Talking Scared

Neil McRobert

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. read less
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Episodes

219 – State of the Horror Nation 2024, with Emily Hughes, Stephanie Gagnon & Anna Dupre
Dec 17 2024
219 – State of the Horror Nation 2024, with Emily Hughes, Stephanie Gagnon & Anna Dupre
Send us a text … and we’re back! Just in time for this seasonal tradition. The State of the Horror Nation 2024 – our expert-led review of the best that the year had to offer in terms of horror writing and pen-and-ink nightmares.   I’m joined, as ever by my stalwart co-host for this gig, Emily Hughes, author of Horror For Weenies (go check her mammoth 2025 anticipated horror book list at ReadJumpScares.com)   Our special correspondents are Anna Dupre, reviewer and interviewer at Anna Rose Reads, and Stephani Gagnon of the landmark, can’t-be-beaten horror podcast, Books In the Freezer   They pick their books of 2024, and we talk about the things that have defined the year, whilst also looking forward to what’s next.   Enjoy!   Anna's Essay on IT    https://filmfreakcentral.net/2024/10/terrifier-3-2024/   Books Picked   The Eyes Are the Best Part (2024), by Monika Kim Cuckoo (2024), by Gretchen Felker-Martin American Rapture (2024), by C.J. Leede Woodworm (2024), by Layla MartinezHorror Movie (2024) by Paul Tremblay  Night’s Edge (2024), by Liz Kerin So Thirsty (2024),  by Rachel Harrison Model Home (2024), by Rivers Solomon I Was a Teenage Slasher (2024), by Stephen Graham Jones     Books Anticipated   Victorian Psycho (2025), by Virginia Feito The Poorly Made (2025), by Sam Rebelein The Unworthy (2025), by Augustina Bazterrica The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025), by Stephen Graham Jones Bat Eater (2025), by Kylie Lee Baker Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread (2025), by Leila Taylor The Haunting of Room 904 (2025), by Erika T. Wurth 8114 (2025),by Joshua Hull When the Wolf Comes Home (2025), by Nat Cassidy Senseless (2025), by Ronald Malfi King Sorrow (2025), by Joe Hill And He Shall Appear (2025), by Kate van der Borgh Nowhere Burning (2025), by Catriona Ward Girl in the Creek (2025), by Wendy Wagner The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre (2025), by Philip Fracassi The End of the World As We Know It: Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand  (2025), edited by Brian Keene and Christopher Golden Old Soul (2025), by Susan Barker rekt (2025), by Alex Gonzalez Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (2025), by Clay McLeod Chapman Support Talking Scared on Patreon Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com  Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Off Book #5 – Halloween Special – Kaelyn Moore & Heart Starts Pounding
Oct 31 2024
Off Book #5 – Halloween Special – Kaelyn Moore & Heart Starts Pounding
Send us a text Halloween has finally arrived. I’m marking it in grim, macabre style.   For this Off Book Samhain Special, I’m joined by Kaelyn Moore, host and creator of Heart Starts Pounding – a podcast for the darkly curious, which offers up a new true-story of horror, hauntings and mystery every week.   Kaelyn is a treasure trove of haunted anecdote and freaky facts. We only touch the tip of her knowledge in this conversation, but still manage to cover the grimmest deaths at Disneyland, a South American Nazi cult, the most cursed book in history and Kaelyn’s own family history with an early American serial killer.   All that, plus a lot of recommendations for movies and the gruesome true-crime reading.   Stick around for the afterword, and plenty of updates on the future of Talking Scared,   Enjoy! Happy Halloween.    Books mentioned:   The Man From the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery (2017), by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (2017), by Lindsey Fitzharris I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer (2018), by Michelle McNamara The Devil’s Rooming House: the True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer (2011), by M. William Phelps     Support Talking Scared on Patreon   Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com  Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
217 – Del Sandeen & Giving Southern Gothic Ick!
Oct 22 2024
217 – Del Sandeen & Giving Southern Gothic Ick!
Send us a text As we gear up for Halloween, we get all gussied up in Gothic.   Del Sandeen joins me to talk about the curses, colorism, and all the many influences in her Southern Gothic debut This Cursed House. It’s a novel that twists the sub-genre’s typical reliance on race, for a more subtle, pernicious form of prejudice.    But it’s also chock full of all the haunted house–cursed family–secret rooms–and weird incest that you could want from a truly Gothic novel. It’s a damn good time, as is this conversation.   We talk about New Orleans hauntings, the inspiration of Del’s grandmother, forgiveness as a theme, and the relative ickiness of incest.   Consider this your starting gun for spooky season.   Enjoy.   Other books mentioned:   Voodoo Dreams (1993), by Jewel Parker Rhodes The Good House (2003), by Tananarive Due Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison The Vanishing Half (2020), by Brit Bennett Sing, Unburied Sing (2017) , by Jesymn Ward When the Reckoning Comes (2021), by LaTanya McQueen “A Rose For Emily,” (1930), by William Faulkner “Jordan’s End,” in The Shadowy Third (1923), by Ellen Glasgow The Elementals (1981), by Michael McDowell The Conjure Woman (1899), by Charles W. Chesnutt The House Behind the Cedars (1900), by Charles W. Chesnutt   Support Talking Scared on Patreon   Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com     Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices