Catching Up with The Scares That Shaped Us
Turns out when you commit to a massive essay project that consumes your entire brain for the month of October you have a little trouble keeping up with other things. You might have noticed November was a slow month around here, because I was tuckered out and the holidays were coming and, well, because Stuff happened. You know about Stuff? It gets everywhere.
Anyway, December will be different around here. You can expect more posts, beginning right here with a quick catchup on The Scares That Shaped Us. The newsletter slowed down, but the podcast did not, so here's what we've been up to the last few weeks.
Our second episode of November saw a visit from multi-time Stoker winner Jonathan Maberry, who talked about his latest work and the influence of Richard Matheon's I Am Legend on his life and career. Jonathan actually knew Matheson, and received his first copy of the book from the author himself, so there are some great stories in here.
A week after that, we hung out with Jess Hagemann, a Texas author who wrote one of the best horror novels of 2025: Mother-Eating: A Documentary. In one of our more unconventional episodes, Jess chose three short films by legendary surrealist Jan Svankmajer, and it was quite a trip.
And right before Thanksgiving, Chris Panatier joined the show to talk about his latest book, Shitshow, and the one-two punch of Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Chris was great, we talked about metal and Texas lore. Plus he's a longtime listener, so he fit right in around here.
That, I think, brings us up to speed. Check back later this week for a longer post on something fun.
