Shows
Talking Scared269 – Catriona Ward & The Art of the Epic Name DropClap your hands twice if you believe in Catriona Ward!
Cat is back on the show this week, to talk Nowhere Burning – a horror novel informed by everything from Peter Pan (it has its own Tinkerbell), to certain disgraced megastars, and even the CIA checklist on what constitutes a cult!
It’s a lot, and we talk about all of it, as well as various weird mysteries, the grimmest cult we’ve ever heard of, and Cat’s various brushes with fame over the years.
This little precise may...
2026-02-241h 11
The CinemaChords Podcast#7 'Good Boy 'Author Neil McRobert: Meet the Author Turning Northern Folklore into Haunting, Heartfelt HorrorNeil McRobert is no stranger to the macabre. As a writer, academic, and host of the Talking Scared podcast, he has spent years in conversation with the titans of horror fiction – listening, learning, and, it would seem, nurturing a few dark ideas of his own. Now he steps out from behind the microphone with Good Boy, his debut novella, published on 9 October by Wild Hunt Books as part of their Northern Weird Project.The Northern Weird Project brings together six short works from authors based in the North of England, each using the region as an active presence...
2025-10-1957 min
Cradle to the GraveRAVENOUS (1999) with Neil McRobert"It's lonely being a cannibal."Intro song: "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog (1991)SHOW NOTES0:00 - INTRO2:37 - RAVENOUS with NEIL MCROBERT*****Check out Neil's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-scared/id1530064310*****Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cradle2thegravepod/Email the show: http://cradletothegravepod@gmail.comLEAVE A COMMENT ABOUT THE EPISODE!
2025-10-1659 min
Books in the Freezer - A Horror Fiction PodcastSmall Town Horror with Neil McRobertNeil McRobert is back on the pod today. This time as a published author!! We are here to talk about his fantastic novella Good Boy and the horrors of small towns.
Books Mentioned:
Good Boy by Neil McRobert\
Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare
The Ghosts of Sleath by James Herbert
The Low Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado
Jackal by Erin E Adams
The Night Country by Stewart O Nan
Itch! by Gemma Amor
The Poorly Made and Other Things by Sam Rebelein
The October Film Haunt by Michael We...
2025-10-141h 13Books in the Freezer - A Horror Fiction PodcastSmall Town Horror with Neil McRobertNeil McRobert is back on the pod today. This time as a published author!! We are here to talk about his fantastic novella Good Boy and the horrors of small towns.
Books Mentioned:
Good Boy by Neil McRobert\
Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare
The Ghosts of Sleath by James Herbert
The Low Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado
Jackal by Erin E Adams
The Night Country by Stewart O Nan
Itch! by Gemma Amor
The Poorly Made and Other Things by Sam Rebelein
The October Film Haunt by Michael We...
2025-10-141h 13Talking Scared258 – Neil McRobert & My Four-Legged Ode to Bravery & JoyAh the arrogance of writers. Now I am one, officially, I thought I’d better do something fitting.
So I set up a whole episode of my podcast to talk about my own book – Good Boy! My debut novella about small English towns, the bonds between men and dogs, and a battle between bravery and monsters.
Thankfully, I have friends who will facilitate this type of nonsense, so thanks to Nat Cassidy and Rachel Harrison for asking me questions and flattering my ego.
We talk about literary and per...
2025-10-091h 30
Anna Rose Reads - The PodcastNeil McRobert on Good BoyHappy Tuesday! Thrilled to be sharing my conversation with Neil McRobert, author of his debut novella, Good Boy. Now, you probably know Neil from Talking Scared, but I cannot emphasize how much I adore his fiction, in particular this story. It’s one that pulls on your heart strings in the best way possible, unpacking ideas of social responsibility and standing for what you believe in, even when it’s the hardest option available. I cannot thank Neil enough for coming on the pod to chat about all this and more. This may be a cheesy bit to share, but...
2025-10-071h 19
The Scares That Shaped UsEpisode 49: A Nightmare on Elm Street with Neil McRobertNeil McRobert, host of Talking Scared, joins us this week for a horror lit podcast crossover to talk about his debut novella, Good Boy! We discuss Neil's writing process, our shared love for dogs, and more, then we dive into Wes Craven's legendary slasher classic A Nightmare on Elm Street!- Sign up for our newsletter for even more horror goodness, including a new essay on John Carpenter's Halloween every day this month!- Check out Talking Scared, and order Good Boy! - Follow the show on BlueSky and Facebook!- Want t...
2025-10-011h 21
The Year of Underrated Stephen King150. The Women of Stephen King Pt. 4 (Neil McRobert!)Neil McRobert from Talking Scared returns to TYOUSK! -The Women of Stephen King Pt. 4:1. Neil's Top-5 Favorite Stephen King Females (+Honorable Mentions) 2. Which Stephen King Females does Neil want more from?3. Stephen's King's Creative Development on Female Characters throughout his Career4. Would a Woman Write it Any Differently?5. Where Would Neil take Charli McGee from Firestarter in a King approved sequel? More from Neil:
2025-05-261h 39Talking Scared230 – Alex Grecian & Weirdos in the WestSaddle 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...
2025-03-111h 08
We Learned More From a Three Minute Record9 - The River (1980) Part 1: With Neil McRobert of the Talking Scared PodcastIs a dream a lie if it don't come true? We're back on brand, back in Springsteen Country, and with very special guest Neil McRobert (author, journalist, reviewer, and host of the mighty Talking Scared podcast) in tow, it's finally time to dive into The River. Breaking this behemoth album into two shows, tonight we talk Disk One, as well as our histories with the record, general remarks about the album as a whole, and Neil's Grand Unifying Spreinsteen Theory. Expect discussions of parental loss and elemental relationship fears alongside some entertaining differences of opinions, a...
2025-03-031h 57
THE BLOOD, GUTS, & PAPER CUTS PODCASTNeil McRobert on Horror, Literature, Podcasting and a Film Called "Aterrados."We sit down with Neil McRobert of the "Talking Scared Podcast" to pick his lovely brain on how he began his incredible journey toward becoming horror literature's "must-be-on " podcast four years after starting. Along the way, we learn how horror on the page and screen is certainly having an incredible moment, and 2024 has been off the charts with books and movies that really pack a wallop! As we get into Demian Rugna's "Aterrados" we learn that this might not be the movie Neil was expecting and what really scares him. We hope you enjoy this fantastic conversation with a...
2024-12-121h 10Talking Scared[From the Vault] T. Kingfisher & A Bit of Laughter in the DarkSend us a textStill 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...
2024-11-1255 minTalking Scared216 – CJ Leede & The Shame of the Human AnimalSend us a textThings 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 fundament...
2024-10-151h 14Talking Scared214 – Lora Senf & The Infinite, Child-Friendly VoidSend us a textRelease 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 a...
2024-10-011h 11Talking Scared199 – Josh Malerman & The Most Frightening Love StorySend us a textMy 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. Jos...
2024-06-251h 20
KingsizeSurvivor Type- Talking Scared's Neil McRobertThis episode's Survivor Type is none other than Neil McRobert - host of Talking Scared , a podcast which features conversations with the biggest names in horror fiction. And this is not just a bold claim - Neil recently chatted to Stephen King himself in a mind bending episode. Join Matt and Neil as we discover which King works he is taking to the island, which King characters make the cut, and what he Stands for.
2024-02-191h 48
Ink Heist - A Podcast for Readers of Dark FictionEpisode 3.30 - Around the Campfire with Neil McRobertThis week, we're excited to welcome Neil McRobert, host of the Talking Scared Podcast to the show to talk all things Horror! Talking Scared Podcast is described as "Conversations with the biggest names in horror fiction. A podcast for horror readers who want to know where their favorite stories came from . . . and what frightens the people who wrote them" and I can't think of a better introduction to Neil's show than that. He launched Talking Scared in the fall of 2020 and has been consistently releasing engaging, highly informative interviews that should appeal to every fan of the genre. Each...
2024-01-241h 18Talking Scared176 – The Best Horror Novels of 2023Send us a textAnother 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 s...
2023-12-3057 min
Our First Fears17 - The Terminator with Neil McRobertOn episode 17, WE ARE BACK . . . this time, chatting with writer and horror podcast-rock-star, Neil McRobert about a movie that made him cry when he was just a wee lad - James Cameron’s 1984 science-fiction classic, The Terminator. Our conversation runs from ideas of cyborg body horror, to the trope of the unkillable thing that chases you, relentlessly. We poke around in notions of how time-travel stories work (or don't), fiction writers as prophets, and the existential terror I feel when I think too hard about the philosophy behind simulation theory. But we have fun too! I promise!
2023-11-151h 11
The Year of Underrated Stephen King124. Constant Reader Interview (Neil McRobert from Talking Scared!)Neil McRobert is Talking Constant Reader...
Welcome Fellow Book Podcaster & Host, Neil McRobert from Talking Scared to the show!
In this Constant Reader Interview, Neil and I Chat:
-Another Look at the True Knot
-A New Ending for Under the Dome?
-Beverly Marsh is a Hero
-Favorite Four-Legged King Pet
-Interviewing Stephen King
More from Talking Scared...
2023-11-111h 47
Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism PodcastS4 E2. DINNER GUESTS – Neil McRobert & Nicasio Andres Reed
What’s so scary about cannibalism? We talk to horror experts Neil McRobert, host of Talking Scared Podcast, and Nicasio Andres Reed, editor at the Deadlands, to find out.
Did you know Casting Lots now has merch? Find us on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/CastingLotsPod/shop
CREDITS
Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. With guest appearances from Neil McRobert and Nicasio Andres Reed.
You can find Neil McRobert on Twitter as @NakMac. Hear more from Neil on the Talking Scared Podcast: https://talkingscaredpod.com/. You ca...
2022-11-0700 min
She Wore BlackE40.5: The Books of Stephen King with Neil McRobert from Talking Scared PodcastToday, I’ve invited Neil McRobert, from the Talking Scared podcast, to talk about Stephen King. I’ve spent decades loving King’s book “On Writing,” and have always held a special place in my heart for “Stand By Me,” based on the King novella, “The Body,” but I’ve not read anything else. I also know that some of my listeners love gothic but are afraid to try other horror, so Neil is here with recommendations for readers like us. It was a real treat chatting with him and I can’t wait to hear feedback from those of you who try a King...
2022-08-121h 04Talking Scared77 – S.A. Barnes and Every Direction is DownSend us a textIn 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, t...
2022-02-011h 10Talking Scared76 – Ally Wilkes and Good Reasons to be Afraid of the DarkSend us a textIs 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...
2022-01-251h 07Talking Scared75 – Kristi DeMeester and Misogynistic Little Paper CutsSend us a textThis 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 abou...
2022-01-181h 09Talking Scared74 – John Connolly and the Many Faces of Metaphysical MysterySend us a textKicking 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 wheth...
2022-01-111h 31Talking Scared73 – The Best Horror-ish Books of 2021Send us a textIt’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 taki...
2021-12-3148 minTalking Scared72 – State of the Horror Nation II, with Emily Hughes and Sadie HartmannSend us a textWell, 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...
2021-12-281h 55Talking Scared71 – A.J. West and Paranormal ForeplaySend us a textThis 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 r...
2021-12-211h 11Talking Scared70 – Ross Jeffery and Disturbing the ComfortableSend us a textThis 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...
2021-12-141h 09Talking Scared69 – Wendy N. Wagner and Nasty ShenanigansSend us a textI 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 Goth...
2021-12-071h 08Talking Scared68 – Josh Malerman and Putting the Awe in Awful ThingsSend us a textIf 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...
2021-11-301h 13Talking Scared67 – Richard Maclean Smith and the Ledge of ReasonSend us a textAnd 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...
2021-11-231h 17Talking Scared66 – Ellen Datlow and What Does ‘Scared’ Mean Anyhow?Send us a textFor 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 co...
2021-11-161h 11Talking Scared65 – Mark Stay and Cosy Pagan DreadSend us a textThis 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 turn...
2021-11-091h 09Talking Scared64 – Kim Newman and Truly Universal MonstersSend us a textHalloween 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 f...
2021-11-021h 14Talking Scared63 – Mark Kermode and Angels, Demons and White Eyed Kids (AKA, the Hallowe’en Special)Send us a textNormally 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 favo...
2021-10-301h 07Talking Scared62 – Catherynne M. Valente and the Homeowners Association from HellSend us a textPerfect 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...
2021-10-271h 01Talking Scared61 – Cassandra Khaw and Stories to Tell DeathSend us a textI’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!Despi...
2021-10-201h 01Talking Scared60 – Caitlin Starling and Emotional Torture PornSend us a textHello 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 t...
2021-10-131h 12Talking Scared59 – James Han Mattson and the Fear Fetish FacepalmSend us a textWelcome 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 blo...
2021-10-061h 04Talking Scared58 – Lee Mandelo & Playing Out with the BoysSend us a textVroom 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...
2021-09-291h 11Talking Scared57 – Tina Baker and the Working-Class Chips on Our ShouldersSend us a textOh 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...
2021-09-221h 20Talking Scared56 – Aliya Whiteley and Strange GrowthsSend us a textGrowth 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 p...
2021-09-151h 08Talking Scared55 – Daniel Kraus and a Bag of Squishy Organs in an Elastic HideSend us a textOur 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...
2021-09-081h 08Talking Scared54 – Stephen Graham Jones and Dancing with the SlasherSend us a textTalking 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...
2021-09-011h 11Talking Scared53 – Zoje Stage and What if You're Not a Good Person?Send us a textMorning 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...
2021-08-251h 02Talking Scared52 – Richard Chizmar and the Truth Inside the LieSend us a textThis 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 ill...
2021-08-181h 13Talking Scared51 – Brian Evenson and Little Potted NightmaresSend us a textThis 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 w...
2021-08-111h 08Talking Scared50 - Sara Flannery Murphy and the Witches They Couldn't BurnSend us a textSisters 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 chara...
2021-08-041h 06Talking Scared49 – Ronald Malfi and Can Death Do Us Part?Send us a textWhy 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.Rona...
2021-07-281h 03Talking Scared48 – Chuck Wendig and the Comforting Embrace of HorrorSend us a textWeather 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...
2021-07-211h 07Talking Scared47 – Grady Hendrix and Final Girls Just Wanna Have FunSend us a textHello 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...
2021-07-141h 03Talking Scared46 – The State of the Horror Nation, with Sadie Hartmann and Emily HughesSend us a textThis 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 a...
2021-07-071h 53Talking Scared45 – Carmen Maria Machado and Literary Kidney StonesSend us a textThis 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 r...
2021-06-301h 15Talking Scared44 – Eric LaRocca and Abominable Things You Probably Shouldn’t Be ReadingSend us a textIt’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 Pro...
2021-06-231h 06Talking Scared43 – Joe R. Lansdale and Writing Like Everyone You Know is DeadSend us a textPour 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...
2021-06-161h 17Talking Scared42 - V. Castro and F**K Your BoxSend us a textMaybe 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...
2021-06-091h 02Talking Scared41 – Max Brooks and Harry Eats the HendersonsSend us a textIt’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 ina...
2021-06-021h 05Talking Scared40 – Zakiya Dalila Harris and the Fear of Not Being Black EnoughSend us a textIf 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...
2021-05-261h 03Talking Scared39 – Josh Malerman and a Local Town for Local PeopleSend us a textJosh 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 k...
2021-05-191h 08Talking Scared38 – Tananarive Due and Black Girls Doing Magical ThingsSend us a textThis 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 t...
2021-05-121h 12Talking Scared37 – A.J. Gnuse and the People Under Your SinkSend us a textDo 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...
2021-05-051h 05Talking Scared36 - Jeff VanderMeer and Our First On-Air MurderSend us a textJeff 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...
2021-04-281h 14Talking Scared35 – Christina Henry and the Monsters of the SubconsciousSend us a textThis 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 insigh...
2021-04-211h 05Talking Scared34 - Danielle Trussoni and the Spectrum of Human DifferenceSend us a textWhen 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...
2021-04-141h 06Talking Scared33 - Jennifer McMahon and the Green Mountain State of FearSend us a textWelcome 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...
2021-04-071h 11Talking Scared32 - Clay McLeod Chapman and the Clenching Fist of Satan!Send us a textDoes 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 Pres...
2021-03-311h 04Talking Scared31 – V.L. Valentine and Graphic Descriptions of Medical MaladiesSend us a textWe’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 fa...
2021-03-241h 05Talking Scared30 – Catriona Ward and the All-Consuming Spoiler WarningSend us a textThis 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 a...
2021-03-171h 00Talking Scared29 – Angela Slatter and Kelpies not Selkies!!Send us a textOnce 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 Murmu...
2021-03-1058 minTalking Scared28 – Bethany Clift and Judging an Apocalypse by its CoverSend us a textIsolation 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 t...
2021-03-031h 04Talking Scared27 - Julia Fine and the Postmodern PostpartumSend us a textIf 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...
2021-02-2458 minTalking Scared26 - Sarah Pearse and the Hills are Alive with the Sound of MurderSend us a textHands 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.Clea...
2021-02-171h 00Talking Scared25 - Gemma Files and the Witch in Her True OrnamentsSend us a textHave 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 hi...
2021-02-101h 10Talking Scared24 - Courtney Summers and Writing for SpiteSend us a textWhen 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 instea...
2021-02-031h 00Talking Scared23 - Laura Purcell and the Art of DarknessSend us a textLet’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...
2021-01-2756 minTalking Scared22 – C.J. Tudor and the Lure of the Oddball LonersSend us a textIn 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 Amer...
2021-01-201h 04Talking Scared21 - Will Dean & The Horror of the FensSend us a textReady 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-gr...
2021-01-131h 01Talking Scared20 - The Big 2021 Horror Preview AKA Another Annus HorribilisSend us a textI 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 thei...
2021-01-0629 minTalking Scared19 - Michael Marshall Smith and Goodbye to 2020Send us a text2020 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 C...
2020-12-301h 15Talking Scared18 - Gabriel Bergmoser and It's Only a Joke Mate!Send us a textMerry 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 gue...
2020-12-231h 23Talking Scared17 - Rachel Harrison and Knowing Who Your Friends AreSend us a textThis 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 scare...
2020-12-1654 minTalking Scared16 – Christopher Golden and Extreme Social DistancingSend us a textStand 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. T...
2020-12-0959 minTalking Scared15 - Sam J. Miller and a Hometown Hot MessSend us a textThis 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 wo...
2020-12-021h 06Talking Scared14 - Jonathan Sims and the Haunted High-RiseSend us a textIf 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 nove...
2020-11-251h 03Talking Scared13 - Craig DiLouie and the Cult of the ShredderSend us a textThings 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 spir...
2020-11-1851 minTalking Scared12 - Rumaan Alam and the Apocalyptic Rorschach TestSend us a textThis 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...
2020-11-111h 04Talking Scared11 - Andrew Pyper and the Demon in the White HouseSend us a textIf 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 ta...
2020-11-0355 minTalking Scared10 - Colin Dickey and the Obligatory Halloween Special AKA Why We Believe in MonstersSend us a textIt’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...
2020-10-311h 00Talking Scared09 - T. Kingfisher and Does the Dog Die in This One?Send us a textWhere 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 m...
2020-10-2859 minTalking Scared08 – Emily Danforth and “The Blair Witch X Lesbians”Send us a textThis 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 inte...
2020-10-211h 02Talking Scared07 - Kate Summerscale and the Shoplifting PoltergeistSend us a textKate 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...
2020-10-1457 minTalking Scared06 - Stuart Turton and How To Plot a Very Clever MurderSend us a textAhoy 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 hor...
2020-10-071h 05Talking Scared05 – Jeremy Robert Johnson and Where Did That Octopus Come From?Send us a textThis 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’...
2020-09-3058 minTalking Scared04 - Jo Kaplan and What Makes a Great Haunted House?Send us a textThis 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 Winch...
2020-09-2351 minTalking Scared03 - Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Mexican Gothic, NOT RomanceSend us a textThis 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...
2020-09-1657 minTalking Scared02 - John Langan and Writing Under "The Influence"Send us a textIn 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...
2020-09-091h 14Talking Scared01 - Paul Tremblay and Why It's Not the End of the WorldSend us a textIn 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:
The Stand – Stephen King
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus – Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy
Things We Lost in the Fire – Mariana Enriquez
2666 – Roberto Bolano
“The Colonel’s...
2020-09-0159 min