About Us
Neil McRobert
Your Podcast host
Neil is a writer, podcaster and recovering academic. After completing a PhD in Contemporary Gothic Fiction (useful!) He fled the ivory halls to live a quiet life amidst the moors and dark satanic mills of northern England. Here he dwells, writing words, talking to famous writers and doting upon his dog. And yes, that is Stephen King’s front gate in the photo.
Want me to write for you? Get in touch.
Ted
Your Podcast mascot
The reason i’m a freelance podcaster (who could leave that face at home?). My own personal Cujo. He gets more likes than me on Instagram.
THINGS I HAVE WRITTEN
Look upon my works and despair…
- My Macabre Weekend at StokerCon – Esquire (October 2023)
- Shock of the New: Jordan Peele, Mariana Enriquez and More on the Horror Fiction Renaissance – Guardian (October 2023)
- The Best Horror Books of 2023…so far – Esquire (ongoing)
- The Long Tale (Tail?) of Dogs in Fiction – Esquire (August 2023)
- Interview with Lauren Beukes – Elle (August 2023)
- Generation H: Meet the Writer’s Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age – Esquire (July 2023)
Black Mirror Season 6: The Good, The Bad and The Existentially Harrowing – Elle (June 2023)
- The Deluge, review – Guardian (March 2023)
- How Black Filmmakers Reinvented the Horror Genre – Esquire (Feb 2023)
- The 22 Best Horror Books of 2022 – Esquire (Nov 2022)
- What to Read this Halloween and Beyond – Guardian (Oct 2022)
- Where to Start with Stephen King – Guardian (Aug 2022)
- The Fifty Best Horror Books of All Time Will Scare You Sh*tless – Esquire (May 2022)
- All 75 Stephen King Books, Ranked – Esquire (Sept 2022)
- The Final Girl Breaks Out –Slate (Sept 2021)
- Billy Summers, review – Guardian (August 2021)
- Project Fear: What Will Brexit Gothic Look Like? – Guardian (Feb 2019)
152 – Andrew Michael Hurley & Our Green, Unpleasant Land
This week I’m recording very close to home with Andrew Michael Hurley – about his reissued folk-horror nightmare, Starve Acre.
151 – Verity Holloway & The Onion Skin of Trauma
War, what is it good for? Absolutely noth…. well actually, it is quite good for horror stories, as Verity Holloway shows us.
150 – Danielle Trussoni & Puzzling All Over the World
Danielle Trussoni’s The Puzzle Master crams in a whole Discovery Channel series’ worth of conspiracy, mysticism and esoteric history.
149 – Clowns at Midnight – The Big IT Deep-Dive (Part Two), with Ally Malinenko & Nat Cassidy
In this second part of the dive into Stephen King’s IT, things are getting weird. We’re delving into Pennywise.
148 – Feral Childhoods – The Big IT Deep-Dive (Part One), with Ally Malinenko & Nat Cassidy
Yes, finally we’re off to Derry, to do battle with that goddamn clown. In this first part we talk Losers and why we love them
147 – Mike Flanagan & Lighting Up the Darkness
We’re joined this week by Mike Flanagan, our most literary horror director, to talk haunted houses and Dark Towers.
146 – Paula. D. Ashe & A Bizarre & Bitter Reprieve
The Empress of Excess is here to talk about extreme horror, horrendous crimes and the thorny problem of readers’ feelings.
145 – Sarah Gailey & The Scariest Place in the House
What if the house that shaped you was a broken, haunted place? Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home asks this very question.
144 – Nicholas Binge & the Spookiest of Entanglements
Nicholas Binge is the author the horror-sci-fi, Ascension. It’s about a very weird mountain that lures the unwary. Nothing good occurs, of course.
143 – Alice Slater & Bookish Murder Vibes
Alice Slater’s Death of a Bookseller pull back the veil on this industry we love… and finds monsters.
142 – Katrina Monroe & Birthing the Ultimate Body Horror
Parenting horror has seen a lot of great titles in recent years, but Katrina’s novel may be my favourite. Ghosts and chafing!
141 – Justin Cronin & Telling the Goat Joke
You know Justin Cronin for the landmark The Passage. Now he’s swapping vampire plagues for something subtler … but no less terrifying.
140 – Andrew F. Sullivan & The Cutest Mould in Fungus City
What if the world ended, not with a bang, but a slow squelch? That’s the premise of The Marigold, the brand-new dystopia from Andrew F. Sullivan.
139 – Ai Jiang & Home is Where the Haunt Is
This week we’re dissecting spectres and excavating the haunted house in Ai Jiang’s word-of-mouth smash, Linghun.
138 – Rachel Eve Moulton & The Bellybutton of the Beast
The Insatiable Volt Sisters is the weirdest island story since Lost, or Brexit. Curses, killer quarries and the wearing of other people’s skin.
137 – Kelly Link & Once Upon a Time in a Ghost Story
Kelly Link knows a thing or two about the darkness inside fairy tales. White Cat, Black Dog twists them into new shapes.
136 – Max Booth III & Stories With Teeth
Terrible times and awful words await us this week.Max Booth III is here to talk about his new collection of uber-dark stories, Abnormal Statistics.
135 – Victor LaValle & The Weird, Weird West
Wagons West with Victor Lavalle. We talk about his weird western: Lone Women. Homesteading, monsters, tears and fear.
A Special Thanks to my Patrons
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