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.
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222 – Clay McLeod Chapman & Oh My God, What Have I Done?
Episode 222
Tuesday, January 7, 2025 • Duration 01:20:30
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.
What Kind of Mother (2023), by Clay McLeod Chapman
Ghost Eaters (2022), by Clay McLeod Chapman
The Deluge (2022), by Stephen Markley
Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran
The Stand (1990), by Stephen King
Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories (2022), ed by, Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias
American Rapture (2024), by CJ Leede
Feast While You Can (2024), by by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta
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221 – The Best Scary Books of 2024
Episode 221
Tuesday, December 31, 2024 • Duration 01:08:24
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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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Off Book #5 – Halloween Special – Kaelyn Moore & Heart Starts Pounding
Thursday, October 31, 2024 • Duration 01:31:00
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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:
The Man From the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery (2017), by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (2017), by Lindsey Fitzharris
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer (2018), by Michelle McNamara
The Devil’s Rooming House: the True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer (2011), by M. William Phelps
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133 – Jacqueline Holland & At Last! Vampires!
Episode 133
Tuesday, March 7, 2023 • Duration 01:10:05
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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:
What I Didn’t See, and Other Stories (2002), by Karen Joy Fowler
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013), by Karen Joy Fowler
Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires (2001), by Michael Bell
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), by Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles (1950), by Ray Bradbury
The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
Just Like Mother (2022), by Anne Heltzel – Episode 92
The Upstairs House (2021), by Julia Fine – Episode 27
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132 – Matt Ruff & A Hostile Universe Here on Earth
Episode 132
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 • Duration 01:13:19
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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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131 – Johnny Compton & A Pyroclastic Flow of Negative Energy
Episode 131
Tuesday, February 21, 2023 • Duration 01:22:16
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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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130 – Mariana Enriquez & This Cruelty is Justified
Episode 130
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 • Duration 01:33:25
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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:
The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales (2022), by Attila Veres
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (2009), by Mariana Enriquez
Things We Lost in the Fire (2017), by Mariana Enriquez
Shuggie Bain (2020), by Douglas Stuart
In Patagonia (1977), by Bruce Chatwin
Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy
READ: Smithsonian article about Chiloe and the imbunche
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129 – Stephen Graham Jones & Slashers Can Save the World
Episode 129
Tuesday, February 7, 2023 • Duration 01:20:11
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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:
Maeve Fly (2023), by C.J. Leade
My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021), by Stephen Graham Jones
The Final Girl Support Group (2021), by Grady Hendrix
Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018), by Waubgeshig Rice
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128 – C.J. Tudor & Locked Rooms at the End of the World
Episode 128
Tuesday, January 31, 2023 • Duration 01:07:49
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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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127 – Grady Hendrix and the Radical Puppet Collective
Episode 127
Tuesday, January 24, 2023 • Duration 59:25
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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:
The Final Girl Support Group (2020), by Grady Hendrix
Horrorstör (2014), by Grady Hendrix
We Sold Our Souls (2018), by Grady Hendrix
My Heart is a Chainsaw (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones
The Pallbearer’s Club (2022), by Paul Tremblay
Moth Manor (1978), by Martha Sherman Bacon
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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