Annie Neugebauer is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated horror author, and her work gets under your skin the way only the best psychological horror can. In this interview, we sit down with Annie to talk about The Outsiders Sequence, her series of wilderness horror novellas published through Shortwave Publishing, including her debut novella The Extra and the upcoming follow-up The Other, dropping June 9, 2026.
We get into the big questions: what draws a writer to horror fiction in the first place, and why does the genre still carry a stigma when books like Interview with the Vampire and The Shining have been proving otherwise for decades? Annie talks about the power of mundane horror, how grounding a story in everyday life lets it slip past the reader's defenses, and why short fiction gives horror writers the freedom to take risks that longer formats don't always allow.
We also dig into the concept Annie calls the "force field" in horror storytelling: the mechanism every horror writer needs to keep characters trapped in the story. From Stephen King's The Tommyknockers to Cabin in the Woods, and the very real problem that cell phones created for the genre (R.L. Stine agrees, by the way), this conversation covers the craft of building dread in a modern world that makes isolation harder and harder to pull off.
Annie shares the books that stuck with her the most, from A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay to Broken Harbor by Tana French, and we play a round of horror survival scenarios that tells you everything you need to know about her relationship with the genre. She also teases two major unannounced projects that she describes as "dream come true level."
Whether you read literary horror for the slow-burn dread or just want a good popcorn scare, this one is for you.
Annie Neugebauer: Horror Author and The Outsiders Sequence
- Annie Neugebauer is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated short story author, nationally award-winning poet, and horror novelist
- Her debut novella The Extra is the first book in The Outsiders Sequence, published by Shortwave Publishing; her short story collection You Have to Let Them Bleed is from Bad Hand Books
- The Other (Outsiders Sequence #2) drops June 9, 2026; a couple meets their doppelgangers on a hiking trail; The Spare follows in spring 2027
- Annie teases two major unannounced projects described as "dream come true level" — follow her at [LINK: annieneugebauer.com] and @AnnieNeugebauer on Instagram
Literary Horror vs. Popcorn Horror: The Case for Both
- Annie makes the case that literary horror and commercial horror both have value; sometimes you need popcorn, sometimes you need to be challenged
- The conversation covers how Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire was proof that horror can do "important things and deep things and powerful things"
- Discussion of Ari Aster films (Midsommar, Hereditary) vs. franchise horror like The Conjuring and what each gives the audience
Mundane Horror and the Art of Slow-Burn Dread
- Annie's approach to mundane horror: grounding stories in real life to get under the reader's defenses before the horror fully lands
- The horror that stays with you; Annie's "stuck in me" criterion for what separates good horror from unforgettable horror
- Books that achieved this: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, Broken Harbor by Tana French, The Shining, Salem's Lot, Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
The Force Field Problem and Cell Phones in Modern Horror
- Annie's concept of the "force field" in horror: every story needs a mechanism to trap characters in the situation
- From Stephen King's The Tommyknockers to Cabin in the Woods: literal and metaphorical containment strategies
- R.L. Stine recently called cell phones the worst thing to happen for horror, and Annie agrees; wilderness settings provide a natural force field for modern horror
Short Fiction vs. Novels: Different Beasts, Same Genre
- Annie writes everything from poems to epic novels, but short fiction lets her take risks with faster reader buy-in
- The practical side: publishers can gamble on an unknown short story author in an anthology more easily than on a 120,000-word debut novel
- How The Outsiders Sequence evolved: each novella can stand alone but connects through a shared world; editor Alan Lastufka accidentally planted the seed for the series
Horror Survival Scenarios and Childhood Scares
- Annie plays a round of horror survival scenarios: would survive the Overlook Hotel, would lose her psyche at Hill House, would make it decently far in Cabin in the Woods, and accepts her fate in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
- Childhood horror confessions: Annie was deeply traumatized by both Anaconda and E.T. as a kid (the stuffed animal scene especially)
- Discussion of horror in the school curriculum: Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from seventh grade through high school
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Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast
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