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Still on a break – still releasing episodes “From the Vault.”

But this week’s was carefully chosen. In a time of darkness and doom-laden days, laughter is the best thing I can lace your horror with. And thankfully T. Kingfisher exists in the world.

The funniest horror writer I know. We spoke WAAAAY back in October 2020, in episode 9, when The Hollow Places had just come out.

Yes Ursula and I talk about that book, and The Twisted Ones (2019) and how they twist Weird classics into fascinating new shapes. But we also cover building your own Golem, the homicidal value of pig farmers, and the anxiety of being a frog biologist.

I dunno guys… just liste! Hope it makes you smile.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• “The White People” in The House of Souls (1906), by Arthur Machen
• “The Willows”, in The Listener and Other Stories (2007), by Algernon Blackwood
• It Will Just Be Us (2002), by Jo Kaplan
• From a Buick Eight (2002), by Stephen King
• The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
• Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
• Firefly Rain (2008), by Richard Dansky

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I’m on a break – but couldn’t resist releasing something.

Especially on today of all days, when lovers of democracy require audio sustenance whilst they wait in line to preserve America.

For the first From the Vault episode, I’ve gone back to December of 2020, for an interview with Michael Marshall Smith. We talk about his 30 years of writing horror, fantasy, science fiction and assorted dark imaginings – captured in his career-spanning Best Of collection.

Michael gives us all the good stuff about where ideas came from, why he writes the way he does, and all those details that literary voyeurs like us, want to know.

It’s also a trip back into the weirdness of the pandemic, and the dying days of the Trump presidency. Have your trauma shields up just in case.

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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

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