WAKE ISLAND
Episodes
CRY OF THE CONQUERED
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Written by David Leo Rice and Paul KThis is the final entry in our Substack project, which set out to explore the energy, sickness, and imagery of 202...
Derek McCormack Christmas Special (rebroadcast)
25 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Derek McCormack is a small town pervert and the author of The Well-Dressed Wound and Castle F*ggot, both published by Semiotext(e). His most recent bo...
Chaos and Disenchantment: Berlin Wall book launch w/ David Leo Rice & B.R. Yeager
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this season-ending episode of Wake Island, guest co-host BR Yeager—author of Negative Space and Burn You the Fuck Alive—joins us for a hall of ...
Home Haunts with Dennis Cooper
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Daddy’s back. ROOM TEMPERATURE, haunted houses, video games, childhood memories, publishing with an indie press, supportive teachers, Flunker, and...
Grave Desire with Steve Finbow
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode with Steve Finbow, we tease out the point at which a body ceases to be considered a person and chart the development of trauma over ti...
Guilty Creatures with Mikita Brottman
15 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the critically acclaimed author dubbed “one of today’s finest practitioners of nonfiction” (The New York Times Book Review), a breathless t...
The Sleep of Reason with Matt Lee
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fear. Disgust. Pity. The cripple evokes our basest human emotions—as does the monster. Told in lyric fragments, The Backwards Hand traces Matt Lee’...
CHRIS ZEISCHEGG: ON ART AND UNBECOMING
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher Zeischegg is a writer and filmmaker who spent eight years working in the adult industry as performer, Danny Wylde. He is the author of ...
The World Below with David Peak
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, David Peak released "The World Below," a midwestern gothic tale intertwining two rival families whose animosity sparks amidst a r...
Three Nights at the Skylark Motel with Logan Berry
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Every city has that motel. The motel on the edge of town, the mythical place you dare not go. Logan Berry goes there. In this episode, we calibrate a...
Exaltations in the Dead of Night with Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh Part II
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“The omnicidal will to constitute an infinite decision implies one of two things: either to kill the unfinished, or to let the unfinished kill.” ...
Exaltations in the Dead of Night with Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh Part I
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Every storyteller harbours a secret desire to be the one who tells the last story, just as every maniac wishes to inscribe the last fateful madn...
Jack Riccobono - Amityville: An Origin Story
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Enter the Amity-verse with Wake Island. In this episode we get into channeling dark energy from the media vortex surrounding America’s most infamo...
How to Find Zodiac with Jarett Kobek
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer living in California. His novel I HATE THE INTERNET was an international bestseller, translated into nine la...
Illuminating the New American Right with James Pogue
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
James Pogue is a journalist and essayist. His first book is called Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West. James recently wrote an article for ...
On the Cusp of Dissolution with Lindsay Lerman
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lindsay Lerman is a writer and translator. Her new novel, WHAT ARE YOU (CLASH Books) is out now. Her first book I'm From Nowhere was published in 2019...
Counteragent Adam Lehrer on Addiction and Crypto-Transgression
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Lehrer is a writer and an artist living in New York. He is the founder and co-host of the System of Systems podcast, and the founder and curator ...
Stephen Marche on The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Will American fantasies of purifying violence dissolve upon contact with reality or will the illusion break into civil war? Find out on this eps...
Dylan Mulvin on Proxies: The Cultural Work of Standing In
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We speak to Dr Dylan Mulvin, Assistant Professor in LSE Department of Media and Communications, about his book Proxies: The Cultural Work of...
Journey to the Heart of Disco Elysium with Justin Keenan
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
JUSTIN KEENAN is a writer and narrative designer on Disco Elysium which is a groundbreaking open world role playing game. In it, you’re a detective ...
Jonathan Greenaway on the Gothic State of Necrotic Capitalism
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode with Jonathan Greenaway (Theology, Horror and Fiction: A Reading of the Gothic Nineteenth Century & The Horror Vanguard podcast) w...
Enter the Sanctum of the Heroic Pervert with Erik Davis
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we try to articulate the fog of our time, away from fear, toward the pervert’s embrace of absurdity, uncertainty, spiritual warfare,...
James Grauerholz - Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (REBROADCAST)
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
James Grauerholz is a writer and editor. He is most famous as the bibliographer and literary executor of the estate of William S. Burroughs. He worked...
Blake Butler on Obsession and the Unholy Sacredness of Time
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Blake Butler is the author of seven book-length works, including Alice Knott (Riverhead), 300,000,000 (Harper Perennial), Sky Saw (Tyrant B...
Rosecrans Baldwin on the City-State of Los Angeles
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rosecrans Baldwin is the bestselling author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles. Other books include The Last Kid Left and P...
Catherine Liu - Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Catherine Liu is the author of Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class. We get into the: dynamics of noir, the pseud...
A New Gothic Age with Patrick McGrath & David Leo Rice
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick McGrath is the author of three collections of short fiction, including Ghost Town: Tales of Manhattan Then and Now, and ten novels, including ...
Matthew Specktor - Always Crashing in the Same Car On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California w/ David Leo Rice
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound; a nonfiction book, The Sting; and t...
Kate Durbin - Hoarders
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Durbin is a visual artist, filmmaker, and writer from Los Angeles, California (USA), whose artworks are nervous, unnerving, and playful explorati...
Mikita Brottman - Couple Found Slain
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mikita Brottman is an author and psychoanalyst with particular interests in true crime, forensics, psychoanalysis, animals, abjection, and the unexpla...
Dennis Cooper - I Wished
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dennis Cooper is on Wake Island! We talk about: Hoarders, escorts & slaves, dark rides, haunted houses, his forthcoming book I Wished, creating a ...
Brian Evenson - The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Literary horror icon Brian Evenson is on the show! We talk about: the uncanny psychogeography of Utah, religious text & parables, writing as a rep...
Peter Vronsky - American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years 1950-2000 (featuring David Leo Rice)
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Leo RIce co-hosts this special episode of Wake Island in which we interview historian Peter Vronsky. We discuss serial murderer consciousness an...
Justine Bateman - FACE
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bateman’s directorial feature film debut of her own script, VIOLET, stars Olivia Munn, Luke Bracey, and Justin Theroux, and had its World ...
Sam Tallent - Running the Light
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Tallent is a comedian and author. His debut novel is Running the Lights, and it’s about a road comic named Billy Ray Schafer who embodies the ar...
Chris Kelso - Burroughs and Scotland: Dethroning the Ancients: The Commitment of Exile
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Burroughs and Scotland, Chris Kelso explores the relationship between William S. Burroughs (author of Naked Lunch, Junkie, and The Soft Machine) an...
Chris Zeischegg - Baise-moi + Sauvage
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode Chris and I discuss two movies we adore: Baise-moi and Sauvage. Through these films we have an honest and open conversation about: sex...
Gina Nutt - Night Rooms
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jump down the rabbit hole with Gina and I - in this episode we talk about: the enchantment of malls, movies like It Follows/Poltergeists/Showgirls, ch...
David Leo Rice - Drifter: Stories
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David and I drill down into the emendation point of Americana’s psychic crisis and investigate its rotten core. We also talk about seediness, the un...
Audrey Szasz - Tears of a Komsomol Girl
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Audrey Szasz (aka Zutka) is a London-based writer with roots in Central Europe. Her experimental narratives combine vivid prose with exotic imagery an...
Betsy Bonner - The Book of Atlantis Black
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A young woman is found dead on the floor of a Tijuana hotel room. An ID in a nearby purse reads “Atlantis Black.” The police report states that th...
Derek McCormack - Castle F*ggot
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Derek McCormack's latest book is Castle F*ggot (Semiotext(e)). His previous books include The Show that Smells, The Well-Dressed Wound, Grab Bag and T...
Steve Finbow - The Mindshaft
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Finbow and I chat about his latest book The Mindshaft which is based on the infamous members-only BDSM gay leather bar and sex club called the M...
Thomas Moore - Alone
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A Has Grindr killed psychic gay powers? Find out on this episode of Wake Island with Thomas Moore, author of Certain Kind of Light, In Their Arm...