Send us a text 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!! E...
Oct 18, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 114
Send us a text 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 snar...
Oct 11, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 113
Send us a text 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...
Oct 04, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 112
Send us a text 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...
Sep 27, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 111
Send us a text 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...
Sep 20, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 110
Send us a text 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 nove...
Sep 13, 2022•1 hr 57 min•Ep. 109
Send us a text 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...
Sep 06, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 108
Send us a text 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 right...
Aug 30, 2022•54 min•Ep. 107
Send us a text 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 Ha...
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 106
Send us a text 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 betwee...
Aug 16, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 105
Send us a text 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 give...
Aug 09, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 104
Send us a text 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 an...
Aug 02, 2022•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 103
Send us a text 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 cen...
Jul 26, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 102
Send us a text 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...
Jul 19, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 101
Send us a text 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 Roc...
Jul 12, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 100
Send us a text 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 i...
Jul 05, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 99
Send us a text 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 mi...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 98
Send us a text 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 fascin...
Jun 21, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 97
Send us a text 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 D...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 96
Send us a text 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,...
Jun 07, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 95
Send us a text 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 umbra...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 94
Send us a text 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...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 93
Send us a text 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 bo...
May 17, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 92
Send us a text 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. J...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 91
Send us a text 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 h...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 90
Send us a text 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 t...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 89
Send us a text 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...
Apr 19, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 88
Send us a text 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. Al...
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 87
Send us a text 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 Austra...
Apr 05, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 86
Send us a text 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 be...
Mar 29, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 85
