Send us a Text Message.War, what is it good for? Absolutely noth…. well actually, it is quite good for horror stories.Our guest this week doesn’t plumb the usual horrors-of-war route, though. Verity Holloway’s The Others of Edenwell is a supremely subtle, slow-burning excavation of trauma and national nightmares, set in a (supposedly) idyllic spa-cum-convalescent-hospital as battle rages elsewhere.Of course, there are horrors much closer to home.It’s possibly my first foray into the First Wor...

151 – Verity Holloway & The Onion Skin of Trauma

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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Send us a Text Message.Something new for me this week. A bold venture into uncharted territory.  The graphic novel!! As is proper, I’ve started with one of the best. Emil Ferris joins me to talk through the creation of her landmark epic, My Favourite Thing is Monsters. Volume 1 came out in 2017 to rapturous acclaim, and now, Volume 2 picks up exactly where that story of cute werewolves and cherished monsters let off. This is an EVENT!! Emil talks me through this alternativ...

195 – Emil Ferris & The Patron Saints of our Imperfection

Send us a Text Message.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 chance for this show to spread its wings a little. To fly further, wider, deeper into the world of horror and come back carrying different kinds of guests in our bloody beak!  (ok, I may have stretched that metaphor too far). Basically, I’ll be talking, now and then, to other kinds of horror creatives. Filmmakers, actors, m...

Off Book #1 – Phil Nobile Jr. & Fangoria

Send us a Text Message.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 typical day. Alan Baxter’s Blood Covenant is a violent, thrilling story of a threeway battle between an innocent family, a nasty criminal gang of bogans (see, I’m learning!) and an otherworldly force that is even worse! Think, what if The Strangers took place in the Overlook Hotel. It’s a hugely enjoyable book that prompts a conv...

194 – Alan Baxter & The Flavour of Vintage Blood

Send us a Text Message.A charming man approaches. With dark secrets to tell you. Yeah, that L.P. Hernandez. Author of the novella In the Valley of the Headless Men and the forthcoming collection, No Gods, Only Chaos. Both are great; both are entirely different. One of them will expand your horizons. One of them will shrink you in horror.  I’ll let you find out which.  We talk about both books in this episode, digging into the real historical mystery behind the novella...

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

Send us a Text Message.Opinions are like assholes, they say. Everybody has one. The subtext of that, is that you shouldn’t show them to people. Well my guest and I don’t hold back on ours this week. Robert Ottone joins me for a conversation about his debut novel for adults, The Vile Thing We Created, which is almost exactly one year old.  I loved it, which is more than either of us can say for the one-year old little boy that it is about. This novel skewers the impulse to ...

151 – Verity Holloway & The Onion Skin of Trauma

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