Ghost Stories, Market Pressures, & Tapping into the Subconscious w/ Naben Ruthnum

In this interview, we chat with Gemma Files about horny monsters, Lovecraftian Airbnbs, the female gaze, and so much more. Previously a film critic, journalist and teacher, Gemma Files has been an award-winning horror author since 1999. She's best-known for her novel Experimental Film (Open Road Media) and her collections of short fiction, including the Bram Stoker Award-winning In That Endlessness, Our End and Blood From the Air (both from Grimscribe). Her next book, Little Horn: Stories, will be out in October from Shortwave. She is the autistic mother of an autistic son. For fun she sings, and doodles pretty monsters.Books mentioned in this episode: Empire of the Sun – J. G. Ballard D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths; Norse Gods and Giants – Edgar Parin d'Aulaire and Ingri Parin d'Aulaire Black Flame – Gretchen Felker-Martin The Rotting Room – Viggy Parr Hampton Barrowbeck; The Loney; Starve Acre – Andrew Michael Hurley Bright Dead Star; Zoetrope Bizarre – Caitlín R. Kiernan The Jungle Book; The Second Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling The Magician's Nephew – C. S. Lewis The Reddening – Adam Nevill Metamorphoses – Ovid Cyrano de Bergerac – Edmond Rostand Frankenstein – Mary Shelley Dracula – Bram Stoker A Dark Matter – Peter Straub The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole 

In this interview, we chat with Emily Banks about posthumous publications, linguistic allergies, the atomic nuts and bolts of imagery, and so much more. Emily Banks is the author of Mother Water (Lynx House Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Plume, Copper Nickel, 32 Poems, The Rumpus, CutBank, Mid-American Review, and other journals. She publishes scholarship on American gothic literature, runs The Shirley Jackson Society, and is currently editing The Oxford Handbook of Shirley Jackson. She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. from Emory University. She lives in Indianapolis and teaches at Franklin College. Books, poems, and stories mentioned in this episode:"Filling Station"; "In the Waiting Room" – Elizabeth BishopAlice's Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis CarrollTurn Up the Ocean – Tony Hoagland"Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors"; Hangsaman; The Haunting of Hill House; "The Lottery"; We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley JacksonBliss Montage; Severance – Ling MaHow to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy – Jenny OdellMiddle Distance – Stanley PlumlyPamela – Samuel RichardsonModern Poetry – Diane Seuss

In this interview, we chat with Naben Ruthnum about character development, avoiding TV-brained writing, making sense of first-reader notes, and so much more. Naben Ruthnum is a Toronto-based writer of fiction, cultural criticism, film and TV. His novel A Hero of Our Time was released by Penguin Random House and was optioned for development by The Littlefield Company. His books include the YA novel The Grimmer, the World Fantasy Award-nominated horror novella Helpmeet and two thrillers penned as Nathan Ripley, both of which have been optioned for development and were published internationally. He has written for Canadian television series including Murdoch Mysteries and Cardinal. As a feature screenwriter, he’s collaborated with Kris Bertin for feature and TV projects in development at Oddfellows, BoulderLight Pictures, Automatik, Skybound, and Blink49. Kris and Naben's script Road Test made the 2024 Black List.Books mentioned in this episode:A Clockwork Orange – Anthony BurgessThe Sorceress in Stained Glass & Other Ghost Stories – Richard Dalby, ed.The Name of the Rose – Umberto EcoThe Black Dahlia; Killer on the Road; L.A. Confidential; My Dark Places – James Ellroy Black Flame – Gretchen Felker-MartinThe James Bond series – Ian FlemingThe Collector; The Magus – John FowlesThe Green Carnation – Robert HichensThe Americans; The Tragic Muse; The Turn of the Screw – Henry JamesThe Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre; Supernatural Horror in Literature – H. P. LovecraftThe Beckoning Fair One – Oliver OnionsA Fatal Inversion; Master of the Moor – Ruth RendellFlicker – Theodore RoszakThe Tempest – William ShakespeareGhost Story; If You Could See Me Now; In the Night Room; Koko; The Throat – Peter StraubThe Secret History – Donna TarttA Dark-Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs – Barbara VineThe October Film Haunt – Michael Wehunt

In this interview, we chat with Sarah Bernstein about contemplation, finding time for writing, capturing the rush of language, and so much more. Sarah Bernstein is the author of two novels, The Coming Bad Days and Study for Obedience, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She is from Montreal and lives in the Scottish Highlands. Books and stories mentioned in this episode:Hysteric; Whore – Nelly ArcanGiovanni’s Room – James BaldwinThe Moonstone; The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins“A Mown Lawn” – Lydia DavisShirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life – Ruth FranklinThe Book of Questions – Edmond JabèsThe Haunting of Hill House; “The Lottery”; The Sundial; We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley JacksonThe Melancholy of Resistance – László KrasznahorkaiThe Place of Shells - Mai IshizawaIn the Wake: On Blackness and Being – Christina SharpeThe House Next Door – Anne Rivers SiddonsThe Door – Magda SzabóClean – Alia Trabucco Zerán

In this interview, we chat with S. P. Miskowski about Asian horror cinema, the power of grief, the relentless desire to shape the self, and so much more. S. P. Miskowski is a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, for literature and for drama. Her books have been recognized with four Shirley Jackson Award nominations and two Bram Stoker Award nominations. Her stories have appeared in many anthologies including Haunted Nights, Human Monsters, Looming Low I and II, The Madness of Dr. Caligari, Uncertainties III, October Dreams 2, The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 10, and Darker Companions: 50 Years of Ramsey Campbell, and in magazines including Identity Theory, Black Static, Vastarien, Supernatural Tales, and Cosmic Horror Monthly. Her grunge noir novel I Wish I Was Like You was named This Is Horror Novel of the Year 2017 and is available via Audible. An omnibus of her books set in the weird fictional town of Skillute, WA is forthcoming from Broken Eye Books in 2025.Books and stories mentioned in this episode:The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales – Alfred A. Knopf, pub.The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024 – S. A. Cosby, ed.D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths – Ingrid & Edgar Parin d’AulaireGo, Dog. Go! – P. D. EastmanRock Paper Scissors – Alice FeeneyThe Haunting of Hill House; "Maybe it Was the Car"; “The Summer People”; We Have Always Lived in the Castle; “The Witch” – Shirley JacksonNone of This is True – Lisa JewellAudition – Ryū Murakami“Bluebeard”; “Cinderella” – Charles Perrault“The Black Cat”; “The Cask of Amontillado” – Edgar Allan PoeThe Last Party – A. R. TorreThe Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023 – Lisa Unger, ed.

In this interview, we chat with Fawn Parker about showing the reader around the room, finding the right tense, protecting your writing time, and so much more.Fawn Parker is the author of five books including novels What We Both Know (M&S), nominated for the Giller Prize and Hi, It's Me (M&S), nominated for the Writer's Trust Atwood Gibson Prize, and the poetry collection Soft Inheritance, which was awarded the JM Abraham Atlantic Book Award and the Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize. Her work has been published in The Walrus, Hazlitt, Literary Review of Canada, and elsewhere. Fawn is a PhD candidate at the University of New Brunswick and the Poet Laureate of Fredericton.Books and stories mentioned in this episode:The Edible Woman – Margaret AtwoodThe Mountain and the Valley – Ernest BucklerLibra – Don DeLilloThe Guest – Emma ClineAttack of the Copula Spiders and Other Essays on Writing – Douglas Glover"Experience" – Tessa HadleyUlysses – James JoyceRejection – Tony TulathimutteThis All Happened – Michael WinterHow Fiction Works – James WoodMrs. Dalloway – Virginia WoolfFawn's featured author photo is by Steph Martyniuk.

In this interview, we chat with Rod Moody-Corbett about tonal dissonance, sponging up influences, writing from memory, and so much more. Rod Moody-Corbett is an award-winning writer from Newfoundland. His writing has appeared in Socrates on the Beach, The Drift, The Paris Review Daily, and Fiddlehead, among other publications. He is the recipient of the 2022 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story, a Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Award for Short Fiction, the University of Calgary’s Kaleidoscope Prize, and the CBC Canada Writes Short Story Prize (People’s Choice Award). He serves as a contributing editor for Canadian Notes and Queries. Books mentioned in this episode: Experience – Martin Amis Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World; The Hundred Brothers; The Verificationist – Donald Antrim Last Evenings on Earth – Roberto Bolaño Save the Cat! Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody My Education – Susan Choi Underworld – Don DeLillo Notes from Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky The Last Samurai – Helen DeWitt Erasure – Percival Everett Bad Behavior; Because They Wanted To; Don’t Cry – Mary Gaitskill A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me; Jernigan – David Gates Airships – Barry Hannah The Road Through the Wall – Shirley Jackson Get Shorty; Rum Punch – Elmore Leonard Last Resort – Andrew Lipstein The Sentence is a Lonely Place – Garielle Lutz Moby Dick – Herman Melville The Ice Storm – Rick Moody Lectures on Literature – Vladimir Nabokov A House for Mr. Biswas – V. S. Naipaul Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas; Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family – Nicholas Pileggi Monkey Beach – Eden Robinson The Life of the Mind – Christine Smallwood The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman – Laurence Sterne The Visiting Privilege – Joy Williams To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf Sour Heart – Jenny Zhang

In this interview, we chat with Nour Abi-Nakhoul about copy editing, creative nonfiction, feverish creations, and so much more. Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a writer and editor based in Montreal. She is the editor-in-chief of the award-winning quarterly Maisonneuve Magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in Hazlitt and The Walrus. Her debut novel, Supplication, was released by Penguin Random House in 2024. Books mentioned in this episode:  Kilworthy Tanner – Jean Marc Ah-Sen We Are Here to Hurt Each Other – Paula D. Ashe Giovanni's Room – James Baldwin The Guest – Emma Cline The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky Autobiography of X; Pew – Catherine Lacey The Apple in the Dark – Clarice Lispector Fever Dream – Samanta Schweblin The Adventures of Ratman – Ellen Weiss

In this interview, we chat with Kathe Koja about balancing simultaneous projects, resisting online distractions, raising the literary dead, and so much more. Kathe Koja writes novels and short fiction, and creates and produces live and virtual events. Her award-winning books include The Cipher, Skin, Buddha Boy, Under The Poppy and Velocities, and she is currently at work on the Dark Factory immersive fiction project including Dark Factory, Dark Park and Dark Matter. Catherine the Ghost is her newest novel. You can find her at kathekoja.com and on Instagram, Facebook and Threads. Books and plays mentioned in this episode:  Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life – Ruth Franklin Faust – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Mouse and His Child; Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban The Default World – Naomi Kanakia A Place of Greater Safety; Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett – James Knowlson Rimbaud: A Biography – Graham Robb Frankenstein; The Last Man – Mary Shelley Lost Boy Lost Girl – Peter Straub The Secret Power of Music: The Transformation of Self and Society through Musical Energy – David Tame

In this interview, we chat with Paula D. Ashe about writer's block, narrative movement, urban legends, and so much more. Paula D. Ashe (she/her) is an author of dark fiction. Her debut collection We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (Nictitating Books) was a Shirley Jackson Award winner for Single Author Collection and a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. Recently, she received the Joseph S. Pulver Sr. Weird Fiction Award at NecronomiCon Providence. Paula was also an associate editor for Vastarien: A Literary Journal. She lives in the Midwest with her family. Books and stories mentioned in this episode:  Supplication – Nour Abi-Nakhoul The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood Books of Blood; The Damnation Game; The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker Midnight Rooms – Donyae Coles Blood from the Air – Gemma Files “each thing i show you is a piece of my death” – Gemma Files & Stephen J. Barringer Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke – Eric LaRocca “Abed” – Elizabeth Massie The Scar – China Miéville Beloved; The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison Song of the Tyrant Worm – Hailey Piper Flowers for the Sea – Zin E. Rocklyn Cows – Matthew Stokoe The Secret History – Donna Tartt The Color Purple – Alice Walker Where I End – Sophie White