Podcasts about Hill House

Have we always been the caretakers? I am joined by reviewer George Dunn (@georgesreads) to talk about horror stories that are centered around the giving or receiving care either professionally or for a loved one.  Movies:  Relic The Taking of Deborah Logan Insidious  The Perfection The Haunting Would You Rather? Saint Maud The Skeleton Key I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House Misery Books:  A Veritable Household Pet by Viggy Parr Hampton The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer Frost Bite by Angela Sylvaine The Vessel by Adam Nevill The Only One Left by Riley Sager Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum The Shining by Stephen King Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy Nestlings by Nat Cassidy The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon We Spread by Iain Reid Chilling Obsession: The Ervil LaBaron Cult Final Girl Playlist:  Join our Patreon Community!  

On the #amwriting podcast's Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Caroline Bicks, Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, about her book Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks describes how she became the first invited into King's Bangor archives after King called to meet her, and how her sabbatical became a year of researching five formative works (including Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary) to understand how horror language creates lasting fear. She explains choosing a first-person narrative that blends literary criticism, archival discovery, and her own anxiety, including eerie moments in the archive and insights into King's word-level edits, literary influences, and Shakespearean foundations, especially The Shining's ties to Hamlet.#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Read the Book* Monsters in the Archives by Caroline BicksTranscriptJennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jennie Nash, and you're listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. Welcome, everyone. This is Margin Notes, the part of the podcast where we're talking about the big decisions writers face in their work and creative lives.I'm here today with a super special guest. I'm so excited to speak with Caroline Bicks. She is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, early modern culture, and horror fiction. And she's the author of all kinds of very cool books ... about Shakespeare, including one on cocktails.Um, and, uh, is the co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, and we are here today to talk with her about her new book called [00:01:00] Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Welcome.Caroline: Thank you. Thanks for having me.Jennie: So this is gonna be the strangest interview you've probably ever done. ICaroline: don't know.Because- I've talked to a lot of people around the world about this Stephen King book.Jennie: I couldn't read your book. I, I couldn't read it. I can't read horror. Yeah. Which listeners of this podcast are gonna laugh about, ‘cause I'm actually coaching someone live and they're writing gothic horror, and they're probably like, “All you talk about is horror, Jennie.”But, um, it's actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you, because you made a decision in the writing of this book that I thought was super cool. Mm. Which was you put yourself in it.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you're a scholar.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you've written scholarly books, and you approach this with a scholarly perspective, but you, you really put yourself in it.And, and so [00:02:00] I was reading it for that part of the story and I had to skip over huge chunks of, of the, of the work. Because what you're doing in this book is you're getting at this question of- W- what, what is scary in writing? Like, how does it actually work? How does it act- what is the magic or the function that makes us feel this thing?And you actually feel it yourself while you're going through it, and I found it quite terrifying actually. So, um, that's kinda what I wanted to talk about is how did you make the decision? Well, first of all, you were the first person, I wanna make sure I get this right, ‘cause this is very cool. Yeah. You were the first person who was invited to the archives, the Stephen King archives.Caroline: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a bit of a story, so I won't spend too much time on it, but just the mo- Oh, no, do. It's good ... when I ch- when I took this position... So I've been a Shakespeare professor my whole adult life, ba- as soon as I graduated from grad school in the late ‘90s, [00:03:00] and I was at Boston College for 15 years.I took this position at University of Maine nine years ago as a Shakespearean. Um, so it is an endowed chair in Stephen King's name because he's our most famous alum. So when I took the position, I, it was because I'm a Shakespearean, not because I'm a horror specialist. Um, I had always been a Stephen King fan since I read him when I was 12, and he scared the beje- Jesus out of me, um, with The Boogeyman story.Jennie: Right.Caroline: Um, so when I took this position though I was told, “You're never gonna meet Stephen King. Don't even make contact with him.” I'm like, “Fine, you know, this is still a great job. I'm excited.” Um- ThanksJennie: for the money. Yeah.Caroline: Thanks for... You know, no, it's a wonderful fund. It was funded by the Harold Alfond Foundation, and it's to support the public humanities, which is an incredible mission.So, um, I get to give money away to people. You know, it's a great, great position, but I was not a horror specialist. And particu- a- and as an adult, I actually wasn't reading horror because it scares me too much. You know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but it had grabbed me when I was a teenager. So it was about four years into the [00:04:00] job when I got a call at home from Stephen King, which just, uh, uh, my jaw hit the floor.And he said, “You know, I think it's time we meet.” I'm like, you know, I, I really fan-girled because I really, I have so much admiration for him and respect. Um, I invited him to come talk to our students. He was brilliant, generous, funny, kind, and I felt so at ease that I felt like I could ask... You know, and I got to know him professionally.We had a good professional relationship that developed from there. When I had a sabbatical year coming up the next year- I could have written another Shakespeare book. I had another one in my head. I've written a bunch of them but I knew that he and Tabitha had just collected all of his manuscripts and put them in a climate-controlled space attached to their home in Bangor, and I thought, “You know, this is an incredible opportunity.I would love to dig in there and be the first one in there, and just read those early drafts of the books that scared me so much when I was a teenager, and try to just explore why. Why were they sticking in my head still?” Um, again, I am not a specialist in... I'm not a cognitive scientist. I'm not a [00:05:00] specialist in horror literature, but I'm obviously highly trained in how to do literary analysis and how to do archival work, not Shakespeare, because we don't have any of his works, but, you know, I, I understand what that process is.So back to your question about why I wanted to bring myself into it, which was, you know, I had been experimenting with first-person storytelling after I got tenure. You know, ‘cause it's a long process, Kate. Right. And most of my writing had been academic writing, but I really had always loved storytelling And I got a piece into the Modern Love column.I started to have some success with publishing my first-person stories, and I was like, “You know, I love this.” So when I had this opportunity to go into his archives, they generously said yes, was amazing. I thought, “You know, I really wanna tell this story. I don't wanna write an academic book. I want this to be the story of a literature scholar, but really the story about a scared kid.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: You know, you, you never lose that scare, you know, I don't... This is the thing. Fear has stuck with me with those stories [00:06:00] for 40 years. So I was fascinated, and I just wanted to understand how he had crafted the language so that it was sticking in my head still. Because when I was talking to people around, you know, whenever you mention Stephen King to people, you know, if they've read him, they remember specific lines and specific words, and I was like, “That's an extraordinary, um, 50 years on to have that power.”So, um- Well- Anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. I, I could talk about this forever, so you tell me- Oh, no, it's- ... where you wanted to pick up from this.Jennie: It's so good. Well, I have to tell you this funny anecdote, which is that my college roommate was from Bangor, Maine, and babysat his kids in that house.Caroline: Oh, that's insane.Jennie: So when I went to visit her, she drove me by that house.There you go. And I was like, “Oh, hell no- Yeah ... would I ever babysit in that house.” Like, it's-Caroline: It's ‘cause it's like a gothic, it's like straight out of Haunting of Hill House ...Jennie: actually, and like these spiderweb gates that, and you describe that in the [00:07:00] book and, and the- Yeah ... archives are in that house. They'reCaroline: in the house.They're attached to the back. I know. And it, it was so, it was, it was insane. It was like a full-on 360 experience writing this book. Um, and I, I knew, like, so I did the research for a year. I didn't even know if this would be a book. I just knew I wanted to have the opportunity to be in there because it, I knew it was a great opportunity, and I was so curious, you know?Yeah. So I, I came out of the year with just tons of notes and observations, but I didn't have a book, you know? Yeah. And then I started experimenting with writing a chapter, and I just, the storytelling just came forward and then when I got an agent and she, you know, s- I, I, I was able to get a contract based on a proposal and that one chapter I had written and I was really fortunate to have a fabulous editor, David Ebershoff, at Hogarth, who is just such a wonderful writer himself, and he really encouraged me to bring my voice in and bring my story in even [00:08:00] more.Um, so that's- And- ... that's the story of that.Jennie: Was it hard for you as a scholar to do that?Caroline: You know what? It was so freeing and so fun that it actually wasn't, you know? Because I, I knew this wasn't going to be an academic book, so once I let go of that- Yeah ... um, I was like, wow, I have the, and yet I have this skill set I can bring forward, and I knew that's what would make this unique.Um, but I can combine my two favorite ways of writing, ‘cause I do actually love writing literary criticism. Like it's, I get a thrill out of it. I wouldn't be doing it this long if I didn't get a thrill out of it, but I also love telling my own stories and drawing a reader in. And so for me it was like just a circus carnival.Like it was so fun to be able to do it. Once I had the permission and I had a contract, I was like, fine, you know? I, I, who am I writing this book for? I'm writing it for me, you know? Like this is just something I wanna do because I'm so passionate [00:09:00] about it and I, and I love Stephen King. And, um, once I got into it that way and wasn't thinking about who's gonna criticize me for this, like how will academics view this, I was like, I don't care.I just don't care. I know I've got a great story to tell that people are gonna love to read because there's so many people that love not just Stephen King, but people who love reading about how great books get written, you know? Yeah. And so that was the audience I had in my mind when I, when I was crafting it.It was really, in my mind, anybody who cares about books and writing. It doesn't have to be... So when you say, you're not the first person who's said to me, “I can't read your book,” or, “I can't read-” Oh, I'm so glad. “... Stephen King books,” you know, and I'm like, “That's okay. You can skip, you know, the parts that really scare you,” because there's plenty about just like that first chapter I wrote about Pet Sematary, just his sticky notes back and forth with his copy editor, which is so fun I think.You know, it's just like, wow.Jennie: Totally. Yeah. But the thing that you do is you- Allow yourself to confront that fear-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: [00:10:00] that, that I feel that the people can't, that can't read horror feel. You know, anybody that even allows themselves to be scared feels. And-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: and you, you do some very specific things, um, which I, I found fascinating, including tracking down on eBay the original copy of that book you read as a- Yeah, I wanted-as a teenager.Caroline: Yeah, that was part of the process for me, was I wanted to make sure I was reading... So before I would go into the archives for each work, and I'd spent like two... I only picked five, because I wanted to... First of all, I knew I wanted to make this personal. Um, and those were the five that scared me the most when I was a teenager.So I grew up in the ‘70s and the ‘80s as a teenager, so for me, it was in real time when the books were coming out practically. So it was- Yeah ... Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary. Um, I'm forgetting one of course. Uh, but I went -Jennie: The other one.Caroline: The other one. Had a huge impact on me. [00:11:00] So it was those five, and I, I knew those were the ones I was gonna do a deep dive into, and that I wanted to really re-engage with, and bring my whole self to.So I wanted to find the copies that I had read in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. And fortunately, it's pretty easy to find them. Uh, so yeah, but eBay sometimes I had to go on, or go into a used bookstore and, you know, find the like actual 1979 paperback, you know.Jennie: Um- I mean, that- Um ... I just, there's some, there's so much to say about that because-Caroline: YeahJennie: like, I just, um- We, we just had a new bookcase built, um, which is something I've wanted to do well for eight years in this house. But it's a thing I've always wanted to have, which is like a grand bookcase, and it just was finished last week, and we had all the books packed up in storage, and we brought all the books back.Then we went through this discernment process of what goes [00:12:00] on those shelves. And I, you know, I had all those books from when I was a kid, even when I was a kid-kid, and they're yellow, and moldy and falling apart, and the covers aren't on, and they're taped and-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: eh, but I cannot let them go-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: because those...that was the object.Caroline: That's the object. This is what I feel sad for kids now, because they're not gonna have those same memories, um, of books. Yes. You know? And I don't think they stick in your head the same way if you don't have the full sensory embodied experience with a book.Jennie: Right. You know? Even when you open...I read on Kindle, which I love for so many reasons. Yeah. But you don't even see the cover.Caroline: You don't see the cover, right. And for me, it's so much. Like, I remember going to the Scholastic Book Fair and being like- Yes ... “I'm getting Summer of My German S- Soldier because Christy McNichol's on the cover,” you know?Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was part of the journey for me was I did wanna just [00:13:00] reconnect with those books again, try to h- and as much as you can, you know, reexperience the feelings of f- like The Shining, I actually... the only one I still have from 1977 is the actual Shining that I read. Um, and that's, for me, that woman in room 217.Well, I know you haven't read it ‘cause you're probably... What? But, um, it, that particular one I still have from, from when I was growing up. Um, and I love that I still have it, and it still has the photo... You know, it's the version that has the photo inserts that includes the Kubrick film photos. Oh, okay.Jennie: Okay.Yeah, yeah.Caroline: And I read it before I saw the film, so I remember being- 15 reading it and then seeing the pictures and being like you know? And that's part of the experience, but it wasn't, it's different than seeing the film, you know? And I really, I wanted to write this book as a love letter to language and to books, and not to film.Like, there's, that's a whole other category I think that enters people's brains in totally different ways. It's a very different experience. For me it's about, like going back to your original question [00:14:00] about like why, why, why do stories cause fear, and like what's the value perhaps in that? Yeah. That was something I came to after this long journey really, and talking to people and thinking about why.And also by understanding and reading more about Stephen King's books and talking to him about them, and realizing for him how much these stories are rooted in personal experiences or fears of grief and loss. And- Yes ... that was really profound for me. And like The Night Shift, which is the ur-text that I start with, ‘cause that's the one I read when I was 12, and that's his first collection of short stories.It came out in 1978. It's 20 short stories. But he ends it with a story about his mother dying, and it's, I mean, it's thinly veiled autobiography. It's about a man who's watching his mother die in the hospital. Um, but it's clearly a mirror of his own experience losing his mother when he was 26. And I'm like, wow, what's that doing in a collection of horror stories?[00:15:00] And it's like, what? ‘Cause that is of course, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, that's the core fear we first have, is that where's mommy, right? Yeah. Right? You lose the person who's in charge of taking care of you, and if you're lucky, does it well and with care. Um, but even if it's not, like Carrie, you know, the more I was looking through the Carrie drafts, I was like, right, he's really homing in on Carrie calling out for her mother even though her mother's terrible and abusive to her, right?So it's, there's just this, I don't know. It's a long way around to say I think horror, and he writes about this really eloquently, is a way for us to metabolize our deepest fears. Um, and to look at trauma not head-on but sideways. Um, and he writes about that, um, a number of different places in a really powerful way.He's just such an extraordinary human. You know, he's been thinking about this and for so long.Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. So, so your willingness to [00:16:00] confront that, those particular fear, fears in your own self and on behalf of the reader, really puts you in it. I mean, like you, there's a really lovely moment where you are reading I think it's, I think it's Pet Sematary, reading the actual book, and you have to turn it over so you- Yeahdon't see, like on your nightstand so you don't see the cover. I'mCaroline: scared, I'm scared of the cover, right, still.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And then there's moments, se- several where you're driving And you're sort of holding your breath while you drive past a place that he writes about or, or- Mm-hmm ... you know, um, well you have to tell the story, I'm sure every interviewer asks you about the, um, the doorknob in the archive.You have to, like, I was-Caroline: Yeah, not too many people have asked me about that, but I'm like, that to me was the scary moment-Jennie: Wait, shut up ... the most, theCaroline: most sturdy. I'm like, wh- uh, why did that happen? But of course, I mean, there's a reason why it happened. It's, it's, it [00:17:00] automatically locks if, you know, the, if you- Okaydon't lock it So let's, let's play- So but it just happened that we were inside the archive room. It was me and, and Julie Ugli, who is their assistant, who was helping me through this whole process. And I know, and I was, like, literally holding the first page of the first draft of The Boogeyman, the story that had scared me so badly when I was 12, about a monster that comes out of closets, and we're like in this room.And the, the archive room, it actually, it almost feels like a closet. It's not huge at all. You know, it's just-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: top to bottom, ceiling to floor stacked shelving with, you know, boxes of materials. And yeah, and we were in there, and I'm holding the first page, and the lock closes on its own. It just goes...And I'm like, I'm looking at Julie, I'm like, “What is, what's happening?” We don't have our cell phones with us. I'm like, “Are we stuck in here? Like, what's gonna happen?”Jennie: In the scary archive- In this, I was terrified ... in the back of the scary house. Like-Caroline: I know, I know. It was like, you can't make this stuff up.That's why I was like, I [00:18:00] couldn't wait, when I finally got a chance to write the book and sit down and write, I was like, I can't wait to tell these stories, because they just... I, I'm not a fiction writer. Like, I, I have such mad respect for- I don't know about that ... well, I've m- We'll see I don't know. I have mad respect for people who can write fiction.For me, I only can write what I know and exper- So I'm like, ah. But these stories were just so amazing. Or like when I was reading The Shining, like the first draft of The Shining, which is crazy. I mean, it's so different from the published version. And like getting to the woman in room 217, and like reading th- and literally my head w- like I thought I was having a stroke.Like it was like, like... And it's like, and then I find an interview where Stephen King writes about how he was scared to go back to that scene when he was revising it, the book, because he was dreading it. And I was like, oh, my God, have I just like had some kind of telepathic experience with Stephen King?Like- Right ... across time, space, and yeah, it was amazing.Jennie: Well, yeah. I mean, [00:19:00] it's just, um, uh, I actually made myself go through the whole book skipping giant chunks.Caroline: I feel so badly I put you through this.Jennie: I know. I, I feel like why, I kept saying, “Why? Why did I think this was a good idea?” Um, and it- I mean, even just tangentially, I, I don't know.It's interesting. I have, I'm sure you have this too, anybody who reads a lot or spends a lot of time with words, you have a capacity to sort of pay half attention, if that makes sense.Caroline: Mm-hmm.Jennie: Um, like you c- could sort of look at it without letting it all the way in. Yeah. But I, I just was, I just was riveted by the thread of, of your story and your putting yourself through that as a scholar and a human.But, but then some really cool things happen, and I, and I have flagged, um... Do you, [00:20:00] w- would you mind reading a tiny piece? It's- No, not at all ... it's on page 82, and it's the p- the paragraph that starts, “These manuscripts.”Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: That would be amazing.Caroline: Absolutely. So this is actually the moment I just described to you, where my head was like, I got...Oh, actually, I had just discovered the last 150 pages of the original Shining manuscript in a random folder in the archives, and I was like, “What is this doing here?” And I was getting obsessive about the manuscripts at this point, clearly- Yeah. Yeah ... just like the main character in The Shining, Jack Torrance, who gets obsessed with the manu- with the papers in the basement of the Overlook Hotel.But here we go. “These manuscripts are definitely getting into my head, and not just its rational part. In his memoir, when King describes books as being a uniquely portable magic, he doesn't specify what kind of magic. What if manuscripts can absorb and store more than just ink and words? [00:21:00] What if their pages can pass on dark energy along with dark stories?Ghosts have more than one way of making sure their stories are heard, of ensuring that the past is not forgotten, but rather pressed into our minds, even if we wrench our heads off the pillow and refuse to listen.” And that last is a reference to my, I used to see a ghost when I was five, and I write about that in the book too.Jennie: I mean, when I read that, I was like, “That's, that's me.” Like, these ghosts and horrors are pressing themselves into my mind, and I'm refusing to listen, and they still, they still do. And, um, King's stories in particular are so iconic, you can't really escape them. Like, you, you know the scenarios, you know the characters, you know-Caroline: YeahJennie: you know. And, and so it was interesting for me reading this book that that described my [00:22:00] experience where I was both repelled and magnetized at the same time.Caroline: That's beautiful the way you just put that. I mean, I think that is exactly our relationship also, of course, to our own fears. You know, again, what makes these stories endure, and I didn't go into this book thinking like, “This is a book about promoting Stephen King,” and, you know- Rightlike, I don't work for Stephen King. I just want to put that out there. Right. He, you know, he graciously agreed to let me go into the archives. He's been very generous about answering all my questions I had about the manuscripts, but he never at any point was like, “You can't say this,” or, “This is how you're supposed to say this.”So, but what I came away with after this process was exactly what you're describing, why we need these stories, why they endure, actually, is because they tap into our very real human fears. It's not about the monsters. It's about the grief and loss that's coming for all of us if we live long enough, you know?So you, and you have to at some point confront that, you know? So if it's- Yeah ... you can [00:23:00] try to run away from it, but it's coming, and that's part of being human. That's the human experience, obviously. Not to be glib, but it's like-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: you will experience loss. You will experience grief. And if these stories help you metabolize that or have a cathartic experience with that feeling without having to actually experience your worst fear, right?Um, like Aristotle says, it's cathartic, right? It's you watch a play, a, a tragedy because you experience a catharsis.Jennie: And did you, did you get to that in your own process?Caroline: That's a really good question. Um- You know, I, I think I became more aware of it. You know, I am, you know, and I write about this very openly in the book, that I was an extremely anxious little kid, um, which is part of why I think the boogeyman triggered me in the particular way it did, you know.Um, and that I grew into a pretty [00:24:00] anxious adult, you know? Yeah. I think anxiety is one of those things that, you know, I... Again, I was born in the ‘60s, so we didn't have this language for this back then. Like, my parents wouldn't have known to call me an anxious child, you know? Right. They probably would've said, “Oh, she's shy,” or, “She's whatever.”Um, so I think I, you know, like, and I as an adult, I think I've, I've found ways to manage it pretty well, but I am definitely a control freak. Like, that's part of how I manage it. I shouldn't use that language, but you know, it's like I, I like to just control what I can control, and that makes me feel that I can put the anxiety at bay.So I will say I think it's been interesting for me, Nick, now when I have those moments that are my worst fear moments that sometimes still will creep up on me just even though when I think I've figured it out, like doom s- doom scenarios. I tend to go to doom scenarios. So, like, if I can't reach... Uh, I will say Life360 has been, like, the best invention on the planet for me-with my two kids [00:25:00] and my husband. I'm like, “I know exactly where everyone is.” Yeah. It has saved me a lot of worry. Sometimes Life360 doesn't work, or sometimes a person still doesn't answer the phone, and then I have to manage my anxie- And then it's like... So I will say it's been interesting going through this process and having to confront or revisit the core of what scares me and, like, why that impacts, you know, why certain moments come forward for me still.So I think, yeah, I think it has helped me to a degree. Like, I can recognize it more clearly now. I'm like, “Oh, right, that's why I'm scared of that,” you know? Um-Jennie: That's so cool.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And it feels like that's the, the, um, the transformation in the book is you're exploring how that actually works and the language and the stories.Mm-hmm. But you're, you're also exploring how it works in your own self, how it did when you were young, how it does now- Yeah ... these moments when you're scared. So it- Mm-hmm ... there's such [00:26:00] a depth to it and, I mean, I just, uh, even in my half reading of it, I just loved it. Thank you. And, um, there's something that happens That's kind of crazy, which is, so you're a Shakespeare scholarCaroline: Mm-hmmJennie: And I ha- I, I know from reading Steve, a- about Stephen King, from reading his book On Writing, of course, and, um, interviews and such that, uh, I'm, I'm probably gonna say this in a disrespectful way, and I don't mean it to be so, but the, the easiest way I can describe it is that he's always had sort of a chip on his shoulder that he's just a popular writer and not taken seriously in a literary way.Mm. I don't know if that's, if that is fair to say, but that's how I'm saying it. Uh,Caroline: yeah.Jennie: And, um, what, what I found incredible was that [00:27:00] here comes this Shakespeare scholar into his archives doing proper scholarly archiver, arch- archival work, and there's this moment when you begin to see Shakespearean themes in his, in his work, and you can't ignore it, and particularly in, in Carrie and- Yeahparticularly around exactly the thing you were wrestling with, which is like a young girl's- I don't know, sense of, of not being fitting in the world or, um-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: right? And so that, um, there's, on page, since you have the book in your hand, um, I think it's pageCaroline: 202. Mm-hmm.Jennie: And it refers back to that passage you just read about portable magic.It's the one that's I remembered.Caroline: [00:28:00] Right. Okay. So this is going back to when I first was, um, I was in the final round of the job for the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, and I was working on a book about Shakespeare's, the girls in Shakespeare's plays and world and teenage girls and their cognition.Like, the how were people during Shakespeare's day thinking about girls' brains? Yeah. So I'd been working on this for 10 years. Um, and then I was getting ready to give my job talk. This was the first time Stephen King and Shakespeare came together for me, and it was getting ready, and this, again, this is an authentic story, like write what you know.So I was getting ready for the job talk. I remembered that King's 1974 novel, Carrie, featured a 16-year-old girl whose telekinetic powers are unleashed when she gets her first period in the school shower. I started rereading it, and within a few pages came across an uncanny phrase. When she's walking home after being dismissed early, Carrie feels her brain flexing in a new way, [00:29:00] as if her powers have been waiting below the surface for her to reach, quote, “mental puberty.”I couldn't have wordsmithed this dynamic cognitive change better myself. In the last part of my job talk, I used the phrase to connect the brain work of Juliet Capulet, who's described as being two weeks away from seeing the change of 14 years, to Carrie's newly activated adolescent mind. It felt like a moment of pure portable magic between Stephen King, Shakespeare, and me.Jennie: Ugh, so beautiful.Caroline: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, that was just so gobsmacking. Like, when that happened, I was like, I ca- I can't believe it, but yeah.Jennie: And then, now I may be getting some of the things wrong here, but then you- You realize, is it Carrie that, that you realize he was, you thought he was emulating a play, a Shakespeare play?Caroline: I think you're thinking of Shining. I mean, definitely at the end of the Carrie [00:30:00] chapter I return to, I did notice echoes of Macbeth, and I was convinced that that must have been what he was thinking about. And, and what's funny is, so one of the conversations I got to have with him, I mean, he's so generous with his time, one of my last conversations with him was about the end of Carrie, and that's a book that he actually doesn't like very much.You know, it was his first published novel, he was 26, and he's like, “I think that was written by a young man who thought he knew more than he did.” So he's, it's not a book that he goes back to. He recognizes it's important, and it's important to him, but, ‘cause it started his whole career, his whole trajectory.Um, but he didn't particularly, he hasn't returned to it. Yeah. So that was a fun chance for me to sort of talk to him and say, “Hey, you know what? I think you should maybe go back,” ‘cause it's it's, there's a lot of Shakespeare in there. Anyway, but the Shining chapter, what was fascinating, so there's this first draft, which I, I write a lot about, called The Shine, that's in the archives, with a totally different ending.Um, and when I looked at it, [00:31:00] he'd also divided it into acts and scenes, like Roman numeral acts and little- Mm ... Roman numeral scenes. And I was like, “This, what is this? This is like a Shakespeare play.” Like, that's what it looked like. And then sure enough, I found out he was imagining, he was thinking of a Shakespeare tragedy when he wrote The Shining.And that was the first moment where I was like, “What? This is insane.” Like, this- Yeah ... like, ob- obviously that became, for me, the story I wanted to tell about that particular set of manuscripts, was sort of uncovering, like, what's the Shakespeare play? Like, what's the tragedy? And I didn't wanna ask him because I didn't want- I wanted to go in with my mind clear, like, of any outside influence.I just wanted to see what my Shakespeare brain, because I'm so embedded in Shakespeare. I also have a Shakespeare podcast I do with my best friend. Like, we're, I'm always thinking about Shakespeare and how it relates to everyday life. You know, and so I'm like, “Well, how does it relate to The Shining?” Which is, like, an ur-American text.Like, this, like, say what you want about horror, [00:32:00] like- I'd be shocked if people don't know what The Shining's about, even if they haven't read it even if they haven't seen the film. Like, you probably know something about The Shining, right? Right. So I was like, if there's a Shakespeare tragedy at the foundation of this, you know.And here's the thing about Stephen King that I came to learn, again, reading all of his notes and finding these edits, and I did find traces of Macbeth in the first draft of The Shine, um, that he ended up taking out. So I was like, “Oh, is it Macbeth? It feels like it could be Macbeth.” There's so many things it has in common with it, with hallucinations and with baby bashing.And, you know, all of these horrible things that are in Macbeth are certainly in that book. Um, but I really wanted to go in, like, just on an adventure, like, see what I saw. So I didn't ask him which chi- tragedy until I was fully done with all my research and I felt like I had it all done. And that's when he drops that he was thinking of Hamlet.And once he said that, of course, it became so ... I mean, I [00:33:00] had seen traces, there were references to Ophelia that also didn't make it into the final published draft. So you wouldn't know this. This is the beauty of archival work, like you're gonna see things that other people will never know about unless you tell the story.That's why I felt so passionate about this. Like, “I need to tell people-” Yeah ... “that Ophelia was in the first draft, that he was thinking of Ophelia.” ‘Cause of course, you know, again, even if you don't know The Shining, the woman in the tub, the woman in the bathtub, like a drowned woman in a tub, like ah, Ophelia.Yeah. Like Ophelia's another one of those ur, like she's so, she's such a part of our cultural air, right? I mean, like no matter what country you're in. Right. There's a reason Taylor Swift has a whole, you know, song The Fate of Ophelia. Like people know what that means. Um, so I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is, this is incredible.This is even deeper than I thought it was gonna be.” Um, but also it made me appreciate how much that book is about intergenerational trauma. Um, and it's not ... So he doesn't like the Kubrick film [00:34:00] for reasons that, you know, a couple different reasons. One is that it flattens out the character of Jack Torrance, and Jack Torrance is an abused child himself, and he passes on that abuse to his son, Danny, right?Um, but you wouldn't know that from Kubrick's film. While Hamlet, of course, is about a father's ghost coming forward. Like, “The past is a ghost,” King writes, which is so f- powerful, right? Um, here's this ghost saying, “You need to kill for me.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah. And that's what happens to Jack. Yeah, so anyway, that's a long way to say that wasEach chapter was my favorite in different ways, but that one I loved being able to do the deep Shakespeare dive.Jennie: And was that ... You know, so I started that question by saying I, I had heard or understood or maybe inferred that, um, you know, King himself had this sort of desire- Okay ... to be taken more seriously.Was that, that must have been, I don't know, powerful for both you and him, uh, to [00:35:00] come to that? Not like, “Oh, you're the only person that's ever made him feel that way” or-Caroline: Yeah,Jennie: no,Caroline: I agree ... or agree with that, but. Like I, yeah. And, um, I mean, I will say I think part of the reason he was always really ... I mean, first of all, he's just so generous, and any writer who's ever worked with him has the same experience.Like he just gives his time. He just loves writing and writers so much that he will just, he'll just t- like any email I would send him, he'd write back in like an hour with a response. The part about how he feels about academia, you know, and I never directly asked him that because I didn't wanna ... You know, if he wanted to bring it up, great.But I think- Yeah ... my, after going on this journey with him, he clearly loves talking about- literature. He's the most well-read person I've ever met. I'm just gonna say that hands down. Like, the guy reads- Really? ... cons- constantly and if you read his early works, like even when he was 17, he wrote The Long Walk, okay, which just came out as a film, [00:36:00] and in that, he's citing T.S.Eliot, he's cit- he's citing Poe at 17. Okay? So he's, he, he, this, he comes by this honestly. He's not just trying to seem smart. Like, he literally is constantly reading and it's clear when you read his manuscripts or when you read his published books, he's making references to all, whether it's Shirley Jackson or Wallace Stevens or, you know, uh, he's so capacious in his knowledge of literature.And, like, just a couple months ago, he sent me an email, I don't, I can't remember, we were talking about something about Salem's Lot, and he was like, “Yeah, when I was writing Salem's Lot,” which again, this is 1975 when he's writing Salem's Lot, so that's a long time ago. He's like, “I was really into James Dickey's poetry.”Jennie: Whoa.Caroline: You know, who was an American no, you know, poet laureate. Uh, he's like, “And I was reading everything I could read of, of his and then I read Deliverance, and then I went back to his poetry, and that really impacted how I wrote the chapters [00:37:00] about the Lot,” which if you've read Salem's Lot, has some very lyrical, poetic chapters about the town, like, “The town knew about darkness.The town had its secrets and knew how to kept it.” And then he, like, sends me the entire poem that he was thinking about that James Dickey wrote. So I mean, it's, he's, and it's not performative. He's not, like, he has nothing. He doesn't need to prove anything to me, you know?Jennie: Right, to anyone, yeah.Caroline: He just literally loves, he loves literature.Like, this guy, he loves poetry. I mean, he actually writes poetry. He wrote poetry as an undergraduate. Uh, it was actually the core start for him of The Stand, was a poem he wrote called The Dark Man one day when he was, like, hungover in the school, like, cafeteria. Like, so it's like he, he's been thinking about literature and living with literature and, uh, since he was a teenager, if not earlier.His mom brought him, uh, Bram Stoker out of the public library when he was nine, so I mean, the guy- Whoa ... ‘cause he asked for it. He asked for Dracula. [00:38:00] I wasn't reading Dracula when I was nine. Were you? I mean-Jennie: No,Caroline: no. I was reading Little House on the Prairie. I mean-Jennie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Wow. So- I mean, this book, again, it's called Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Carolyn Bicks.It's just incredible, whether you're a King fan, whether you're a horror fan, um, but for sure for all writers, which are all our listeners. If you can, if you can bear it.It's very specific, um, a very specific- specific exploration of, of how good writing works really. Yeah. Right. And, and how you... You know, there's always that perennial question of how do you get emotion on the page? How do you make your reader feel something? And you, you show it very specifically, and I wanted so badly [00:39:00] to, to get into the details, and I, and I, I just, I just couldn't.Um, maybe someday, but, um, I just, I just can't recommend it enough for, for, um, this audience and, um, you know, anyone who's interested in any of these things we've talked about.Caroline: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I will say, like, the Pet Sematary chapter, which is the first one, that was the first day I was in the archives.One of the things I discovered about him day one was how much attention he pays to word sounds. So I think for any writer interested in sort of doing a deep dive into, like, how one word change, right- Yeah ... can make a difference, you know? Yeah. And I didn't appreciate that about his writing until I went in there and saw his notes to the copy editor where he's like, “Nope, the word's clitter, not clatter.This is why.” You know? Like,Jennie: he's- There's a, um- Yeah ... yeah, there's a book I love, it's probably right behind me, um, called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, in which she [00:40:00] shows examples of that kind of very careful change in, um, The Gre- The Great Gatsby and The English Patient and various works of, of literature, and your, your whole book is like that.It's, it's just amazing. Um- Thank you ... so is the next book gonna be the Shakespeare one you had thought of before? Or are you gonna- ... go in the, in the personal direction?Caroline: You know, it's such a good question. I think right now I'm just taking a break, you know, because I'm the kind... Like, I immerse myself in a project, and this has been so all-consuming.Um, and I'm back to doing my Everyday Shakespeare podcast, which I love and I missed. Um, so I'm doing that. And I, I really don't like to think too far ahead about what I'm going to write. I like to have it come organically.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, so I could go back into the archives. I could write another one of these kinds of books, but I don't know if that's the [00:41:00] right thing for me right now.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, I want to make sure whatever I write next- You know, I loved writing this book so much. It's my favorite... I mean, it's, it was such a powerful experience for me, um, because I could bring my personal experiences into it and my scholarly self into it. I don't... You know, it's gonna be hard to recreate that.Yeah. I think it can be done, but I don't wanna force it. Yeah. So I'm gonna wait and see what the next, what the next oneJennie: is. Don't you, don't you love the interviewer who's like, “Hey, congratulations. You wrote a book. What, what's your nextCaroline: one?” What are you working on now? What are you doing now? I know. And I get that.I'm like-Jennie: So mean ...Caroline: I'm just, I'm just reading books I wanna read. I'm doing my laundry. I'm getting to know my dog again. You know?Jennie: Oh, wow. Well, thankCaroline: you. But, you know, it's a fair question. Yeah.Jennie: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for coming and chatting about this, and for writing such a cool book. And- Thank you ... um, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next.Caroline: Thank you, Jennie. It was a [00:42:00] pleasure.Jennie: Well, for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.The #amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Nasty Neal talks with Katharine Isabelle, Lou Taylor Pucci and Daniel Stamm about their new film LOCKBOX!Seeking peace after her mother's death, Ellen retreats to a rural town and takes in her severely traumatized cousin Winthrop. Their fragile domestic balance shatters when an erratic neighbor warns that Winthrop is dangerous. As strange phenomena escalate, Ellen must put everything on the line to defend Winthrop from a dangerous otherworldly entity determined to track him down.From the director of THE LAST EXORCISM, LOCKBOX is inspired by the cult podcast “Knifepoint Horror” and is based on an original story by writer, creator, and narrator Soren Narnia.FILMMAKERS:Daniel Stamm - Director (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil)Dark Castle Entertainment - ProducersKearie Peak - ProducerSoren Narnia - WriterJustin Yoffe - WriterCAST:Carla Gugino (The Haunting of Hill House, Gerald's Game, The Fall of the House of Usher) Lou Taylor Pucci (Evil Dead, Touch Me)Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, Backrooms)Join this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOmwH7xVAhD-OOAqFWyTYTA/join#Horrormovie #NastyNeal #LockBox #CarlaGugino #KatharineIsabelle

Mission/Men's Ministry Pastor, Justin Hillhouse, continues our series "Iron Sharpens Iron.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978! Visit @saturday-at-the-creek for sermons from our Teaching Pastor, Graeme Golding. Are you looking for more scripture-based content and materials? Visit www.johnmarkcaton.com

Per le grandi occasioni, rispolveriamo i classici. Un episodio unico nella storia del podcast, perché parliamo di due giganti degli anni '60, e il motivo (a parte le richieste su Patreon) è che sta uscendo il nuovo libro di una delle due anime del podcast, Marika Paracchini. Il titolo è Confetti - Amore, lutto e perdono in The Haunting of Hill House, e si tratta di un saggio dedicato alla serie di Flanagan. Di quella avevamo già parlato nella scorsa stagione, quindi siamo tornate alle origini, sperando di fare cosa gradita. Dopo questo mastodonte, ce ne andiamo in vacanza e ci sentiamo a settembre. Il libro di Mari esce il 10 luglio, ma potete già preordinarlo qui.

Agradece a este podcast tantas horas de entretenimiento y disfruta de episodios exclusivos como éste. ¡Apóyale en iVoox! Publicada en 1965, "La posibilidad del mal" es una de las obras más conocidas de Shirley Jackson, autora de clásicos como "La lotería" y "La maldición de Hill House". Jackson poseía un talento extraordinario para descubrir las grietas ocultas bajo la superficie de la vida cotidiana. Allí donde otros escritores veían hogares tranquilos, vecindarios apacibles y comunidades respetables, ella encontraba resentimientos, prejuicios, crueldades y miedos cuidadosamente disimulados. - Narración: Juan Carlos Albarracín - Locución Sintonía: Antonio Runa - Música: Epidemic Sound, con licencia - Ilustración: Pixabay, con licencia https://pixabay.com/es/illustrations/rosas-vintage-semilla-catalogar-996389/ ----- Contrata tu IVOOX PREMIUM anual desde este enlace y además de obtener un suculento 50% de descuento y de poder escuchar TODOS los programas de esta plataforma sin publicidad, estarás ayudando a sostener Los Cuentos de la Casa de la Bruja: https://www.ivoox.vip/premium?affiliate-code=27e5799d254c8a29ecdab3d8d5bfa96f ----- Los Cuentos de la Casa de la Bruja es un podcast semanal de audio-relatos de misterio, ciencia ficción y terror. Cada viernes, a las 10 de la noche, traemos un nuevo programa. Alternamos entre episodios gratuitos para todos nuestros oyentes y episodios exclusivos para nuestros fans. ¡Si te gusta nuestro contenido suscríbete! Y si te encanta considera hacerte fan desde el botón azul APOYAR y accede a todo el contenido exclusivo. Tu aporte es de mucha ayuda para el mantenimiento de este podcast. ¡Gracias por ello! Mi nombre es Juan Carlos. Dirijo este podcast y también soy locutor y narrador de audiolibros, con estudio propio. Si crees que mi voz encajaría con tu proyecto o negocio contacta conmigo y hablamos. :) Contacto profesional: info@locucioneshablandoclaro.com www.locucioneshablandoclaro.com También estoy en X y en Bluesky: @VengadorT Y en Instagram: juancarlos_locutor Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

The US goalie is a Harvard mathematician… who can predict penalty kicks.Apple announced their biggest price hike ever… because it ran out of memory.Hill House Home made $110M with their viral Nap Dress… thanks to groupchats.Plus, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang has a new side hustle… Food influencer.$AAPL $NVDA $SPYGrab your Tickets to the IPO Tour: Our In-Person OfferingSan Francisco 9/23: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1C0064AFB5F688BDBoston 10/14: https://tickets.citywinery.com/event/tboy-the-ipo-tour-in-person-offering-8cdhupSeattle 11/4 (21+): https://www.axs.com/events/1446394/the-best-one-yet-ticketsNEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today's top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a text or a voicemailAt a mall store, Wolf leads a secret witch cult with cohosts Raven and Monster. New hire Blumpkin questions their brotherhood, forcing them to confront inner darkness or meet violent ends. On Episode 726 of Trick or Treat Radio our feature film discussion is Forbidden Fruits from director Meredith Alloway! We also talk about the retail cycle, contemplate just what magic is, and we talk about the current shift in mainstream horror. So grab your most trendy outfit, have a heaping helping of mall pretzels, and strap on for the world's most dangerous podcast!Stuff we talk about: Robert Eggers, Werwulf, historical horror, Wolfman Jack, going to do the big time, Phantom of the Opera, The Omen, Dracula Rises, Robot Monster, Supergirl, foreskin cup, The Curse of Frankenstein, Forbidden Fruits, Meredith Alloway, Lily Houghton, Lili Reinhart, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Diablo Cody, Lola Tung, Emma Chamberlin, Gabrielle Union, The Craft, Free Eden, Lilith, biblical stories, Mean Girls, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, Shirley Temple, what is magic?, Wicca, joining a coven, Shaft, Fantastic Four, Samuel Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Terror Firmer, Storm, X-Men, Kale Yeah!, finding lost T-shirts, Heathers, Obsession, The Blair Witch Project, Curry Barker, The Backrooms, Kane Parsons, Sham-Wow Up All the Cash, The Pickle Aspect of Things, The Retail Cycle, and Unpack That From Your Pod.Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/trickortreatradioJoin our Discord Community: discord.trickortreatradio.comSend Email/Voicemail: mailto:podcast@trickortreatradio.comVisit our website: http://trickortreatradio.comStart your own podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=386Use our Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2CTdZzKFB Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/trickortreatradioTwitter: http://twitter.com/TrickTreatRadioFacebook: http://facebook.com/TrickOrTreatRadioYouTube: http://youtube.com/TrickOrTreatRadioInstagram: http://instagram.com/TrickorTreatRadioSupport the show

After getting lost in the back corner of the editing bay, we finally arrive at the final part of Caleb's look at the books he read in 2025. This one includes the last few books he read, as well as some of the stand out short stories.   Included in this episode: 1. Alien vs Predator: Hunter's Planet (1994) [David Bischoff] 2. The Haunting of Hill House (1959) [Shirley Jackson] 3. The Haar [2022] [David Sodergren] 4. Raptor Red (1995) [Robert T. Bakker] 5. Hangsaman (1951) [Shirley Jackson] 6. Dune (1965) [Frank Herbert] *Shorts Mentioned: 7. I Have No Mouth and I must Scream (1967) [Harlen Ellison] 8. A Matter of Traces (1958) [Frank Herbert] 9. The Tactful Saboteur (1964) [Frank Herbert] 10. Conan Collection [Robert E Howard] 11. Nightfall [1941] [Isaac Asimov]

BE NOT AFRAID   This month we are doing a deep dive of the works of modern master of horror, Mike Flanagan! We're concluding Mike Flanagan May not with a film, but a celebration of his television shows. Join Anneliese and I as we discuss The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher … Enjoy!   Follow Would You Die? on  IG @wouldyoudieshow Twitter @wouldyoudieshow Facebook @  Would You Die? Email wouldyoudiepodcast@gmail.com for business inquiries Follow Austin everywhere @austinmtorres Follow Anneliese everywhere @whimsiwillow   Join us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/wouldyoudiepodcast   Subscribe to our YouTube Channel! You can find my short films, like The Blood Witch, and much more! https://www.youtube.com/@WouldYouDieShow   Visit the FANGORIA store: shop.fangoria.com/wouldyoudieshow Use Promo Code: WOULDYOUDIESHOW The Would You Die? Podcast can also be found on TikTok @wouldyoudiepodcast. Follow Austin on Letterboxd @austinmtorres. Follow me on Bluesky @austinmtorres.bsky.social NEW Music is composed by Josie Palmer @josiepalms Podcast produced by Jeremy Lippitt @annuallyfunny Podcast graphics created by Crosshook Creative @crosshookcreative Visit https://www.wearecrosshook.com/ today!   Watch the trailer for my next short film, DIETARY RESTRICTIONS, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NddBP3mp9nM Watch my short film, The Blood Witch, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Foz3PeQKJ4 Watch my short film, Spider, here: https://youtu.be/IJlqp9QJ1qo Watch my short film, Ice Scream, here: https://youtu.be/tghxuuJjPxM Watch my short film, Best Day Ever, here: https://youtu.be/WDJbfRl2Qh4 Find Three Y's Men Media here! ThreeYsMenMedia.com

2018's The Haunting of Hill House was a game changer for Netflix, Mike Flanagan, and for genre storytelling. Flanagan already had success in the feature film realm with Oculus, Hush, and Ouija: Origin of Evil, just to name a few, but Hill House was the type of hit that sent his career soaring, and paved the way to four more series with Netflix. Every single one of those shows was a feat in genre storytelling. They made Netflix a go-to destination for high-quality horror, and also amplified the fact that horror is a genre with range and significant substance. Yes, there are jump scares, blood and gore, but you can also tell a deeply human horror story that can be both bone chilling and soulful.After 2023's The Fall of the House of Usher, Flanagan's run with Netflix came to an end and off he went to Amazon MGM Studios where he signed an exclusive multi-year TV pact. Three years later, Netflix found a creator capable of filling the Flanagan void. It's Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen's Haley Z. Boston. And the success of her eight-episode limited series isn't only sending her star soaring. It also confirms that star Camila Morrone is and should continue to be a genre star.With Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen currently enjoying a position in Netflix's Top 10 TV Shows in the US, Morrone sat down for a Collider Ladies Night interview to discuss her collaboration with Boston, and also to talk about her first go-around in the horror genre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us Fan MailWhat do you get when Stephen Spielberg wants to produce a blockbuster-style horror movie with Jan de Bont directing? You get 1999's The Haunting!Based on the famous Shirley Jackson novel, The Haunting of Hill House, this incredibly 90's film follows a troubled woman invited to a sleep study at a spooky old haunted house in western Massachusetts. The reality, however, is that the doctor conducting the study is really writing a book on fear, and trying to get his guests to give in to the creepiness of the location. When the ghosts turn out to be real, no one is safe and no one can escape!Join us as we discuss how this was almost a Stephen King written project (and what he did instead), the intricacies of fireplace engineering, and how the marketing department completely disrespected the star of the film, Lili Taylor.So grab a nice warm blanket, start counting some sheep, and as always: don't get too scared!

(00:00:00) Discussing Horror and Superhero Content (00:00:08) Top 10 Horror TV Shows and Movies (00:01:39) Battlefield Movie in the Works (00:05:18) Apple TV+ and Streaming Services (00:06:23) Red Dead Redemption 2 Free DLC (00:11:36) Top 10 Superhero Movies (Non-Marvel/DC) (00:16:44) Far Cry Movie Adaptation (00:21:32) Alien Isolation 2 Teaser and Xenomorph Animatronic (00:26:53) Gaming and Shirt Design Musings (00:38:16) Closing Remarks On this week's exciting episode, the guys kick things off with a lively discussion centered around a carefully curated list of the top-rated horror-themed TV shows. They delve into the eerie atmospheres, chilling storylines, and unforgettable characters that have defined this genre, examining why certain shows have garnered critical acclaim and a devoted fanbase. The conversation highlights iconic series such as "The Haunting of Hill House," "American Horror Story," and "Bates Motel," exploring their unique contributions to the horror landscape and what sets them apart from one another. Following this engaging segment, Cody shifts the focus to a recent news article that has sparked considerable buzz within the gaming community: the announcement of an adaptation of the popular game franchise Battlefield. The guys speculate on what this adaptation might entail, discussing the challenges and opportunities that come with translating a beloved video game into a cinematic experience. They ponder over potential casting choices, plot directions, and how the film might capture the intense action and strategic gameplay that players have come to love. Next on the agenda is yet another captivating top 10 list, this time highlighting the best superhero movies that are not affiliated with the major players in the industry, namely Marvel Studios or DC Studios. The discussion covers a range of films that have redefined the superhero genre, such as "Kick-Ass," "The Incredibles," and "Chronicle." Each film's unique take on heroism and its impact on the genre is thoroughly analyzed, showcasing how independent and lesser-known productions have made significant contributions to the superhero narrative. As the episode progresses, the conversation transitions to the highly anticipated adaptation of the Far Cry video game series. The guys share their thoughts on the various installments of the franchise, reminiscing about the memorable characters, immersive worlds, and the thrilling gameplay mechanics that have made Far Cry a staple in the gaming community. They discuss the potential for the film adaptation to capture the essence of the games while appealing to both fans and newcomers alike. The discussion takes an exciting turn with the release of a teaser for the much-anticipated sequel to "Alien Isolation." The guys express their enthusiasm for returning to the terrifying universe of the Alien franchise, analyzing what fans can expect from this new installment. They also touch upon Alien Day, celebrated on April 26th, which has become a significant date for fans of the franchise. This day brings a plethora of Alien-themed merchandise and events, including the intriguing announcement of an animatronic Xenomorph that is set to be available at Spirit Halloween. The guys speculate on how this unique collectible might excite fans and what it represents for the future of the Alien franchise. Throughout the episode, the guys maintain an engaging and humorous rapport, inviting listeners to join in on the excitement as they explore the intersections of horror, gaming, and superhero narratives in contemporary media.Official Website: https://www.comesnaturallypodcast.comOfficial Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/comes-naturally-podcast/iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/kqkgackFacebook: http://tinyurl.com/myovgm8Tumblr: http://tinyurl.com/m7a6mg9Twitter: @ComesNaturalPodYouTube: http://tiny.cc/5snxpy

Missions/Men's Ministry Pastor, Justin Hillhouse, continues our series "Grit and Fruit.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978! Visit @saturday-at-the-creek for sermons from our Teaching Pastor, Graeme Golding. Are you looking for more scripture-based content and materials? Visit www.johnmarkcaton.com

Missions/Men's Ministry Pastor, Justin Hillhouse, continue our series "Grit and Fruit.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978! Visit @saturday-at-the-creek for sermons from our Teaching Pastor, Graeme Golding. Are you looking for more scripture-based content and materials? Visit www.johnmarkcaton.com

Missions/Men's Ministry Pastor, Justin Hillhouse, continue our series "Grit and Fruit.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978! Visit @saturday-at-the-creek for sermons from our Teaching Pastor, Graeme Golding. Are you looking for more scripture-based content and materials? Visit www.johnmarkcaton.com

Hey — let's talk Gothic. If you loved the Wuthering Heights episode but aren't sure what “Gothic” means, here's a friendly, no‑pressure rundown: it's a literary vibe that exploded in the late 1700s and early 1800s (part of Romanticism) and stuck around because people couldn't get enough of spooky mystery, big feelings, and weird houses. At its core Gothic mixes suspense and the supernatural with secrets from the past: ghosts (or things that feel like ghosts), hidden diaries or cursed heirlooms, murmured scandals, and the sense that history is still very much alive — and maybe angry. Stories often leave the door open between a rational explanation and the uncanny, so you're always wondering what's real. The setting matters: remote, isolated places—windy moors, stormy cliffs, spooky woods, and usually a grand but slightly crumbling manor. That atmosphere of beauty plus decay is basically Gothic's aesthetic fingerprint. Protagonists are frequently women, which made these books especially thrilling for female readers back when options for adventurous stories were limited. Other common threads: intense emotion over reason, troubled or doomed romances, the ever‑present shadow of death, and objects that carry memory or menace. Short stories work great as an intro (hello, Poe), and novellas are perfect if you want a quick, delicious chill. Gothic isn't one thing — it splinters into cool subgenres. Southern Gothic, for example, folds in religious hypocrisy, the legacy of violence, and heavy landscape feeling. Contemporary takes like Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno‑Garcia) remix classic Gothic tropes—isolated mansions, family secrets—with new cultures, histories, and anxieties. Other great touchstones: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, The Turn of the Screw (Bly Manor), Shirley Jackson's Hill House, Daphne du Maurier, Edgar Allan Poe, and even films like Crimson Peak that lean into the look and mood. Gothic also shows up in real cultural practices and local histories: think of rituals that try to heal a place's memory or reckon with past violence. Those real world echoes are part of what keeps the genre alive and relevant — it's not just spooky houses, it's how communities remember and reckon with what happened there. If you want to dive in, try a Poe short story, a classic like Jane Eyre, or a modern pick like Mexican Gothic or a T. Kingfisher novella. And hey — if you've got favorites, tell us. I want to know what weird, moody books give you chills.

Heads up, listeners. The ghosts of Hill House invaded this recording, so you might hear some audio glitches.    In Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Eleanor Vance has just buried her ailing elderly mother when she is invited to be part of a psychic investigation at a notoriously haunted house. The plan is to rent the home out for the summer and see what evidence of ghosts they can collect. What could possibly go wrong?    Recommended in this episode: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad   NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.    UP NEXT: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore   Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.   

Synopsis In this prequel to the movie Ouija, we are given a family struggling to make a quick buck in the 1960s as spiritual mediums. But they aren’t just any regular spiritual mediums….they are frauds. Which I guess actually just makes them regular old spiritual mediums. But when 9 year old Doris discovers that she can speak to the dead for real using a ouija board the family business starts booming. As Doris's spiritual talents begin to take on a sinister tone, the question on everyone's mind becomes “who or what is Doris really talking to?” Review of Ouija: Origins of Evil I’ve been giving Ouija: Origins of Evil a hard time lately, because I remembered it being very bad. But then I rewatched it. And its still pretty bad. But not quite as bad as I remembered it being. The movie is directed by Mike Flannagan, a director who has brought us incredible movies and Tv shows such as The Haunting of Hill House, Hush, Gerald's Game, Oculus, Doctor Sleep, and my personal favorite Midnight Mass. He has thoroughly proven himself to me as a director who can create something scary as well as emotionally impactful. This movie is not that. Its extremely cookie cutter, and doesn’t really even attempt to break the mold of a stereotypical haunted house movie. If you’ve seen any of the conjuring movies, you’ve seen this. If you’ve seen any of the insidious movies, you’ve seen this. If you’ve seen any movie with the words “the haunting of…” in the title, you’ve seen this. I could go on, but you get the picture. What this movie does well is pepper in some truly creepy imagery and a couple fun jump scares, however it fails to do anything outside of the box or make a group of characters worth caring about. Don’t get me wrong, the mother played by Elisabeth Reaser, and the priest played by Henry Thomas were great. But the kids in this movie are awful actors and I truly believe that with my whole heart.  Score 4/10

Turno hoy de otra de nuestras sesiones dobles. Dos tebeos muy diferentes, con nada más en común que darnos para un rato de charla. Arrancamos con Un cesto lleno de cabezas, la obra de Joe Hill y Leomacs que inauguraba el sello Hill House, sello que parecía querer llenar el hueco de Vertigo y que desapareció demasiado pronto pese a la calidad de muchos de sus títulos. Un pueblo de Maine, un misterio de corrupción oculto, un hacha mágica, cabezas parlantes y una prota que tal vez no estaba tan indefensa como parecía al principio. De los USA nos vamos al primer trabajo original, es decir, no adaptado, de Javi Rey como autor completo. Le llamábamos Bebeto nos transporta directos a los años 90 en un relato costumbrista y emotivo con algunos tintes autobiográficos. La noche es caliente como el infierno. Todo se te pega. Una asquerosa habitación de un asqueroso barrio de una asquerosa ciudad. El aparato de aire acondicionado es un pedazo de chatarra que no podría enfriar ni una bebida aunque la metieras dentro. Parece el sitio perfecto para escuchar el podcast 412 de ELHDLT Selección musical: Decapitation Blues, de Clutch Aeroplane, de Red Hot Chili Peppers Bebeto, de El RedCode

Missions/Men's Ministry Pastor, Justin Hillhouse, continues Part 6 of our series "Faith of the Underdog.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978! Visit https://soundcloud.com/saturday-at-the-creek for sermons from our Teaching Pastor, Graeme Golding. Are you looking for more scripture-based content and materials? Visit https://www.johnmarkcaton.com

Únete a nuestro canal y apoya a FUERA DE SERIES: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFNyyACx7XbgZ4-S4jzNnGQ/join Si estás buscando una serie de terror diferente, incómoda y que te deje pensando… ojo con Algo Terrible está a punto de Suceder (Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen). En este vídeo te cuento sin spoilers por qué esta nueva serie de Netflix puede convertirse en una de las grandes sorpresas del año dentro del género. Una historia que parte de algo muy reconocible —una boda, conocer a la familia, unos días antes del “sí, quiero”— pero que poco a poco se transforma en un thriller psicológico cada vez más perturbador. Lo que más me ha llamado la atención es cómo construye la tensión: no es una serie de sustos fáciles, sino de incomodidad constante, de silencios, miradas y momentos donde parece que no pasa nada… pero todo está pasando. Esa sensación de que algo no encaja está presente todo el tiempo. También hablo de su apartado técnico: la forma en la que está rodada, el uso del sonido y cómo consigue meterte en la cabeza de la protagonista. En ese sentido, el trabajo de Camila Morrone es clave para que todo funcione, acompañada por un reparto muy sólido que refuerza ese ambiente inquietante. Si te gustan series como The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass o Archive 81, aquí vas a encontrar algo que juega en esa misma liga, aunque con su propio estilo. ¿Es perfecta? No del todo. Tiene algunos detalles que se quedan en el aire. Pero aún así, creo que es una serie muy recomendable si te gusta el terror más psicológico y menos evidente.

In Episode 195, we're officially wrapping up our 2025 reading goals and chatting about what we've been up to the last three months. (Surviving, mostly!) Lots of books are being read and writing plans are cooking! The real new year starts in spring anyway.Show NotesJette is absolutely crushing her reading goals! And we both may need to update some of our Storygraph goals for 2026 because we're way ahead already.We visited Hopeless Romantic and the Hopeless Romantic/Little Ghosts crossover store at Union Station in the last few months. If you're in Toronto, we definitely recommend checking them out! It turns out horror and romance are a perfect pair.Since we have a Romance episode coming up at the end of May, we tried to curb our romance talk, but we will be doing a deep dive soon enough!In our next episode, we'll be talking about Slewfoot by Brom as part of our #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt series, since we've been seing it everywhere!After that, we're attempting to tackle our TBRs and reading M Train by Patti Smith, which we both have physical copies of. That episode will be out April 29.And don't forget to read along with our current book club, Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit.Books & Authors MentionedThe Windy City Series by Liz TomfordeElsie SilverA Five Letter Word for Love by Amy JamesHalf His Age by Jennette McCurdyA Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. JamesThis Is a Safe Space by Lucinda BerryCrushmore: Essays on Love, Loss, and Coming-of-Age by Sophie Ansari, Nava Kavelin, and Penn BadgleyRebel Blue Ranch Series by Lyla SageSoul Searching by Lyla SagePlaying for Keeps series by Becka MackWhen We Spoke to the Dead: How Ghosts Gave American Women Their Voice by Ilise S. CarterWells Ranch Series by Bailey HannahSilver Pines Ranch Series by Paisley HopeAll the Missing Pieces by Catherine CowlesAnderson in Bloom by Jennifer DuganPassing by Nella LarsonThe Creative Act by Rick Rubin The Fountain by Casey ScieszkaSpoiled Milk by Avery CurranThe Changeling by Victor LaValleThe Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham JonesThis is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max GladstoneGame Changers Series by Rachel ReidProject Hail Mary by Andy WeirThe Lottery by Shirley JacksonThe Haunting of Hill House by Shirley JacksonWylding Hall by Elizabeth HandMy Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

In Mo Moshaty's short story "Dandelion Wine" in her collection Clairviolence, a long married couple have a fight over a plum cake won in a bingo game that just might be the end for the two of them.    Recommended in this episode: Lindy Ryan's Dollface, Gwendolyn Kiste's In These Gilded Ghostly Hearts (preorder), and Jane Harper's The Survivors    NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.    UP NEXT: The Haunting of Hill House with special guest and podcast favorite Crystal O'Leary Davidson Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.

On this episode of Drunken Book Club we read Goosebumps #37 The Headless Ghost. Duane and Stephanie love Hill House. It's dark, creepy, and totally scary. Still, they've never actually seen the ghost that haunts it. Until the night they decide to go on a search. A search for his head! Follow the linktree here and find where you can listen to and follow us! https://linktr.ee/drunkenbookclub Support us on https://www.patreon.com/dbcanddmm All of the content is $1! Make sure to check out our Patrons 1. Trey 2. Weese https://www.youtube.com/user/pikidoo1

Welcome to episode 289 of the Better With Running podcast! This week, Run2PB coaches Chris Armstrong and Zacca Newman check in to discuss the grit and grind of high-volume training. Chris shares his post-5k Frenzy reset, logging a lighter 45km week and prepping for his first outing in the new ASICS Superblast 3s. Zacca, meanwhile, continues to stack the bricks with a massive 91km week, highlighted by a sharp 30-minute tempo at 3:35 pace and a controlled 23km long run to keep the engine humming.The episode hits its stride with the return of fan-favorite Chris Hillhouse for his fourth appearance on the show., Chris is currently deep in a marathon build that mirrors his professional life in landscaping. Just as a premium outdoor space requires meticulous site prep before the final aesthetic touches, Chris has been putting in the heavy "earthworks" of high mileage to support his faster track times. We dive into how his recent training block is finally shifting from the rough-in stage to the finishing phase.Chris shares a training week and some context around some ups and downs in this marathon block.Of course, it wouldn't be a catch-up with Hillhouse without some literal landscaping chat and a few "out of left field" takes. We trade the shovels for spoons as the boys dive into some food and drink chat. The show finishes with some much loved world record chat.

Don't make a sound and choose your own ending on episode 205 of The Horror Stans Podcast! For this one we are getting into 2016's Hush! Listen as we discuss our first Mike Flannigan film (Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House), the films great final girl as played by Kate Siegal, the alternate HUSH cut, masked killers vs. unmasked killers, Bitch the cat and if Mike Flannigan/Kate Siegal are the superior Rob Zombie/Sherrie Moon Zombie? We hope you enjoy! Please give us 5 stars!Instagram and Twitter: @horrorstansTiktok: @horrorstanspodcastSteve: @screamsteve/@stesta621Matt: @mcavo92

Robert Longstreet is a respected actor who moves fluidly between indie films and genre work, showing a gift for playing complex, wounded, or morally ambiguous characters. He gained broader recognition recently for his performance as a grieving father in "The Haunting of Hill House," created by Mike Flanagan. Longstreet has since become a regular collaborator with Flanagan, appearing in projects like "Midnight Mass," where his portrayal of the troubled but deeply humane Joe Collie became one of the show's most poignant characters. On this episode, he talks about the psychological effects of some of the dark roles he's done and ponders if leaving "a pound of flesh" is necessary for the work. He calls directors not knowing how to talk to actors "a sin beyond measure," explains why good writing is so easy to memorize,  why he'd rather do a zoom audition than a self-tape, why he didn't want to play a psychopathic octogenarian woman in Todd Rohal's instant cult classic "Fuck My Son!" and struggled all the way through it, plus much more. Back To One is the in-depth, no-nonsense, actors-on-acting podcast. In each episode, host Peter Rinaldi invites one working actor to do a deep dive into their unique process, psychology, and approach to the craft.  Subscribe to Back To One on Substack Follow Back To One on Instagram

Missions & Men's Ministry Pastor Justin Hillhouse continues Part 2 of our new series "Disciplines of a Godly Man.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978!

Missions & Men's Ministry Pastor Justin Hillhouse continues Part 1 of our brand new series "Disciplines of a Godly Man.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978!

Thistle Hill House is also known as the Wharton-Scott House and was built back in the early 1900s in Fort Worth, Texas. This historic mansion goes back to the cattle baron era of the city and indeed, it was home to a cattle baron's daughter. This is a gorgeous and unique home, so its not surprising that previous owners would stick around even after passing away. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Thistle Hill House. The Moment in Oddity features security geese. Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com Show notes can be found here: https://historygoesbump.blogspot.com/2026/02/hgb-ep-626-thistle-hill-house.html  Become an Executive Producer: http://patreon.com/historygoesbump Music used in this episode: (Moment in Oddity) "Vanishing" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Title: "Lucid Nightmare" Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com) Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0997280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Missions & Men's Ministry Pastor Justin Hillhouse continues Part 8 of our series "Disciplines of a Godly Man.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978!

Missions & Men's Ministry Pastor Justin Hillhouse continues Part 7 of our series "Disciplines of a Godly Man.” Be sure to join us in person every Tuesday at 6:00 AM at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, TX. If you have a question that you want answered, please text “STUDY” to 77978. Whether it be, Scripture, Family, or Life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered! Do you need help building a Men's Ministry at your church? Text “JHILLHOUSE” to 77978!

Here's a sneak peek at our all new full-length Patreon Requel episode on the premiere episode of Mike Flanagan's acclaimed series The Hautning of Hill House (2018).Like what you hear? Head on over to ⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/horrorqueers⁠⁠⁠ and become a Patron for more exclusive bonus content today! Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Christina Henry at christinahenry.net or on IG  @authorchristinahenry    In this week's episode, our focus is on houses that are so important to a story that they essentially become a character. When we started thinking about this idea, we realized that Chicago writer Christina Henry would be a perfect guest because her last two novels are focused on houses. Her most recent is titled The Place Where They Buried Your Heart and is about a neighborhood house that lures people in, causing heartache for neighbors as well as a sense of family among a handful of them. Prior to this novel, Christina wrote The House That Horror Built. We talk to Christina about the importance of houses in her stories and how a house can straddle setting and character.    In our book rec section, we continue the house idea with a range of titles in which houses are critically important—-we've got a memoir, a National Book Award winner, children's fantasy, classic literature, and propulsive literary fiction.   Books Mentioned in this Episode:   1- The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry 2- The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry  3- Howards End by E.M. Forster  3- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 3- Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu  4- Double Indemnity by James Cain  5- From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir by Alain Silver and James Ursini  6- Out by Natsuo Kirino  7- Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata  8- Earthlings by Sayaka Murata  9- The Mantis by Kotaro Osaka  10- Three Assasins by Kotaro Osaka  11- Bullet Train by Kotaro Osaka  12- The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir 13- Night Shift by Alex Finlay 14- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Kris Wyatt @froggyreadteach - The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt  15- Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman by Patrick Hutchison  16- House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III 17- The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom  18- Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones  19- The House with the Clock in it's Walls by John Bellairs  20- Behind the Waterline by Kionna Walker LeMalle  21- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 22- Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier    Media Mentioned: 1- If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) 2- Platonic (Apple +, 2023 - present) 3- Train Dreams (2025) 4- The Studio (Apple +, 2025) 5- Howards End (1992) 6- Howl's Moving Castle (2004) 7- The House with the Clock in it's Walls (2018) 8- House of Sand and Fog (2003) 9- LibroVox app for free audiobooks of books in the public domain 10- Whitehall House and Gardens Book Club - https://www.historicwhitehall.org/whitehall-book-club    

Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich   Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness. https://media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/content.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/88_Occupied_by_Tim_Rich.mp3 This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets Available from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK   Occupied by Tim Rich We buttered the cat's pawsand baked bread in borrowed tinsto make the unfamiliar speak of pleasureand our intentions to remain All that first daythe house talked to itselfabout us Later than I expected, light withdrew across our table, unopened cratesback through thin glasstowards tomorrow So the room released its formand we sat among one anothergiving our ears to the conversation:inner doorways muttering behind flat hands; oak floors—masonic in their black treacle gloss—deciding whether to settleunder our presence Later still, in bed, I stared sideways into an unlit universe, absentlymindwalking the bounds,relocking iron door-bolts like an old rifle, drawingdrawn curtains a little closer,charting the evaporating pathbehind that plane's descent In time, each stray thought went to its home, leaving this accommodation to take place: the air held here sighing gently,like contented tortoise breaths; the softening percussion of bodies sleeping; the punctuating crack and hiss as fresh eggs are brokeninto a smoking pan; someoneopening a window   Interview transcript Mark: Tim, where did this poem come from? Tim: So, almost always for me, poems just emerge out of some sort of inner dusk. I'm not someone that can go to their desk with a plan to write about a particular message or topic or piece of content. The poem just presents itself to me. And actually I don't really have any choice in the matter. I'm sort of just forced to be a transcriber in that moment. And I was looking at the sea the other day, and I had this moment when I just thought my poems are a bit like strange sea creatures that live on the seabed. And at a particular point in their life, they decide that they just want to go to the light and they start floating up through the murky water and explode in bubbles on the surface. And, you know, hopefully I'm there sitting in the poet's boat ready to haul them on board. So, that's almost always how poems start for me. And this poem very much began that way. I was at home on a winter's evening, and it just began to come through me, as it were. And the context for that was that after many years of living in the same house, my wife and I were starting to think about the possibility of moving. And, you know, it was a really exciting prospect but also it definitely was stirring up the sediment of my unconscious. I'm someone that really feels the need for a settled home, a settled place, and this unsettled me. So, I think that that was what was giving the raw energy to the content. And there was something else, which is what informed the scenery of the poem, if you like, which is this idea of light withdrawing from a space and what that does within the space. And when I was 11, I was living just with my dad, and he would come home from work later than I would get home from school. So, for the first year or so, he arranged for me to go to some elderly neighbours on the way home from school. So I was, sort of, watched, and we would sit in their front room, and they would load up their coal fire. And through the windows, the sun would set slowly, and they were so calm. They would hardly speak. When they did speak, it was about these, kind of, wonderful domestic details like, you know, what needs to be chopped for dinner, or are there any windfalls in the garden that we can harvest tomorrow? It was very, very calm. And, you know, the coals in the fire were glowing red, but the rest of the room just lost its light. And I remember the shape of their very heavy old furniture, and the picture frames, and the curtains all began to disappear. And that must have just lodged somewhere deep within me, because that's very much, as the poem came out, where I was also taken to in my mind. Mark: So, I like this. So, I mean, to put it bluntly, it's not like you moved into a house and then you wrote this. You were thinking about moving and then a house emerged from your unconscious, from memories of other houses and so on. Tim: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Mark: And I think that's kind of a salutary thing to hear because… And this is a poem that really you read it and you totally believe it. It feels like a first-hand account of, well, we did this and this is what happened. And yet you're, kind of, pulling the rug from under our feet here, which is a nice thing in poetry. I think that you can't necessarily take it literally or face value. Tim: Well, we moved house… Yeah, we moved house about six months after I wrote the poem. So, I went through the experience of living the poem, which seems to be quite a good way around. Mark: Did you conjure the house, Tim? Tim: Actually, it was wonderful because it confirmed to me part of what motivated the poem, which is that I think we can all become a little bit… I don't know. Complacent seems to be too loaded a term, but we get so used to how our houses speak that we stop hearing them. And actually, there's this kind of wonderful symphony going on the whole time, you know, radiators making those strange percussive noises, and the way that the door squeaks, or suddenly, you know, how your staircase gets to a particular temperature in the middle of the night and decides to squeak. And they're constantly making these noises. And when you're living there, you stop hearing them. But when you move to somewhere for the first time, or sometimes if you go and stay in a haunted Airbnb in the woods, that first night particularly, everything's coming to you fresh. So, I think there's a strong sense of what's it like when a person moves into a space for the first time and that space has a character, and an energy, and a being of its own. Mark: So, really it's that state of heightened awareness, isn't it? You know, apparently this is how the mind works. If you've got a constant stimulus, the mind will tune it out. It's that Heaney line, you know, ‘The refrigerator whinnied into silence,' which is just that moment of… You only hear the fridge when it stops. Tim: Yeah. Mark: And what you're describing is the reverse of that. When you're in the house for the first time and everything is new and you're on hyperalert for the voices of the house. Tim: Yeah. And we're listening to our houses right now because there's a 1066 Line train from Hastings that's just gone into the tunnel over there. But we probably can't quite hear it on the microphones, but it's in the air and it's just touching elements of the house. And we're surrounded by this the whole time. And I think it's important to say, as soon as the poem had laid itself out on the page for the first time, it was clear to me that this poem was about people moving into a home for the first time, but it is also quite a vivid description, I think, of what was going through me at the time in terms of that unsettled nature. You know, I was quite surprised by the nature of the metaphors that my unconscious had presented me with. I mean, it's quite a portrait of anxiety to double-check the curtains, to lock a bolt as if it's an old rifle. You know, this is partly a portrait of an unsettled, anxious mind, which is, I think, something that I was going through at the time. Mark: And you've got some great similes, you know, the iron door bolts like an old rifle. And there's this lovely bit where you talk about ‘drawing drawn curtains'. And if you look on the website, then you can see that there's a line break after drawing, so it's drawing, line break, drawn curtains, which really just emphasises it's already drawn. You don't need to do it. This is the OCD kicking in, which really speaks to that anxiety you're describing. And I really love the second section where you say, ‘All that first day, the house talked to itself about us,' which is just a wonderfully unsettling idea that we are the intruders and the house has an opinion. Tim: Yeah, I definitely wasn't being sort of whimsically mystical about infrastructure and materials. It was definitely the feeling that there is an exchange when animals, human and other, come into a space. There's a change in energies and temperatures and sound and smells. And, you know, the dynamism of creatures come into a space that has been unoccupied, which is what generally most houses are, you know, sometimes for days, sometimes for months, and years before the new occupants come in. And I was just really taken with that idea that the house also needs to find its way of settling under these new occupants. And that seemed like a moment of 24 hours of the two parties eyeing each other and listening to each other and wondering about, ‘Who is this that I need to live with for these next years?' Mark: And it's quite a humbling poem, isn't it? Because, you know, when you think of owning the house or occupying the house, it's like you're the one in charge. But this poem just kind of subverts that idea that it's the house that's weighing us up, as in the people in the poem. It made me think of that TV series David Olusoga does, A House Through Time, where he gets an old house, and he goes through the records, and he looks at all the people who lived in the house and tells their story. And there's quite a lot of them, like, much more than I would have expected. You know, each episode goes on and on and on, and you just realise the house is staying there. The house is constant. These people, they're temporary. They might think they're the owners, but we're just passing through. Tim: We are passing through. It is a reminder of our mortality and our houses often way outlive us. Also, in recent years and decades, there's been an increase in the way in which people work from home, but that isn't a new thing. So, I wrote this poem in the house we lived in before, which was built to be a weaver's cottage, a live/work weaver's cottage. And, you know, they would find their living accommodation in quite modest corners of the house because a lot of it, at different times in the process, was given to equipment and storing material and a very intense version of live/work and working from home. And, you know, I think that part of when people suddenly a whole generation through particularly lockdowns but also just this change in working habits are spending much more of their life within the home quite often and what that means in terms of their relationship to the space and how the house relates to that. Tim: I think, just as I'm speaking, it occurs to me that perhaps also part of the influence of the atmosphere in the poem is around some of the fiction that I enjoy. And I haven't thought about this until we were talking now, but I like an M. R. James novel, or, you know, The Haunting of Hill House has just come to mind, and buildings and atmospheres that speak, as sort of some of the atmospheres you get in a Robert Aickman type horror novel. So, some of the classic British horror novels and that type of fiction. And just as we were talking about that, and I was also casting my eyes down the poem, there's some of the dusk that you get with those places, which is in this poem. And it's great, isn't it, coming back to one of your own poems quite a while after you wrote it, and you perhaps see some of the reasons for its being in a slightly different way. Mark: I mean, that's the basic premise of the haunted house is that the house is alive. I mean, you've not gone full Hammer Horror with this one. It's maybe a little more subtle, but you've definitely got some really wonderfully suggestive details. I loved ‘inner doorways muttering behind / flat hands, oak floors – masonic / in their black treacle gloss'. And that's so true. There are so many of these old houses. It's like, what happens to the wood? How does it get to be like treacle? And there's that heaviness and that opacity about it that you convey really well. Tim: Yeah. I was taken with the idea of the house being almost quite an august figure in some ways. It would be wrong to say it's proud of itself, but deciding whether to settle under our presence is quite… Mark: It's not aiming to please, is it? Tim: It's not. It's not easily won over. I mean, you know… Yeah, let's see what these new occupants are like. You know, what do they get up to? What are their tastes? What do we think of the prints that they put up on the wall? Mark: Yeah. Will they get it? Will they behave themselves? So you've got this lovely line in the third paragraph, ‘So the room released its form / and we sat among one another.' Well, thinking about the form of the poem, how close is this to, say, the first draft when you were hauling the sea creature out from the depths over the side of your poetic boat? Tim: Yeah, when the poem came out onto the page, it actually made a demand of me. It said, ‘I don't want you to put me into very organised type measures. I don't want to be sorted into regular stanzas. And also, I want you to be quite careful about any linguistic bells and whistles.' It just was a bit like the house. It had almost a sort of slightly stern feeling to it as a poem. It was very clear, and it was saying each of these stanzas, or scenes maybe, has to be as long as it wants to be. ‘I don't want you to spend time evening things up or creating consistency.' And there are many other poems that I've written where, of course, I'm deliberately very measured, very consistent. At the moment, a lot of the poems I'm writing have a lot of half rhymes but particularly a lot of internal rhymes. And, goodness, audaciously, you know, I even have a rhyming couplet in a poem that I'm working on at the moment. But this poem just said, ‘I don't want any of that.' Now, that's not to say that there aren't some half rhymes or suggestions of rhymes, and certainly some lovely withholding with words at the end of the line that only resolve as you move through into the next line, the enjambment of the word and the meaning falling over into the next line. Definitely that happens. But I tried to edit this into different shapes. I probably tried it five different ways, and each time it just felt wrong quite quickly actually. I tried to give it a consistent number of lines per stanza, and it repulsed me as a poem. It just said, ‘No, I need to be this free form.' And also, I had to accept that it's probably a little bit messier than I normally feel comfortable with. And it was good. I was like, ‘Actually, you know, just stop fighting. Just stop fighting it.' Sometimes your poems can be more irregular, more free, less obviously organised. And I think it has its rhythms that hold it together. It does for me. And listeners will decide, when they hear it, whether those rhythms are actually holding it together. Mark: Well, for me, it feels a bit like one of those old houses where you go in and there's not a right angle in sight. You know, the floors are sloping. The doors have to be a kind of trapezium to open and close, which I think is obviously true to the spirit of the thing. And it's like the house itself. It's not trying too hard. You can read it quite quickly, and it seems quite plain-spoken and spartan. But when you look, you notice the little details. Like, you know, there's the door bolts like a rifle, and the ‘nasonic', a wonderful adjective. And I've just noticed now, as we were talking, in the final verse, ‘In time, each stray thought / went to its home, leaving this / accommodation to take place'. And that's a lovely reframing of ‘accommodation', because the everyday sense is a place where you go and live, but it's an accommodation in the sense of a mutual alignment, almost like a negotiation or getting used to each other, which I think is really delightful. Mark: Okay, Tim, so I have to ask, looking again at the poem, what on earth is going on with buttering the cat's paws at the beginning? Tim: So, buttering the cat's paws is a bit of folk wisdom. And the idea is that when you move to a new house, if you have a cat or cats, that you actually put lovely, creamy butter on their paws and that they, you know, as cats do, will then spend time licking and licking and licking. And it means that more of their scent is put into the floor and the grounds of the place so they feel at home quicker and sooner. So they're sensing the place much more actively sooner. Now, I don't think there's any scientific evidence to suggest it works. But, you know, if anyone has any experience with this, I would love to hear it. But I don't really care, because the whole image of spreading beautiful, creamy butter onto the paws of the cat and that somehow just inviting them to feel that this place is home is more than enough for me. And I'd heard the phrase years and years and years before. And again, I think it was just the very first phrase that came out as the poem emerged. I think it was opening the doorway to the poem, and it felt very natural for it to be the beginning of the poem. I wonder now, looking back, whether there's something to do with the eye opened with an animal spirit. And so much of this poem really has come up from the unconscious. And I'm not starting with a very measured, conscious human, you know, activity or… I'm not saying, you know, ‘we made the decision to move'. It's not a person-led piece in the sense that, okay, we're doing the buttering, but it's the cat that's front and centre in that open line. And that's not something that I particularly thought about consciously at the time. But looking back, I think there's a hint there that we're not just talking about a straightforward human, rational response to living in a place. There are animal spirits too. Mark: Yeah, and it feels like a wonderful piece of folk magic. I mean, cats are magical creatures like witches' familiars. And, you know, maybe there's a magical aspect to that. It's a little ritual, isn't it? Tim: It is. I had a question for you, but it just came out of part of my experience of this poem going out into the world, which is that I've just been surprised, in a wonderful way, by how diverse and often surprising people's responses are to poems, how I can never really tell what it is about a poem someone's going to pick up and come back to you about. You know, for example, someone has given copies of this poem to friends when they move house. Mark: Oh, lovely. Tim: …as a housewarming present, a printed letterpress, which is very, very beautiful. Someone else said that they really loved sort of, what did they say, the soft absurdity around the house being almost this grand piece. And others have responded in different ways. And I think it's one of the wonders of poetry, maybe something that doesn't get talked about quite so much, which is that we interrogate the meaning for ourselves. And if you work with your editor and sometimes reviewers, meaning is discussed. But actually, my experience, when poems go out into the world, is it's just incredible how broad the range of response is and what people pick up on. And I suddenly think, well, is that just my experience? So what's it like for you? Are you constantly surprised by what people pick up and come back to and focus on with your poems? Mark: Yeah, it's a little bit like a Rorschach test, isn't it? People see themselves in it to a degree, or they see something that will resonate for them. And to me, it's the sign of a real poem if it can do that, if different people see different things in it. If it was too obvious and too, you know, two-dimensional, then that's fine, but it's not really a poem. And I think this is part of the magic of why poems can persist over time. Society is shifting all around them. Maybe a few of the houses are constant, but the poem still inhabits the space, and people still relate to it for decades or hundreds or even thousands of years sometimes. Tim: Yeah, I think there's an important point for poets that you have to maintain your confidence in ambiguity and what might feel like potential confusion. Of course, you need to think through how you're writing it and avoid unintended, poor consequences. But there's also a point in which I think you have to protect some of the messiness of meaning and not try to pin things down too much. Of course, there are different types of poets, and some poets need to be very clear and very message-driven. But I'm thinking, for me, there are sometimes moments when I think, ‘Am I just leaving this hanging and ambiguous and a bit dusky in terms of meaning?' And that's the point at which I think, ‘No, quite often just trust that people will find their own way into the poem.' Mark: Yeah, absolutely. And this is something I've seen a lot in classes, and it certainly happened to me very often. You know, the teacher will say you can cut the last line because we already get it. You don't need to underline the message of the poem. Sometimes we feel a bit nervous just leaving it hanging. And you've absolutely had the confidence to do that with the wonderful ending of this, where you talk about ‘the punctuating crack and hiss / as fresh eggs are broken / into a smoking pan. Someone / opening a window' – and that's it. I mean, tell me about that ending. How did you arrive at that? And did you go back and forth? Did you think, ‘Can I leave that window open, that line?' And by the way, listener, there is no full stop either to hang on to at that point! Tim: Yeah. I have to say, I do find myself clearing away more and more of the furniture of the poems. And there is a very deliberate lack of a full stop there. It was all there in the first draft that came out. It wasn't a constructed or reconstructed ending later on. Again, the poem seemed to want to open into something rather than close itself down and make a point. I think that in the action of the poem, we've moved through this dusky night, including a sort of bout of insomnia, of staring into the darkness. And then morning is coming, and it's full of new things. And there is something about that morning of waking up in a new house. What a moment in someone's life that is. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim: It's just extraordinary. And there's a natural link there into the egg as a symbol. Something new, something is being born. And yeah, there may be many reasons why that window needed to be open. The smoke from the pan is one thing, which is all about the… Mark: Right, right. Setting the smoke alarm off! Tim: Yeah, it goes off in our kitchen quite often. And of course, the cooking is, again, this thing of humans being in a house and occupying it and all of the energy and dynamics. And how are you most going to make a new home your own? You're going to get out and start cooking and making a mess and eating together and getting things moving. I have no idea who the someone is, and I don't know what their motivation is for opening a window. And I like that. Mark: Okay. Well, let's have another listen to the poem and maybe, you know, each of us, as we listen to this this time, just see what associations come up for you. You know, houses you've lived in, places you've been, memories it conjures up. Thank you very much, Tim. What a lovely space to explore with this poem.   Occupied by Tim Rich We buttered the cat's pawsand baked bread in borrowed tinsto make the unfamiliar speak of pleasureand our intentions to remain All that first daythe house talked to itselfabout us Later than I expected, light withdrew across our table, unopened cratesback through thin glasstowards tomorrow So the room released its formand we sat among one anothergiving our ears to the conversation:inner doorways muttering behind flat hands; oak floors—masonic in their black treacle gloss—deciding whether to settleunder our presence Later still, in bed, I stared sideways into an unlit universe, absentlymindwalking the bounds,relocking iron door-bolts like an old rifle, drawingdrawn curtains a little closer,charting the evaporating pathbehind that plane's descent In time, each stray thought went to its home, leaving this accommodation to take place: the air held here sighing gently,like contented tortoise breaths; the softening percussion of bodies sleeping; the punctuating crack and hiss as fresh eggs are brokeninto a smoking pan; someoneopening a window   Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets ‘Occupied' is from Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets, published by Paekakariki Press. Available from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK     Tim Rich Tim Rich grew up in the woods of Sussex and now lives and writes by the sea in Hastings. His poems have been published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets (Paekakariki Press) and Poet Town (Moth Light Press). The Landfall series – exhibited at the Bloomsbury Festival, London — brought together his poetry and photography. He has five poems in the anthology Family Matters, a collection of poetry about family, to be published in 2026. Alongside poetry, Tim writes, edits and ghostwrites books.  timrich.com Photograph by Maxine Silver   A Mouthful of Air – the podcast This is a transcript of an episode of A Mouthful of Air – a poetry podcast hosted by Mark McGuinness. New episodes are released every other Tuesday. You can hear every episode of the podcast via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favourite app. You can have a full transcript of every new episode sent to you via email. The music and soundscapes for the show are created by Javier Weyler. Sound production is by Breaking Waves and visual identity by Irene Hoffman. A Mouthful of Air is produced by The 21st Century Creative, with support from Arts Council England via a National Lottery Project Grant. Listen to the show You can listen and subscribe to A Mouthful of Air on all the main podcast platforms Related Episodes Occupied by Tim Rich Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich  Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness.This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary PoetsAvailable from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK... Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Episode 87 Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold  Mark McGuinness reads and discusses ‘Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold.Poet Matthew ArnoldReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessDover Beach By Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies... Recalling Brigid by Orna Ross Orna Ross reads and discusses ‘Recalling Brigid’ from Poet Town.

Winter is a vibe—and so is the way we read during it.  In this episode, Joe is joined by Cece and Meara to talk all things winter reading vibes, from how mood reading works for us to whether TBRs ever stand a chance. We get honest about DNFing books (when we quit, why we quit, and how we make peace with it) and then wrap things up with book recommendations that feel just right for the colder months—think cozy, atmospheric, emotional, and immersive reads.  If your winter reading life looks nothing like your reading goals… you're in good company.  Looking for the video version of our show? Check out the Libby App YouTube channel!  Book recommendations:  Cece's Picks:  The Boys in the Valley – Philip Fracassi  Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children series – Book 1 Every Heart a Doorway) – Seanan McGuire  The Forgotten Girl – India Hill Brown  Echo After Echo – A.R. Capetta   Meara's Picks:  The Hush – Sara Foster  These Immortal Truths - R. Raeta  These Godly Lies – R. Raeta  Cold - Drew Hayden Taylor  One Dark Window - Rachel Gillig   Joe's Picks:   Strange Pictures - Uketsu  Strange Houses - Uketsu   Bad Dolls – Rachel Harrison   The Writing Retreat – Julia Bartz   Breathe In, Bleed Out – Brian McAuley   The Staircase in the Woods – Chuck Wendig   Idle Grounds - Krystelle Bamford   Old Country by Matt & Harrison Query  The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson   Bochica – Carolina Florez-Cerchiaro   Play Nice – Rachel Harrison   The Apartment Across the Hall – Jack Dane   The Most – Jessica Anthony   The Three of Us – Ore Agbaje-Williams   Who's in this episode:   Cece – Links  Meara - Links  Time stamps:  00:00:00 Title  00:00:23 Intro  00:01:13 Diving into winter vibes & mood reading with Cece & Meara!  00:16:05 Meara's tracker spreadsheet & fixing a reading slump  00:20:33 Do TBRs exist anymore?   00:35:10 How do your reading habits change with the season?  00:38:41 DNF'ing books  00:48:41 Some recommended reads for the vibe  01:05:03 Wrap up and outro  Readers can sample and borrow the titles mentioned in today's episode in Libby. Library friends can add these titles to their digital collections for free in OverDrive Marketplace and Kanopy. Check out our Cumulative List for the whole season, or this list for today's episode!  Looking for more bookish content? Check out the Libby Life Blog!  We hope you enjoy this episode of Book Lounge by Libby. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! You can watch the video version of our show on the Libby App YouTube channel. Keep up with us on social media by following the Libby App on Instagram!   Want to reach out? Send an email to bookloungebylibby@overdrive.com. Want some cool bookish swag? Check out our merch store at: http://plotthreadsshop.com/booklounge!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Episode 2 of 4 in Foul Play's Road Hill House Murder series, covering Victorian England's most notorious family crime. Episode 1 established the Kent family's toxic dynamics and the discovery of three-year-old Francis Saville Kent's body. This episode follows Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher's revolutionary investigation and his tragic downfall at the hands of Victorian class prejudice.On July 16, 1860, a train departed Paddington Station carrying a middle-aged man with a smallpox-scarred face and blue eyes that catalogued every detail. Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher—one of England's first professional detectives—was about to solve the Road Hill House murder in just five days. What he couldn't solve was Victorian society's refusal to believe...Episode SummaryWhen Scotland Yard's finest detective arrived in Wiltshire to investigate the murder of three-year-old Francis Saville Kent, he brought revolutionary investigative techniques that would shape criminal investigation for generations. Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher interviewed witnesses separately, compared their stories for inconsistencies, and built psychological profiles—methods modern detectives would instantly recognize.Within five days, Whicher had identified his suspect: sixteen-year-old Constance Kent, the victim's half-sister. His evidence centered on a missing nightgown—one of three that Constance owned, now mysteriously absent from the household laundry. In an era before DNA analysis or forensic laboratories, Whicher understood that the absence of evidence could itself be evidence. A bloodstained nightgown couldn't be cleaned or hidden—it had to be destroyed.But Whicher faced an obstacle more formidable than any criminal: Victorian class prejudice. He was a gardener's son who had risen through merit. Constance was a "young lady of good breeding." When he arrested her, the public erupted in fury. Newspapers condemned him for persecuting an innocent girl. Her defense attorney, Peter Edlin, transformed the preliminary hearing into a trial of Whicher himself—questioning what kind of man interrogates a teenage girl alone in her bedroom.The magistrates released Constance due to insufficient evidence. Whicher returned to London in disgrace. His career was destroyed, his health broken. He was right about everything—and it cost him everything.Key Case DetailsDetective: Jonathan "Jack" Whicher, Detective Inspector, Scotland YardSuspect: Constance Emily Kent, age 16Victim: Francis Saville Kent, age 3 years 10 monthsLocation: Road Hill House, Road (now Rode), Wiltshire, EnglandTime Period: July 16-27, 1860Key Evidence: Missing nightgown from household laundry recordsOutcome: Constance released; Whicher's career destroyed by class prejudiceThe First Modern DetectiveJonathan Whicher represents a pivotal moment in criminal justice history. Before professional detectives, crime investigation relied on informants, rewards, and confessions obtained through pressure. Whicher pioneered systematic investigation: separate witness interviews, timeline reconstruction, psychological profiling, and the revolutionary concept that physical evidence—or its absence—could tell a story.His techniques at Road Hill House read like a modern investigation manual. He interviewed the household staff individually, noting inconsistencies in their stories. He reconstructed the timeline of the murder night hour by hour. He examined the crime scene for physical evidence. He built a profile of the likely killer based on access, motive, and opportunity.The tragedy is that his brilliance couldn't overcome the social barriers of his era. Victorian society wasn't ready to accept that respectable families could produce murderers—or that a working-class detective could be right about an upper-class suspect.Victorian True Crime ContextThe Road Hill House case exposed fundamental tensions in Victorian society. The emerging professional police force—Scotland Yard was barely thirty years old in 1860—represented a threat to traditional class hierarchies. When Whicher accused Constance Kent, he wasn't just accusing a girl of murder. He was claiming that a working-class detective could penetrate the secrets of respectable families and judge their daughters.The public backlash was immediate and fierce. Newspapers that had demanded answers now demanded Whicher's resignation. The same society that was horrified by Francis's murder was more horrified by the suggestion that his killer came from within his own family.Historical Context & SourcesWe highly recommend Kate Summerscale's acclaimed 2008 book "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective," which provides the most comprehensive modern analysis of the case. Additional details come from contemporary newspaper accounts in The Times and Morning Post, trial transcripts from the National Archives, and Victorian police records documenting Whicher's investigative methods.Resources & Further ReadingKate Summerscale, "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher" (2008)The National Archives (UK) - Victorian Crime and Punishment RecordsBritish Newspaper Archive - Contemporary coverage 1860Related Media:"The Suspicions of Mr Whicher" (2011 TV film starring Paddy Considine)Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/foul-play-crime-series/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We're Southbound for monster-loving this week on Talking Scared.  Georgia writer, Yah Yah Schofield comes to discuss her Southern Gothic debut, On Sundays She Picked Flowers – a story of monsters, spirits, swamps, and generational trauma. There's a very bad mama and a very haunted house.   Yah Yah and I talk about mother-daughter relationships, the difference between ghosts and haints, the influence of elders, and why the rules are different for Black ‘weird girls.'   Plus, in Yah Yah's own words – we discuss tongue-kissing monsters.   Enjoy!   Other books mentioned: The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson Haints: American Ghosts, Millennial Passions and Contemporary Gothic Fictions (2011), by Arthur Redding The Colour Purple (1982), by Alice Walker Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison Sula (1978), by Toni Morrison In the Dream House: A Memoir (2019), by Carmen Maria Machado The Lamb (2025), by Lucy Rose We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (2022), by Paula D. Ashe Between Two Fires (2012), by Christopher Buehlman Support Talking Scared on Patreon   Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch   Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season 37, Episode 1 of 4This is the first episode in Foul Play's four-part investigation into Victorian England's most notorious family murder and the case that birthed modern detective fiction.Elizabeth Gough checked Francis Saville Kent's cot at five in the morning on June 30, 1860. The blankets were gone. The three-year-old was gone. And somewhere in Road Hill House, someone who knew exactly what had happened was waiting for the search to begin—On the last night of June 1860, three-year-old Francis Saville Kent was lifted from his nursery bed in the family's Wiltshire mansion. Hours later, a servant discovered his small body in the outdoor privy, his throat cut nearly to the spine.The killer came from inside the house. That much was immediately certain. But who among the nine people sleeping at Road Hill House that night would murder a child? And why?This episode traces the fractured Kent family—a household divided between a tyrannical father's first marriage and second, where teenage Constance and her brother William existed as ghosts in their own home while their half-brother Francis received everything they'd been denied. We witness the horror of discovery morning, the bungled local investigation, and the arrival of Detective Inspector Jonathan "Jack" Whicher from Scotland Yard—a working-class detective about to walk into a class warfare trap that would destroy him.Some walls don't protect families. They hide what families are capable of doing to themselves.Key Case DetailsVictim: Francis Saville Kent, age 3 years and 10 months, murdered June 29-30, 1860Location: Road Hill House, village of Road (now Rode), Wiltshire, EnglandCrime: The boy was taken from his nursery bed between midnight and five in the morning, carried through the dark house, and murdered in the outdoor privy. His throat was slashed from ear to ear with a razor or knife, cutting nearly to the spine. His body was stuffed into the privy vault and hidden among waste.Initial Investigation: Local police focused on servants and outsiders, refusing to suspect the respectable Kent family. Critical evidence—including a bloodstained nightgown belonging to sixteen-year-old half-sister Constance Kent—was destroyed by her father with police cooperation. The inquest returned "willful murder by person or persons unknown."Scotland Yard Intervention: Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher arrived July 16, 1860, and within five days identified Constance Kent as his primary suspect—the first time in English history a young lady from a respectable family faced formal murder charges.Section 4: The Victim - Francis Saville KentFrancis Saville Kent deserves to be remembered as more than a murder victim. He was three years and ten months old—dark-haired, curious, his father's favorite child. He collected smooth stones from the garden and named them after colors. He asked endless questions about where stars came from and why dogs didn't talk. He had a stuffed rabbit he couldn't sleep without and an imaginary pack of dogs that followed him everywhere.He was learning to count but always skipped the number nine. He negotiated extra bedtime stories with remarkable persistence for a toddler. He called his half-sister Constance "Tannie" because he couldn't pronounce her name.He was three years old. Someone murdered him anyway.Section 5: Victorian True Crime ContextVictorian England in 1860 was obsessed with respectability. Gas lamps flickered in drawing rooms across the countryside while servants moved silently through service corridors. Behind heavy curtains and locked doors, families performed daily rituals of propriety—morning prayers, afternoon tea, church attendance every Sunday.The outside world saw polished brass door knockers and manicured gardens. Inside, secrets festered.The Road Hill House case shattered Victorian assumptions about where crime originated. Respectable families didn't produce murderers. Young ladies of good breeding didn't commit violence. Working-class detectives couldn't accuse gentlemen's daughters.These assumptions would destroy Detective Inspector Whicher's career—and let a killer walk free for five more years.Section 6: Historical Context & SourcesThe Road Hill House Murder became Victorian England's most notorious domestic crime and directly inspired the birth of detective fiction. Wilkie Collins used case details when writing The Moonstone (1868), widely considered the first modern detective novel. Charles Dickens followed the investigation closely and incorporated elements into his final, unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood.Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher's methods—systematic crime scene analysis, methodical witness interviews, evidence-based deduction regardless of social class—represented revolutionary policing. His destruction by class prejudice exposed how Victorian justice protected the respectable while prosecuting the poor.Primary Source: Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008) provides the most comprehensive modern account, drawing on original trial transcripts, contemporary newspaper coverage, and National Archives documents.Content Advisory: This episode contains clinical description of violence against a child, consistent with documented historical records.Section 6A: Resources & Further ReadingThe Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (2008) - Definitive modern account of the caseCruelly Murdered by Bernard Taylor (1979) - Alternative analysis exploring brother William's potential involvementThe Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) - Detective fiction directly inspired by the Road Hill House investigationThe National Archives (UK) maintains original trial transcripts and investigation documents from 1860-1865Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/foul-play-crime-series/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Send us a textA group of young friends inadvertently resurrect a seemingly invisible evil. They must battle zombies craving brains during a zombie outbreak at a drag show, putting personal conflicts aside to utilize their distinct inabilities against the undead threat. On Episode 701 of Trick or Treat Radio we wrap up 2025 with our final December Double Feature Cram Jam! We discuss the films Queens of the Dead and The Wailing (2025). We also talk about following in the footsteps of a famous parent, react to trailers for the films Psycho Killer and Kraken, and talk about the always fun topic of generational trauma! So grab your 2026 calendar to mark off all the important dates, make yourself scrumptious, and strap on for the world's most dangerous podcast!Stuff we talk about: Final show of 2025, over the hill assholes, the future is looking meh, The Bride, Ready or Not: Here I Come, horror lovers dream, the 2026 dip, Bugonia, The Mastermind, The Brutalist, Leprechaun Back to the Hood, Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader, Caity Lotz, The Alphabet Killer, Buffy, Skinwalkers, The Grudge, The Stepford Wives, The Unborn, Sophie Ward, The Hunger, Waxwork II: Lost in Time, Bad Dreams, The Craft, Kelli Maroney, The Evil Dead, Ellen Sandweiss, Lloyd Kaufman, Troma, Slither, Hatchet II, Superman, Fred Ward, Tremors, Cannibal Girls, Damien, Jack Riley, War of the Gargantuas, Haunting of Hill House, Joe Balogna, Transylvania 6-5000, Amityville Horror, Flatliners, Eyes of a Stranger, The Final Countdown, Nightmare Beach, The Manitou, Psycho, Carmen Diego, Diary of a Madman, the million dollar banana, Smallville, Severance, 8mm, Joaquin Phoenix, Mel Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, Younger Frankenstein, Kraken, Psycho Killer, Georgina Campbell, Norwegian monster flicks, Norwegian Wood, Ben DiBanana & Phil McKraken, Leaf Phoenix, Collision Course, Queens of the Dead, Tina Romero, Katy O'Brian, Gaylen Ross, Jack Haven, Margaret Cho, Studio 666, Blitz/Berlin, good tax breaks in Bumf*ck Arkansas, The Wailing, Pedro Martin-Calero, Host, Al Bundy, it's always cocktober, Top 5 Excuses, confusing days, back off I'm a podcaster, happen in the kraken, Bootality Films, and the slippery slope tight rope.Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/trickortreatradioJoin our Discord Community: discord.trickortreatradio.comSend Email/Voicemail: mailto:podcast@trickortreatradio.comVisit our website: http://trickortreatradio.comStart your own podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=386Use our Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2CTdZzKFB Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/trickortreatradioTwitter: http://twitter.com/TrickTreatRadioFacebook: http://facebook.com/TrickOrTreatRadioYouTube: http://youtube.com/TrickOrTreatRadioInstagram: http://instagram.com/TrickorTreatRadioSupport the show

Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963) is often hailed as one of the greatest haunted house films ever made - but does it still hold up today? In this review, Chris and Gerry take a deep dive into this chilling Psychological horror classic, exploring its atmosphere, sound design, performances, and the subtle terors that make it unforgettable. We'll discuss how The Haunting uses suggesion over spectacle, why Hill House remains one of cinema's most terrifying locations, and how the film influenced generations of horror filmmakers. If you're a fan of classic horror, gothic cinema, or intelligent slow-burn scares, this review is for you.

Mike Flanagan knows horror. Any fan of the genre will tell you that he's one of the most exciting directors working today, creating haunting and uniquely terrifying films like "Oculus," "Gerald's Game," and "Doctor Sleep," not to mention his many Netflix series, including "The Haunting of Hill House" and "The Fall of the House of Usher." His latest film, "The Life of Chuck," may therefore seem like a bit of a departure. It doesn't explicitly aim to scare viewers in the ways that they might expect from a Flanagan production. But as the filmmaker himself would explain, it's a logical continuation of the kinds of stories he likes to explore. Namely, it concerns itself with big thematic topics, like the impact of one person on others and the peculiarities of living a finite existence. It's a moving, expansive film that has the capacity to horrify, stun, and affect its audience just as much as anything he's made before, even if it has no broken-neck ghosts or bathtub-dwelling ghouls. Mike Flanagan was kind enough to spend some time speaking with us about the details of how the Stephen King story that inspired the film came to him at exactly the right time. He also talks about the differences and similarities of telling stories on TV and film, what it's like to adapt King's work, and how he came to work with his son for the very first time. You can listen to this interview below. Please be sure to check out the film, which is now available to rent and own through NEON and is up for your consideration at this year's Academy Awards in all eligible categories. Check out more on NextBestPicture.com Please subscribe on... Apple Podcasts - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/negs-best-film-podcast/id1087678387?mt=2 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7IMIzpYehTqeUa1d9EC4jT YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWA7KiotcWmHiYYy6wJqwOw And be sure to help support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month at https://www.patreon.com/NextBestPicture and listen to this podcast ad-free Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What were the BEST fantasy, sci-fi, and horror experiences of 2025?In this episode of Fantasy for the Ages, Zach & Jim each reveal their Top 5 content experiences from five different categories, giving you a ranked list of 25 must-read and must-watch picks that defined our year in speculative fiction.We're covering:•

Burnt Offerings (1976) is one of the most unsettling haunted house films of the 1970s and one of the most underrated. Starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, and Burgess Meredith, this slow-burn psychological horror follows a family whose summer rental house may be feeding on them in terrifying ways. In this review, we explore Burnt Offerings' chilling atmosphere, Haunted performances, and disturbing themes of possession, sacrifice, and domestic decay. Often compared to The Shining and Haunting of Hill House, this film quietly builds dread until its unforgettable finale. Is Burnt Offerings a hidden gem of classic horror, of simply a curious relic of 1970s cinema? Chris and Gerry step inside the house and see what it takes in return.

2025 has come to an end, so that means it's time to break down our standout reads of the year. I am joined by my friend, fellow podcaster and reviewer, Anna Dupre of the Anna Rose Reads Podcast. This was a year full of cannibalism, sweeping historicals, and weird little horny books, so a great year! Books Mentioned: Short Story Collections/ Anthologies Teenage Girls Can Be Demons by Hailey Piper Mystery Lights by Lena Valencia You Glow in the Dark by Liliana Colanzi (translated by Chris Andrews) The Poorly Made and Other Things by Sam Rebelein Oddbody by Rose Keating PUNK goes HORROR: A Mixtape Anthology edited by William Sterling It's the End of the World As We Know It: New Tales from Stephen King's Stand edited by Brian Keene and Christopher Golden Graphic Novels A Guest in the House by E.M. Carroll Saint Catherine by Anna Meyer Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Hogarth Young Adult Horror Showstopper by Lily Anderson Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins The Overnight (#3) by RL Stine Middle Grade Horror Ride or Die by Delilah S. Dawson  Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave by Ally Russell Another by Paul Tremblay Broken Dolls by Ally Malinenko Non-Fiction Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread by Layla Taylor There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib Scream With Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism by Eleanor Johnson The Midcentury Kitchen: America's Favorite Room, from Workspace to Dreamscape, 1940s-1970s by Sarah Archer Non-Horror Blob : A Love Story by Maggies Su The Favorites by Layne Fargo The Wedding People by Allison Espach Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan Horror Novella Spread Me by Sarah Gailley The Film You Are About to See by Hailey Newlin Horror Debut Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker The Lamb by Lucy Rose  House of Beth by Kerry Cullen  Good Boy by Neil McRobert    Horror Novel Blood On Her Tongue by Johanna Van Veen Immaculate Conception by LIng Ling Huang When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle Play Nice by Rachel Harrison  Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones Of Flesh and Blood: The Untold Story of the Cajun Cannibal by NL Lavin and Hunter Burke Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi Demeester What Hunger by Catherine Dang Itch! By Gemma Amor The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson King Sorrow by Joe Hill Final Girl Song Check out the final girl songs here! Support Books in the Freezer on Patreon to get access to the series, The House at the End of Fear Street, early episodes, polls and more

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; the latter a piercing fictionalised memoir of abuse and haunted relationships.   This was a daunting interview – we went deep into life, love and all the horrors they can bring. But we came up smiling.   It's a happy memory.   Enjoy.   The Argonauts (2015), by Maggie Nelson The Ghost Variations (2021), by Kevin Brockmeier A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade (2014), by Kevin Brockmeier Proxies: Essays Near Knowing (2016), by Brian Blanchfield Monster Portraits (2018), by Sofia Samatar The Hot Zone (1994), by Richard Preston The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson The Bloody Chamber (1979), by Angela Carter   Support Talking Scared on Patreon   Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch   Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we are sharing an episode from a show called The Antiquarium Of Sinister Happenings Step into a mysterious shop, where every relic has a sordid tale to tell! The Antiquarium Of Sinister Happenings is a weekly multi-award winning full cast horror anthology featuring Mike Flanagan,Kate Siegel, David Dastmalchian, Devon Sawa,Jocelin Donahue and more.Immerse yourself as the darkness is brought to life through interactive elements and by uncovering hidden secrets in the stories themselves with the use of a cipher decoder ring! In this episode called Lot 001 : I Was The Hitchhiker which features Kate Siegel and Josh Ruben A mysterious man with a dark secret gets the ride of his life. You can Find The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts AND at theobsidiancovenant.comIntroduction and outro by Lowri Anne Davies. Cast Stars Kate Siegel (Hush, The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass) and Josh Ruben (Werewolves Within, A Wounded Fawn)Featuring Stephen Knowles as The Antique Dealer. Written by Moe T.Theme music by The Newton Brothers. Additional music:On Entering The 9th Circle by Brian Holtz MusicFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9269-on-entering-the-9th-circleLicense: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)Lightless Dawn by Kevin MacLeodFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3982-lightless-dawnLicense: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)Investigate (Loopable) by Dave DevilleFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/10777-investigate-loopableLicense: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)An Evil Wynd by Tim KuligFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9830-an-evil-wyndLicense: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)Ingestion Of Sorrows by Tim KuligFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9828-ingestion-of-sorrowsLicense: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)Carne Arrabiatta by Tim KuligFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9826-carne-arrabiattaLicense: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Content Warnings:Being Hunted Physical Violence Altered reality Immolation Body modification SFX Misophonia, Insects, Squelching. For ad-free episodes, bonus content and the latest news from Rusty Towers, join members.rustyquill.com or our Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Danika recommends short horror books you can read cover to cover on Halloween night! Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. Ready for a cozy, bookish autumn? Let Tailored Book Recommendations help you find your next favorite read with handpicked suggestions from professional book nerds. Get started today from just $18! Books Discussed: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado When I Arrived at the Castle by E. M. Carroll Through the Woods by E. M. Carroll The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado, DaNi, and Tamra Bonvillain Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey, Pius Bak, and Roman Titov House of Beth by Kerry Cullen This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

May October never end! As Halloween approaches, we present you with two conversations from years past with great horror authors. Joe Hill, whose latest, "King Sorrow," is out now, recommends several great spooky reads. And Victor LaValle ("Lone Women") talks about the book he has read the most in his life: Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House." Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.