Talking Scared

podcast@realm.fm

For verified host and producer emails, sign up to view.

282 – CJ Leede & Peeling Back the Skin of the World

June 09, 2026

Horror’s reigning Queen of Extreme returns to the show!   CJ Leede is the author of Maeve Fly and American Rapture, and if you’re abreast of contemporary horror you’ve heard of her twisted take on Americana.   She’s back to talk about her third novel, Headlights, in which people are waking up from fugue-like states, to find themselves draped in the flayed skins of other people. What’s going on? Who’s doing it? Is it human or supernatural? Does it have anything at all to do with Stephen K...

281 – Melissa Albert & The Howling Strangeness

June 02, 2026

Melissa Albert’s novel may be called The Children, but it’s certainly not for kids.   This is a story about the dark creativity behind bright make-believe, about the pretty lies of childhood and the brutal truths of growing up. It’s about writers and writing and as you’ll hear me point out, it does for fantasy fiction what Stephen King’s Misery did for Gothic romance.   And by god do we talk about all of that. As well as celebrating a character that I believe to be one of the best “bad-m...

Off Book #20 – Petrified, with Peter Dunne

May 29, 2026

Off to Old Dublin Town to have creepy tales pumped direct into our earholes this week. I’m joined by Peter Dunne, the writer and director of Petrified — Ireland’s premier horror drama podcast.   It’s a horror show with a vein of Irish humour, but it’s not afraid to get really nasty when the chance arises. Across dozens of episodes, Peter and the team have offered serial killing parents, haunted lighthouses, doomed housing estates and possessed call centres. And now and then they shatter the...