Talking Scared

It’s all about memory this week.   Remember that time literary superstar Carmen Maria Machado came on the show? No? Well here’s your chance to catch up on what you missed.   Carmen spoke to me about Her Body and Other Parties and In the Dream House – the former a collection of folktale and fable, spun to hideous effect

Jeff VanderMeer and I did not fall out!!   This is a myth that has arisen since Jeff came on the show back in 2021, to discuss his eco-espionage crisis thriller, Hummingbird Salamander.   Well, this trip back to the Vault will hopefully dispel that rumour.   Instead what you’ll hear is a conversation with the Emperor o

Revisiting a true highlight this week!   Will Dean’s The Last Thing to Burn is one of very few 10/10 books i've ever featured on this podcast. It’s a flawless study of isolation, survival, exploitation and the most toxic of masculinities – all about a Vietnamese immigrant, trapped in the home of her ‘husband,’ the mons

This flashback episode takes us to early 2021, when I was joined by Courtney Summers – the boundary-pushing author of dark YA fictions for a corrective lesson.   Courtney came on the show to discuss The Project, a novel of sinister elite cults, evil charisma and radicalisation. At the time Trump had just been kicked ou

Time for a classic haunted house.   I’m on a short break from the show, to recoup, read without pressure and generally try not to implode. So we’re heading into the vault for some older conversations that new listeners may have missed and long-termers may enjoy anew.   Where better to start that in a haunted house with

Here be dragons!   I’m celebrating Halloween week on Talking Scared with the very cream of the bucket list. Joe Hill is finally on the show!   The author of Heart Shaped Box, NOS4A2, “The Black Phone” and Lock & Key is back with his first novel in nearly a decade, and it’s a beast!   King Sorrow is an epic of dragons,