now she’s back with a more spiritual crisis in The Haunting of Alma Fielding.
The book examines a very odd case of poltergeist activity in the London suburbs between the wars. Famous ghost hunters get involved, much crockery is thrown, jewellery is stolen (all by ghosts honestly!) and terrapins are manifested out of thin air. If all that sounds truly bizarre to you, then trust me, it’s the tip of a very spooky iceberg.
Kate is definitely the one to take us through the story. Her research is meticulous, and her historical contextualisation paints a compelling portrait of a nation, a household, and a woman under threat of attack.
Books mentioned in this episode include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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Ahoy mateys! My guest this week is the locked-room-murder-maestro himself, Stuart Turton. In 2018 Stu burst onto the scene with his genre-splicing triumph, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. It won awards and melted some brains with its maddening twists and turns.
Stu’s follow-up is equally intricate but this time it’s also seaworthy. The Devil and the Dark Water is a murder mystery set on a 16th Century trading ship, but in true Turton-esque (is that a thing yet) style, it’s also about a dozen other genres too. There is horror aplenty, as the titular demon begins to reveal himself in the shadowy corners of the ship.
We discuss all sorts this week, from the depravity of sailing vessels, to the agony of first novels, and we seriously question whether Sherlock Holmes is a d**k? Yep, this week there is swearing! Enjoy.
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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This week we get visceral – with the extreme body horror of Robert Jeremy Johnson and his new novel THE LOOP.
Jeremy speaks to us from Portland, Oregon, where he’s busy watching the forest fires and working on ways to weaponise his words for good. THE LOOP is a novel all about conspiracy theory, medical mishap, and a class war raging through a small town. Think your favourite 80s teen comedy (with its guts spilling out) mixed with a little bit of 50s pulp Americana and smeared with 2020s political frenzy. That’s THE LOOP and man, it’s a trip!!
Oh, and we hear some VERY alarming claims about the octopus!
The books we discuss in this episode include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks To Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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This week’s guest is up-and-coming horror extraordinaire, Jo Kaplan. Jo’s new haunted house novel, It Will Just Be Us is a tour-de-force of chills, thrills and things that kill. It’s got everything you could possibly want: creepy old house – check, mysterious locked room – CHECK, a witch who lurks in a swamp – CHECK!!!! It’s also got some of the best female relationships I’ve read in horror for a while, enough to pass the Bechdel test with flying colours.
Jo and I talk about Freud’s uncanny and the infamous Winchester House, how to research her locations (or not), and how to make a ghost feel like something new. This chat feels like getting in at the ground floor of what will be a skyscraper career. Listen now, and you can say you were there at the start!
The books we discussed this episode include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or email direct to [email protected].
Thanks To Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.
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This week we’re in conversation with Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the author of Mexican Gothic - 2020's twisted publishing phenomenon. We discuss the novel's roots in British soil, and whether a book can be considered 'too' Mexican or not Mexican enough. Along the way we also consider the classic Mexican horror cinema of Enrique Taboada, why not everything has to be magic realism, and why all aspiring writers should learn to keep their receipts.
Silvia has fiery words for those who think every damn book that comes from Mexico needs to feature the day of the dead. It's an intense conversation - challenging and thought-provoking. Just don't dare call Mexican Gothic a romance!
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or reach out direct to [email protected].
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In the second episode i'm in conversation with John Langan, contemporary literary horror superstar and all round scholar of the genre.
John is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-Winning classic The Fisherman and his latest collection is Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies. We talk about great influences and literary ventriloquism, what makes a great horror title, and what it's like to be part of the coolest club in the horror community. There are few writers out there with a better understanding of their own genre than John, and this interview is a primer in horror writing for newbies and aficionados alike.
Books mentioned in our conversation include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod or reach out direct to [email protected].
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In the first ever episode of Talking Scared we speak to horror megastar Paul Tremblay, author of the modern classic, A Head Full of Ghosts and this year's virus-shocker Survivor Song.
There are musings on pandemics real and imaginary, the terror of sharks, and the terrible truth at the heart of horror fiction.
Books mentioned in our conversation include:
Come talk books with us on Twitter @TalkScaredPod
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En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.