The Dark Word – Details, episodes & analysis

Season Two of The Dark Word takes the ferry cross the Mersey to conclude in style.

Ramsey Campbell was born in Liverpool in 1946 and still lives Merseyside. The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes him as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2015 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University for outstanding services to literature.

He is the author of more than 30 novels and hundreds of short stories. Among his novels are The Face That Must Die, Midnight Sun, The Darkest Part of the Woods, The Grin of the Dark, and more recent titles include Think Yourself Lucky and Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach and The Wise Friend. His latest is Fellstones.

His novels The Nameless and Pact of the Fathers have been filmed in Spain, where a film of The Influence is in production. He is the President of the Society of Fantastic Films.

Josh Ruben is an award-winning actor, writer, and director whose feature film SCARE ME—which he wrote, directed and starred in alongside Aya Cash and Chris Redd—debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. For television, Josh directed sketches for "The Late Late Show" with James Corden and episodes of TruTV's "Adam Ruins Everything." As one of the founding members of CollegeHumor's "Originals" department, Ruben has directed and/or starred in thousands of comedic shorts, amassing views well into the billions.

He directed and cameos in all 10 episodes of Funny or Die & Spotify's narrative podcast, THE LAST DEGREE OF KEVIN BACON opposite Rob Reiner, Lamorne Morris, Kyra Sedgwick, and Bacon himself. His second feature, WEREWOLVES WITHIN, premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and is distributed by IFC Films and won a Hollywood Critics Association Midseason award for "Best Indie." Ruben recently produced BLOOD RELATIVES, a genre road trip dramedy, and currently stars in Travis Stevens' feature film A WOUNDED FAWN, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Both films are streaming exclusively on Shudder.

We've interviewed him before and this lively conversation goes into even greater depth about his career in comedy and horror.

Brian Evenson is the author more than a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell. His collection Song for the Unraveling of the World (2019) won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association’s RUSA award for Best Horror Novel of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. His 2003 collection The Wavering Knife won the International Horror Guild Award for best story collection.

Evenson is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and a Guggenheim Award. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.

Josh Malerman is a New York Times bestselling author and one of two singer-songwriters for the rock band The High Strung. His debut novel, Bird Box, is the inspiration for the hit Netflix film of the same name. His other novels include Unbury Carol, Inspection, A House at the Bottom of a Lake, and Malorie, the sequel to Bird Box.Malerman’s new book, Daphne, comes out today, Sept. 20, 2022, and you can buy that book (and all books!) at the Book House, which is Book and Film Globe’s bookstore. Shop online or confound the authorities by actually visiting our actual physical store in Millburn, NJ, where you can buy books from all authors featured on The Dark Word and the Book and Film Globe podcasts.

Malerman lives in Michigan with his fiancée, the artist-musician Allison Laakko. We’ve covered him before so check out this interview and more. And don’t miss an episode of The Dark Word, the world’s premiere podcast about horror writing and the creative forces behind them.

Josh also gives a plug to a romance podcast on which he recently appears and reveals a genre convention invisible to others — the number of flames depicted on the cover signals the precise level of raunchiness. Who knew!

For the final episode of Season One of THE DARK WORD, Victor LaValle joins Philip Fracassi to discuss early story sales (and rejections), writing in bursts, tips on a great agent query letter, and much more. A season one finale you won’t want to miss.

Victor is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, four novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, The Devil in Silver, and The Changeling and two novellas, Lucretia and the Kroons and The Ballad of Black Tom. He is also the creator and writer of two comic books Victor LaValle's DESTROYER and EVE.

He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Shirley Jackson Award, American Book Award, and the key to Southeast Queens.

He was raised in Queens, New York. He now lives in Washington Heights with his wife and kids. He teaches at Columbia University.

The Dark Word thanks our loyal listeners for turning this podcast into a must-listen for the horror writing community. We'll be back in the fall for Season Two with new writers, editors, insights and in-depth conversations about writing.

Legendary writer and winner of ten Bram Stoker Awards discusses his 50-year career.

The legendary Joe R. Lansdale joined THE DARK WORD to talk about his 50-year career as a writer, sharing advice on writing, including working with the time you have, his editing process, and how he’s had success writing for himself.

Joe has written novels and stories in many genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense. He has also written for comics as well as “Batman: The Animated Series.” As of 2020, he has written 50 novels and published more than 30 short-story collections. His stories have won ten Bram Stoker Awards. a British Fantasy Award, an Edgar Award, a World Horror Convention Grand Master Award, a Sugarprize, a Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, a Spur Award, and a Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into The Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and several of his novels have been adapted to film.

Bestselling author Ronald Malfi joins Philip to discuss two decades in publishing.

We hit double digits! For our 10th episode, bestselling author Ronald Malfi joins The Dark Word to discuss his twenty years of publishing experience, working with agents, and offer a behind-the-scenes look at how books are adapted for film and television.

Ronald is the award-winning author of several horror novels, including the bestselling Come With Me, published by Titan Books in 2021. He earned two Independent Publisher Book Awards, the Beverly Hills Book Award, the Vincent Preis Horror Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, and his novel Floating Staircase was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. He lives with his wife and daughters in Maryland. When he’s not writing, he’s performing with the rock band Veer, whose song Breathe rocks way harderthan we expected.

Author of nearly 30 novels stops by to talk writing with Philip Fracassi

This week, we were delighted to have bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones visit The Dark Word to discuss his early publishing career, the importance of reading, his unique approach to writing fiction, and some real-world advice on writing mechanics.

Stephen is the New York Times bestselling author of nearly thirty novels and collections, and there’s some novellas and comic books in there as well. Most recent are The Only Good Indians and My Heart is a Chainsaw. Up next is Don’t Fear the Reaper. Stephen lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado.

Read Book and Film Globe’s earlier interview with Stephen Graham Jones. And Dark Word host Philip Fracassi appeared on the Book and Film Globe podcast last week with Neal Pollack. It’s very much worth a listen.

Bram Stoker Award-winning author chats with Philip Fracassi about Road of Bones, Ararat and other works.

You won’t want to miss our Dark Word interview with Christopher Golden, in which we discuss his vast publishing experience, editing anthologies, writing for comics and his take on the most important book every writer must have.

Golden is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of such novels as Road of Bones, Ararat, Snowblind, and Red Hands.

With Mike Mignola, he is the co-creator of the Outerverse comic book universe, including such series as Baltimore, Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and Lady Baltimore.

As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others.

He has written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot.

His work has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the Eisner Award, and multiple Shirley Jackson Awards. For the Bram Stoker Awards, Golden has been nominated ten times in eight different categories, and won twice. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world.

Read a previous interview with Christopher Golden on Book and Film Globe.

Legendary editor hits Philip Fracassi with tips for aspiring horror writers

We had a great conversation with legendary editor Ellen Datlow in which we discuss anthologies, tips for new writers when submitting a story, the nuts and bolts of creating a killer table of contents, and much more.

Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over thirty-five years as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and editor of Event Horizon and SCIFICTION. She currently acquires short fiction for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited more than a hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year.

She’s won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and was the recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” She was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, as well as the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.

Datlow lives in New York and co-hosts the monthly Fantastic Fiction Reading Series at KGB Bar. More information can be found at www.datlow.com.