Talking Scared

Off Book #4 – Kate Siegel

05 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text I started Off Book so that I could speak to some of the brightest dark stars in the wider universe of horror.   This week that plan co...

214 – Lora Senf & The Infinite, Child-Friendly Void

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Release your inner child!    …I mean through reading, not by letting it burst out of your stomach like some horrible sugar-coated x...

213 – Johnny Compton & Angels, Demons & Xenomorphs

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text More devilish fun on Talking Scared this week when an old friend returns to talk about god, angels, demons and other things out there i...

212 – Keith Rosson & Punk Rock Death Songs

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Keith Rosson is our first guest to be personally recommended by Stephen King!    And the praise doesn’t stop there. Keith’s Fever...

211 – Laird Barron & Cosmic Background Radiation

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Laird Barron is on the podcast. This feels like cause for celebration.    Not only is Laird Barron a phenomenal writer. Not only is i...

210 – Emily Hughes & The Lover’s Guide to Better Horror

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Are you a Weenie? Don’t be offended. I am.    Weenies are the curious-but-nervous. Those of us who love horror, but who never feel ...

209 – Anna Bogutskaya & A Deep Fear of Things Sincere

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Anna Bogutskaya is one of the UK’s most prominent film critics, with a penchant for horror. She knows her scary onions. And in her ne...

208 – Adam Cesare & Making Scary Clowns Great Again

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Send in the clowns. Tell them not to forget their crossbows and chainsaws.   This week our guest is Adam Cesare, who’s Clown in a Co...

207 – Lena Valencia & What Can Lurk Where There Are No Shadows?

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Literary or genre fiction? Dumb question.   This week’s guest showcases just how dumb! With her debut collection of stories, Mystery...

Off Book #3 – Trevor Henderson

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week’s guest on Talking Scared: Off Book scares children.   I mean… that’s not his main job or intent (I don’t think) but...

206 – Gabino Iglesias & Doing Really Bad Things for All the Right Reasons

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Finally, Gabino Iglesias is on the show.    I tried, and failed, to get him for his break-out Stoker-winning smash, The Devil Takes Y...

205 – Jonathan Janz & The Bittersweet Magic of Sixteen

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Remember those books you read in the summer when you were young? Kids fighting evil in their small town? Bikes, and blood brothers and ...

204 – Adam Nevill & Watch For the Freak Wave

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Why is Adam Nevill so scary?    I don’t know. Do you? He’s a nice guy – as you’ll hear in this episode. Yet he tells stories ...

203 – Constant Readers & Celebrating Stephen King’s Short Stories (Part Two)

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Part One was epic. Part Two is just as good. In that way, it’s much better than the adaptation of IT!   In the second part of this c...

202 – Constant Readers & Celebrating Stephen King’s Short Stories (Part One)

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text What’s your favourite Stephen King story? Everyone has one.   Hot off the back of the recent interview with the man himself, it seem...

201 – Stephen King & Touching Other Worlds

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Stephen King is back!   What other intro do you need?   Okay, fine. He talks to me about the stories behind the stories in his new co...

200 – Every-Damn-One and Their Scariest Story

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text 200 episodes! Madness. Who knew there could be so much to say about horror?    I knew. You knew. And here we are.   It turns out tha...

199 – Josh Malerman & The Most Frightening Love Story

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text My unpaid cohost returns. Josh Malerman ladies and gentlemen.   Josh has been on the show many times before, but never have I been so ...

Off Book #2 – National Park After Dark

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text In the second Off Book episode we get out of our armchairs and go on a real adventure. Well, not really – but we talk to two people w...

198 – Paul Tremblay & The Book is Better

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Paul Tremblay returns to Talking Scared on a long orbit, like that fabled Planet X that’s going to kill us all.    He’s back afte...

197 – Elle Nash & Insects in the Ozarks

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Elle Nash’s Deliver Me ruined my week. In the best possible way.   This book, about a woman so desperate for a child that she does t...

196 – Todd Keisling & The Eras Tour: Horror Version

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Todd Keisling can write the hell out of a short story. So well, in fact, that they may convince you to resist a bully, stop going to ch...

195 – Emil Ferris & The Patron Saints of our Imperfection

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Something new for me this week. A bold venture into uncharted territory.    The graphic novel!!   As is proper, I’ve started with ...

Off Book #1 – Phil Nobile Jr. & Fangoria

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Believe it or not, there is more to life than just books. Very little, granted… but there is more.   Talking Scared: Off Book is a c...

194 – Alan Baxter & The Flavour of Vintage Blood

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text We return to Australia for the second time in a month, to find that (once again), home invasion isn’t the worst thing to happen on a ...

193 – L.P. Hernandez & Kudos On the Cruelty

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text A charming man approaches. With dark secrets to tell you.   Yeah, that L.P. Hernandez. Author of the novella In the Valley of the Head...

192 – Robert Ottone & Raising Kids in Langan Country

06 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Opinions are like assholes, they say. Everybody has one.   The subtext of that, is that you shouldn’t show them to people.   Well m...

191 – Chris Panatier & The Goo of Human Nature

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Ah the madhouse. The loony bin. The ASYLUM!!   A classic horror location. One of my favourites, but problematic as hell in the wrong h...

190 – Kaaron Warren & The Un-Cosy House

23 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text We all love a good spooky house. And most of us enjoy a terrifying home-invasion ordeal (or at least, I know I do).   What happens whe...

189 – The Black Girl Survives in This One, with Saraciea J. Fennell, Desiree S. Evans, Monica Brashears & Eden Royce

16 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text I bite off a lot this week, in a five-way conversation with editors and contributors to the ever-so-of-the-moment anthology The Black G...

188 – Scarlett Thomas & Hot Gothic

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text I’m in literary hero territory again … at least this time it’s sunny!   My guest is Scarlett Thomas, the groundbreaking writer o...

187 – The Carrie 50th Anniversary Deep Dive, with Nat Cassidy & Ally Malinenko

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Carrie White turns 50 years old today!   April 5th, 1974 – the day King’s debut came out, and the world of horror we know live in ...

186 – Stephen Graham Jones & The Last Stand of the Final Girls

02 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Alas, we come to the end!   Stephen Graham Jones’s The Angel of Indian Lake brings the most important horror trilogy of the century ...

185 – Cynthia Pelayo & A Mermaid in the Windy City

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Chi-Town!!   We’re heading to the midwestern metropolis this week, for a conversation with Cina Pelayo – all about murder, mystery...

184 – Joshua Hull & It’s a Whole Hole Thing

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Never mind the floor is lava. This week the ground has teeth.   Joshua Hull is our guest, to talk about his obsession with dangerous, ...

183 – Gwendolyn Kiste & Working Through Your Ghosts

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Time to get liminal and haunted.    Gwendolyn Kiste comes back to Talking Scared for another high-concept twist on the Gothic. In The...

182 – Tim Lebbon & Running Towards What Scares You

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Sometimes you meet someone who just gets you.   Like Tim Lebbon. A man who writes riotously good adventure-horror novels, and also lik...

181 – Haunting Hill House, with Catriona Ward, Johnny Compton & Paul Tremblay

27 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Back from a too-short break, but ready to delve into the greatest haunted house of them all! Shirley Jackson’s Hill House. The place ...

180 – Chuck Palahniuk & What Kind of Sex Do You Want?

30 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Yes I put sex in the title to make you download it. Did it work?   It shouldn’t be necessary, ‘cos this week’s guest is an absol...

179 – Ally Wilkes & The Ethics of Eating Your Friends

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Are you hungry?    If so we have a chewy, salty, deeply flavoured feast for you this week. Ally Wilkes returns to Talking Scared to d...

178 – Jenny Kiefer & A Solid Foothold in Horror

16 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text The first new book coverage of 2024 – and it starts us off on suitably horrific footing.   Jenny Kiefer’s debut novel, This Wretch...

177 – John Langan & Fishing For Mythologies

09 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text To kick off a new year of Talking Scared, I’ve gone and hooked us a big guest, with a whopper of a story.   John Langan is the autho...

176 – The Best Horror Novels of 2023

30 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Another year done. We squeaked through without another plague or a nuclear apocalypse (don’t tempt fate Neil!!) and along the way, oh...

175 – The Ghost Story Deep Dive, with Alan Baxter, Lauren Bolger & John Langan

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Dickens said that Christmas Eve was a time for ghost stories, and who am I to argue?   It is my show though, so I get to pick the ghos...

174 – State of the Horror Nation 2023, with Emily Hughes, Victor Lavalle & C.J. Leede

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text And so we come to the end of another year in horror. Time to look back at the best that 2023 has had to offer, as determined by three o...

173 – Michelle Paver & Long Nights of the Body & Soul

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text We’re going up in the world this week – longitudinally and latitudinally, with the GOAT of endurance, adventure Gothic, Michelle Pa...

172 – Gemma Amor & The Haunted Penis-Replacement Structure

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Last time Gemma Amor came on the show we had a good ol’ chinwag about our haunted brains. This time around we get to some other ghost...

171 – C.S. Humble & Come For the Horror, Stay for the Horses

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text We’ve had Cowboys versus Aliens but have you ever considered a threeway fight between gunslingers, vampires and weird cosmic cultists...

170 – Luke Dumas & The Ghosts That Time Forgot

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Sometimes two words can make a jaded horror reader sit up straight.    Ghost is one, Dinosaur is another.   Ghost. Dinosaur.   Have...

169 – Tyler Jones & Journeys Without Maps

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Horror is about finding light in darkness.   That’s the mission statement of this podcast, at least. And it’s never been truer tha...

168 – Tananarive Due & Locked in With the Monsters

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text History is haunted. Ghosts are injustice persevering.   So many horror stories hinge on that idea, but for Tananarive Due it’s more ...

167 – Nat Cassidy & A New York State of Death

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Sometimes when you’re doing something scary good company can be a blessing.    Nat Cassidy is good company. And this week he talks ...

166 – Sam Rebelein & You Had Me At “Tongue-Monster!”

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Some stories are just too big for one podcast. Some stories should be too big for one book.    Sam Rebelein’s Edenville is one such...

165 – Josh Malerman & Ronald Malfi & The Rock N Roll Rhythm of the Novella

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Some stories are too short, some are too long, but some stories are just right. It’s the Goldilocks zone: the novella. What is the se...

164 – Out There Screaming Roundtable, with Nnedi Okorafor, Lesley Nneka Arimah & Maurice Broaddus

10 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week is a special roundtable episode. An exciting, challenging and very very thought-provoking tour of contemporary Black horror, ...

163 – Liz Hand & Visiting the Thing That Walks Alone

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Come home!! We have to come home!! The House is calling us.  Yep, this week we are going back to the most haunted house of all. Hill H...

162 – Chuck Wendig & American as Evil Apple Pie

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week on Talking Scared we are joining hands with Chuck Wendig to take the fight to Big Fruit. They have been lying to us about app...

161 – Clay McLeod Chapman & The Chesapeake Softshell Shuffle

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Clay McLeod Chapman returns to Talking Scared to answer some serious questions, the first being what the holy f**k Clay?!   Clay has n...

160 – Isabel Cañas & Many Types of Bloodsucker

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text I’m back, partially rested and with some romance lingering in my soul. Good timing, cos this week’s episode focuses on the heart as...

159 – Alexander James & An Encounter in the Woods

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Why do we keep heading back to the woods? WHY?? Nothing good ever happens there. Alexander James would argue otherwise, but he’s clea...

158 – Catriona Ward & Rewriting the American Gothic (Like, Literally)

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text If you thought The Last House on Needless Street was tricksy, just wait until you hear about Looking Glass Sound. This is Cat’s ode t...

157 – Josh Winning & The World Through Blood-Tinted Glasses

22 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text We’re off to La La Land this week, to talk cursed films, 90s horror nostalgia and Winona Ryder(!!)  Our guest is Josh Winning – wh...

156 – Sadie Hartmann & The Books of Our Horrid Hearts

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Sorry not sorry this week. Yes I’m going to destroy your wallet and your bookshelves…but you LOVE IT!! Our guest is Sadie Hartmann,...

155 – Stephen King & Writing From the Nerve Endings

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Our guest this week is Stephen King. That’s it. That’s the intro. Stephen King. The architect of modern horror and the creative nor...

154 – Alex Woodroe & The Sweet Science of Folk Horror

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text We’re off on a Goth pilgrimage this week folks, to the motherland, Transylvania, to talk folk-horror and more with Alex Woodroe. Alex...

153 – Chuck Tingle & Riding the Lonesome Train

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week we’re joined by the man, the myth, the mystery that is Chuck Tingle.  Who knows the truth of this enigmatic figure? What v...

152 – Andrew Michael Hurley & Our Green, Unpleasant Land

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week I’m recording very close to home with Andrew Michael Hurley.  Andrew burst onto the folk-horror scene with subtle aplomb (...

151 – Verity Holloway & The Onion Skin of Trauma

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text War, what is it good for? Absolutely noth…. well actually, it is quite good for horror stories. Our guest this week doesn’t plumb t...

150 – Danielle Trussoni & Puzzling All Over the World

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week Danielle Trussoni arrives at Talking Scared in a rush. She has a meeting to get to, and we have LOTS of things to talk about ...

149 – Clowns at Midnight – The Big IT Deep-Dive (Part Two), with Ally Malinenko & Nat Cassidy

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Thrust your fists against the post and still insist you see the…  …oh hello. You came back. Thank Gan. We have a monster to defeat...

148 – Feral Childhoods – The Big IT Deep-Dive (Part One), with Ally Malinenko & Nat Cassidy

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Come get a balloon, bring your slingshot, let’s float…it’s here!!! Yes, finally we’re off to Derry, to do battle with that godd...

147 – Mike Flanagan & Lighting Up the Darkness

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text I’ve rarely been more excited about an episode – for you to hear it or, indeed, about its very contents. We’re joined this week b...

146 – Paula. D. Ashe & A Bizarre & Bitter Reprieve

06 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text  If horror is indeed a broad church, then our guest this week is preaching from the darkest of pulpits.  Paula D. Ashe is the author ...

145 – Sarah Gailey & The Scariest Place in the House

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text What if the house that shaped you was a broken, haunted place? That’s one of many questions we explore this week, in the company of S...

144 – Nicholas Binge & the Spookiest of Entanglements

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text In the immortal words of Creed’s Scott Stapp, “can you take me HIIIGHER?” Yes, I can. Our guest this week is Nicholas Binge, auth...

143 – Alice Slater & Bookish Murder Vibes

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text We are paying tribute to the best of us this week. The booksellers. Keepers of the flame, beacons in the night, purveyors of meaning in...

142 – Katrina Monroe & Birthing the Ultimate Body Horror

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text No book has ever made me so painfully aware of my nipples as Katrina Monroe’s The Graveyard of Lost Children. And I won’t ever have...

141 – Justin Cronin & Telling the Goat Joke

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text You will know Justin Cronin as the author of the landmark The Passage. That trilogy set the world of horror and science fiction (and al...

140 – Andrew F. Sullivan & The Cutest Mould in Fungus City

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text What if the world ended, not with a bang, but a slow squelch?  That’s sort-of the premise of The Marigold, the brand-new novel from ...

139 – Ai Jiang & Home is Where the Haunt Is

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week we’re dissecting spectres and excavating the haunted house in Ai Jiang’s word-of-mouth smash, Linghun. Ai’s novella is ...

138 – Rachel Eve Moulton & The Bellybutton of the Beast

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Back to the Island this week! With Rachel Eve Moulton and The Insatiable Volt Sisters. Rachel sophomore novel is the weirdest island st...

137 – Kelly Link & Once Upon a Time in a Ghost Story

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Fairy tales are the first horror stories, right? Kids being eaten by witches, narcissistic imps who steal your babies. That’s the goo...

136 – Max Booth III & Stories With Teeth

28 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Terrible times and awful words await us this week. Thankfully, on this show that’s a good thing! Our guest is Max Booth III, the wiza...

135 – Victor LaValle & The Weird, Weird West

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Wagons West this week, with a guest I’ve been trying to get on the show since the early days. It’s Victor Lavalle. I had always wan...

134 – Margaret Atwood & Hope in the Dystopia

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text There is no cool and collected way to introduce this week’s episode. Our guest is Margaret Atwood. Yes, that Margaret Atwood. The aut...

133 – Jacqueline Holland & At Last! Vampires!

07 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Vampires, finally! After years of recording a horror podcast, I’ve finally recorded a conversation about the first thing you all prob...

132 – Matt Ruff & A Hostile Universe Here on Earth

28 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text 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… b...

131 – Johnny Compton & A Pyroclastic Flow of Negative Energy

21 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text I like my ghosts like I like my podcasts – weird and slightly furious.  Thankfully, this week delivers on both counts – with Johnn...

130 – Mariana Enriquez & This Cruelty is Justified

14 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text It’s a Valentine’s day episode and what better to celebrate today than a conversation about cruelty, brutal folklore, political ter...

129 – Stephen Graham Jones & Slashers Can Save the World

07 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Are you ready for another bloody confrontation? Same rules, different setting (actually still my attic bedroom) and more gore? Stephen ...

128 – C.J. Tudor & Locked Rooms at the End of the World

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text 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,...

127 – Grady Hendrix and the Radical Puppet Collective

24 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text 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 p...

126 – Stephen Markley & A Guided Tour To Our Future Hell

17 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text …AAAND WE’RE BACK!  I hope you’re slipping into 2023 like it’s a warm bath, but either way this week’s episode will be a col...

125 – The Best Horror Books of 2022

30 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text The year is almost over. What is left to do except offer you my last-minute ranking of the best books I’ve read and enjoyed in 2022. ...

124 – State of the Horror Nation 2022, with Emily Hughes & Janelle Janson

27 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text It’s that time of year again. A time to reflect, to look back over a tumultuous twelve months, and to talk about the horror books tha...

123 – Rachel Harrison, Josh Malerman & A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Self-Indulgence

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text It’s the Christmas Special and with the obligatory requirement to do something different – we’re turning the tables. Yes, I’m t...

122 – A History of Gothic Horror, with Professor Roger Luckhurst

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Are you ready for some learnin’? This week rather than focusing on any single book, or any single author – I thought we’d have a ...

121 – Craig Engler & What Makes a Shudder Movie?

06 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text This week I’m beginning my supposed ‘break’ from reading. There is still an episode, however, and it’s a doozy. You may be glad...

120 – Philip Fracassi & A Screaming Inferno of Chaos and Emotion

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Get ready to be sickened by my praise. My guest this week is Philip Fracassi. Last year his historical horror, The Boys in the Valley g...

119 – Charlotte Northedge & Houses Full of Haunted People

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send us a text Are you a city mouse or a country mouse?  That’s the question at the heart of my conversation with Charlotte Northedge. Her new nove...