Talking Scared

Latest Episodes:

45 – Carmen Maria Machado and Literary Kidney Stones Jun 29, 2021

Show notes

This week I have been forced to up my game.

Our guest is Carmen Maria Machado, and her works is not for the lazy or faint-hearted. From her dizzying collection of short fiction, Her Body and Other Parties, to her one-of-a-kind memoir, In the Dream House, Carmen’s writing forces a humble interviewer such as me, to question how we talk about books, author, character, truth, fiction and all the messy space in between.

In the Dream House deconstructs what a memoir is and can do, and I had to really think about the questions I wanted to ask, and how to ask them. It is, nominally, a narrative of domestic abuse in a same-sex relationship, but Carmen chooses to tell that story using every literary tool in her (and everyone else’s) toolbox. The result is electrifying.

We talk about privacy versus public, what it’s like to write about sex you’ve actually had, hypochondria, double-standards and the lure of horror and gothic as a way to tell a real-life story of violence and trauma.

It’s not all dark though. We laugh a lot. Mostly at my awkwardness.

Enjoy!

Her Body and Other Parties and In the Dream House are both published by Greywolf Press in North America and Serpent’s Tail in the UK.

Other books discussed in this episode include:

The Argonauts (2015), by Maggie Nelson
The Ghost Variations (2021), by Kevin Brockmeier
A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade (2014), by Kevin Brockmeier
Proxies: Essays Near Knowing (2016), by Brian Blanchfield
Monster Portraits (2018), by Sofia Samatar
The Hot Zone (1994), by Richard Preston
The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson
The Bloody Chamber (1979), by Angela Carter

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

44 – Eric LaRocca and Abominable Things You Probably Shouldn’t Be Reading Jun 22, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

It’s a dirty, grim, glorious time on Talking Scared this week. After a last-minute schedule reshuffle we have Eric LaRocca, here to talk about his word-of-mouth sensation of a novella – Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

Gotten worse is quite the understatement. This book goes so far beyond the pale in terms of horror’s usual comfort level these days. It’s a simple tale of online love, BDSM and self-mutilation, all tinged with some wonderful early noughties nostalgia. This book does for MSN messenger what the Blair Witch Project did for the woods.

Eric and I talk about all of that, as well as transgressive fiction, the beauty to be found in disgust, and our shared love of books and movies that have achieved legendary status as things that you probably shouldn’t experience (if you know what's good for you)!

Enjoy!!
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is out now from WeirdPunk Books.

Other books discussed in this episode include:

The Sluts (2004), by Denis Cooper
Crash (1973), by J.G. Ballard
Haunted (2005),by Chuck Palahniuk
We Need to Do Something (2020), by Max Booth III

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

43 – Joe R. Lansdale and Writing Like Everyone You Know is Dead Jun 15, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

Pour yourself a whisky, grab a seat and listen to the best voice in dark fiction tell you some stories.

Our guest is Joe Lansdale author of so many books I can’t even begin to list them. Oh, ok, I will. Edge of Dark Water, Paradise Sky, The Bottoms, The Thicket, Fender Lizard … “Bubba Ho Tep”, Cold in July … the entire Hap and Leonard series.

And he joins me to talk about his newest, Moon Lake. A tale of dark nostalgia, small town politics and murder set on the banks of a drowned village. It’s a sun-soaked, shadow-tinged summer read of the best, and most twisted kind.

As much as Joe is nominally on the show to talk about Moon Lake, he’s a hard man to pin down to mere self-promotion. He has tales to tell and opinions to offer and you’d better goddamn LISTEN!! We discuss blue collar youth, Texas attitude, and whether having some hardship in life makes you a better writer. He tells me how he comes up with his unique metaphors, and why he defended Stephen King when twitter turned against him.

All in all, it’s a friendly conversation about the perils of tribalism, why we should all be a little bit more tolerant, and why choosing stupidity is scary as hell.

This is a bucket-list interview for me.

Enjoy!

Moon Lake is published by Mulholland Books on June 22nd.

Other books discussed in this episode include:

Edge of Dark Water (2012), by Joe R. Lansdale
The Thicket (2013), by Joe R. Lansdale
Paradise Sky (2015), by Joe R. Lansdale
“Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Mans Back,” in High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe. R. Lansdale
“On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with the Dead Folks”, in The Best of Joe R. Lansdale (2010)
“The Night They Missed the Horror Show”, by Joe R. Lansdale – originally published in Silver Scream, (1988) ed. By David Schow
Great Expectations, (1860), by Charles Dickens
The Only Good Indians (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones
Mongrels (2016), by Stephen Graham Jones

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

42 - V. Castro and F**K Your Box Jun 08, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

Maybe it’s the heat but this week we’re getting angry on Talking Scared.

Our guest is V. Castro – author of Goddess of Filth and her newest, Queen of the Cicadas – and she’s full of rage. Thankfully, it’s not directed at me, despite my hideous attempts at Spanish pronunciation.

Queen of the Cicadas is about identity, folklore and the residue of a decades-old crime that stands as representative of all crimes against Latinx people by an uncaring world. The death of a young girl brings forth the wrath of a violent goddess from the Aztec past …. and stuff goes DOWN!!

V (short for Violet) and I talk about rage, and hate and blood and myth, which all sounds deeply profound. However, we also talk about sex and Candyman, and we put the boot into some other books, so rest assured we don’t take ourselves too seriously!!

But yeah, this is one to get your blood up.

Enjoy!

Queen of the Cicadas is published by Flame Tree Press on June 22nd.

Other books discussed in this episode include:

Goddess of Filth (2021)by V. Castro
Sed de Sangre (2020), by V. Castro
“Cucuy of Cancun” (2020), by V. Castro, in Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror, ed. Sam Kolesnik.
2666 (2004), by Roberto Bolaño
American Dirt (2019), by Jeanine Cummins
Camp Slaughter (2019), by Sergio Gomez
Coyote Songs (2018), by Gabino Iglesias
Into the Forest and All the Way Through (2020), by Cynthia Pelayo

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

41 – Max Brooks and Harry Eats the Hendersons Jun 01, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

It’s not often you speak to the author of a book that EVERYONE has heard of. This week I got the chance.

Max Brooks. Max-freaking-Brooks, author of global bestseller World War Z is here. But rather than the undead, we’re talking hairy things in the woods, technological dependence and woke hipsters being eaten.

Max’s latest novel, Devolution, regales us with the lives (and deaths) of an eco-community living deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Stranded by a disaster, they fall prey first to their own inadequacy and then to the very adequate hunger of roaming sasquatch,

We’ve talked Bigfoot and cryptozoology a lot on this show in recent weeks. But this is the big bad daddy of them all. A satire, a found-footage document, an adventure story, but also a blood, guts and claw-filled horror novel. It’s much grimmer than you may expect.

As well as monsters, Max and I discuss hokey documentaries, primate research, driverless cars, the cursed legacy of Steve Jobs and skewering our own liberal echo chamber. But it all centres on how patently unprepared our society really is for crisis.

Enjoy.

Devolution is published in paperback on June 10th by Del Rey.

Other books and documentaries discussed in this episode include:

Bigfoot: The Mysterious Monsters (1976) directed by Robert Guenette
Night of the Crabs (1976), by Guy N. Smith
World War Z (2006), by Max Brooks
The Harlem Hellfighters (2014), by Max Brooks

My review of Devolution in the UK Guardian can be found HERE.

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

40 – Zakiya Dalila Harris and the Fear of Not Being Black Enough May 25, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

If you’re returning to the office any time soon and you’re really bummed about it – this week’s guest will make you feel better …. cos it could be so much worse.

Zakiya Dalila Harris is the author of the much-anticipated debut, The Other Black Girl. It’s been touted as Jordan Peele’s Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada and that’s true, there is white conspiracy and awful bosses aplenty, but I’d also suggest more than a little of the paranoid frisson of Rosemary’s Baby and the toe-curling embarrassment of The Office.

Basically, it’s a big, fun book all about workplace prejudice, micro-aggressions and the thin veneer of equality – but, this being Talking Scared, rest assured it’s more than the sum of those everyday parts. It also goes into some weird and wicked places.

Zakiya and I talk about her own career as the ‘only black girl in a publishing house’, the way well-meaning comments can do the most damage, and I express my anxiety about asking her ALL the questions about Blackness, like the awkward white guy at the party who insists he’d have voted for a third Obama term.

Oh, and we get into hair care. Something that’s more than a little important in this book … and y’know, in life

I love this book and insist you all read it.

Enjoy!

The Other Black Girl is published June 1st by Bloomsbury in the UK and Atria in North America.

Other books discussed in this episode include:

All Her Little Secrets (2021), by Wanda M. Morris
Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin

The Stephen Graham Jones open letter “from the Indians no longer in the background of a John Wayne movie” can be found HERE.

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

39 – Josh Malerman and a Local Town for Local People May 18, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

Josh Malerman, bestselling wunderkinder of horror, author of Birdbox, Malorie, Unbury Carol and now Goblin, has graced Talking Scared with his presence. We’re talking about Goblin specifically, his new ‘novel in six novellas’ detailing the lives and losses of people in the weirdest small-town west of Castle Rock.

It’s got monstrous owls and more monstrous police, an impossible hedge maze, things in boxes that MUST NOT BE OPENED, and the fear of fear itself. As Josh points out (and I hadn’t noticed) the book is about all the different kinds of obsession that make up a life and a town.

And we get into Josh’s own obsession with writing, from his ridiculously prolific output, to writing whilst touring with his band. We talk about how he got published, an odd route involving a friend from school and a stoned conversation with a lawyer. Plus, he tells me all about the time he saw a ghost or something in his house after listening to his mom’s taped sessions with a psychic (scary story!).

He’s a little bit rock n roll and a little bit culture-geek, and the conversation follows suit – with me essentially trying not to gush “thank you for talking to me” over and over again. I love this interview.

Enjoy!

Goblin is published May 18th by Del Rey

Other books we discussed include:

Unbury Carol (2018), by Josh Malerman
Birdbox, (2014) by Josh Malerman
The Loney (2014), by Andrew Michael Hurley
Wanderers (2019), by Chuck Wendig

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

38 – Tananarive Due and Black Girls Doing Magical Things May 11, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

This week the Queen of black horror is Talking Scared. Tananarive Due is bestowing her patronage on little ol’ me and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.

Tananarive ranks amongst the most respected horror writers of the 21st Century, from her breakout effort, The Between, to her British Fantasy Award winning collection, Ghost Summer and her magnum opus (so far at least) The Good House.

She took the time to talk me through her career, from breaking free of the MFA fixation on white guys and their naval-gazing, to the time she used good old rock ‘n’ roll to coerce Stephen King into blurbing her book. We also take in the volcanic impact of Jordan Peele and why black horror lit is ready to follow in film’s footsteps.

If you are interested in horror generally then this is not a conversation to miss. Especially when Tananarive gets into her forthcoming novel, The Reformatory – seven years in the making, and inspired by her own ancestry and the bloody history of a brutal prison.

Enjoy

Books mentions in this conversation include:

The Between (1995), by Tananarive Due
The Good House (2003), by Tananarive Due
Ghost Summer (2015) by Tananarive Due
My Soul to Keep (1997) by Tananarive Due
Dark Dreams (2004), edited by Brandon Massey
“The Comet” (1920), by W.E. Dubois

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

37 – A.J. Gnuse and the People Under Your Sink May 04, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

Do you ever feel you’re being watched? Ever caught a flicker from the corner of your eye that you can’t explain? Do you run out of milk more than you think you should?

Maybe, just maybe, there is someone living in your house.

It’s a worldwide phenomenon (just check google) and this week’s guest has turned it into a genre-bending novel that’s tipped as one of THE Gothic reads of 2021.

A.J. Gnuse’s debut, Girl in the Walls is a literary chiller about grief, loneliness and what the word HOME really means. He joined me to talk through how the book came to be, why a conclusive ending was needed and how the spectre of Hurricane Katrina haunts his fiction. He also tell an especially creepy anecdote about a hidden door in his own home.

Oh, and I tell a story about a woman who lived inside a stranger’s kitchen cupboard for a year. You can see the chilling footage of her reveal HERE.

Enjoy!

Girl in the Walls is published in the UK Fourth Estate and in North American by Ecco Books

Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

Support the show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

36 - Jeff VanderMeer and Our First On-Air Murder Apr 27, 2021

Show notes

Send us a text

Jeff VanderMeer is our guest. Need I say more?

First things first though, rest easy, the episode title doesn’t refer to either me or Jeff. We both make it out alive.

Not everything does though. Listen on for the most on-the-nose display of savage nature, so perfect a backdrop to a conversation about animals, ecological crisis and the horror of extinction. What starts with the brave little hummingbird could end up killing us all.

Jeff’s new novel, Hummingbird Salamander is an eco-noir, an accelerating ride to a point “ten seconds in the future” at the end of the world. It’s a deeply challenging book, both in style and message, and in a rare moment of seriousness, it brought our shared ecological plight and our wrongdoing home to me like nothing before.

Jeff and I talk about how humanity can live with the peril of ecological disaster hanging over our heads, and how fiction can help bring that reality home. In lighter moments Jeff also tells me about how he thinks up stories involving giant flying bears, gives a lot of info on his upcoming collection of horror novellas, and horrifies me with the reason behind his phobia of cockroaches. Seriously … JESUS CHRIST JEFF!!

Oh, and I introduce my new Patreon membership perks. Trust me, you wanna!

Enjoy!

Hummingbird Salamander was published in the UK by Fourth Estate Books and in North America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on 6th April.

Books discussed include: