The Dark Mind Podcast

Taylor Grothe joins The Dark Mind Podcast to talk about Lethal Kiss, their sapphic dark academia horror romance from Tor Nightfire. We get into why a university is the perfect hunting ground for a monster trying to stay hidden and a mortal just trying to survive. Taylor shares what the rat race of tenure at Duke taught them, and how a real professor inspired one of the book's most unsettling m...

Horror author Mathilda Zeller joins The Dark Mind Podcast to talk about her novel It Looks Like You in the Dark, out October 13, 2026, from Tor Nightfire. The book expands "Kushtuka," the story that opened the anthology Never Whistle at Night, into a full novel set in the Inupiat village of Chukchi in Alaska's Kobuk River Valley. Mathilda shares the frightening stories her grandfather told her whi...

What happens to a haunting when the most famous haunted house in America is finally torn down? Two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author Robert P. Ottone joins The Dark Mind Podcast to talk about his new novel, Amityville Awakens, out October 6 from CLASH Books. Robert shares how his father, an overnight radio DJ on Long Island, was on the air the night the DeFeo murders came across the teletype....

On this episode of The Dark Mind Podcast, horror author and investigative reporter Marc E. Fitch joins me to discuss his new short story collection, There Was No One There. We talk about the capacity for evil hidden inside ordinary people and why Marc believes a scare lasts a moment, while horror comes home with you. Marc shares the real-life experiences behind his stories, from a frightening mome...

Chris Panatier returns to The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss his new novel Worry Box, out September 22 from Angry Robot. The book follows the Martin family as they move into a new home while preparing to adopt their foster daughter, Lailah. Troubled by increasingly violent intrusive thoughts, Lailah writes them down and hides them inside a homemade worry box, hoping to quiet her mind. When disturbin...

Megan Mostyn-Brown joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss her debut horror novel, The Need. The novel follows a family living with a rare genetic disorder that requires those who inherit it to consume human flesh or die. Megan explores how this gruesome compulsion becomes a source of shame and survival for one family but a symbol of privilege and power for another. Our conversation examines cannib...

Extreme horror author, audiobook narrator, and Sadistic Force musician James Oliver joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss Debilitator: A Collection of Wretchedness. His first short story collection combines eight stories and a poem, connecting new material with characters and events from his earlier books. James discusses using graphic violence, bodily disgust, sexual transgression, and dark come...

Author Mike Salt joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss his psychological horror novel No One Was Ever Really in This Place. The story follows Felix, a man struggling with anxiety, depression, and invisibility who awakens to find his city completely empty. Mike discusses building an artificial and unsettling world, blending psychological horror with cosmic dread, and writing about isolation withou...

EPISODE DESCRIPTION Author Alex Grass joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss Infernal Tramps: Tales of Weird Terror, a collection held together by an intuitive cadence and a recurring uncertainty about what is real. Grass examines the unexpected connections between vanity, hunger, greed, corporate power, bodily transformation, and monstrous behavior. The conversation explores The Golden Mile, in w...

A.P. Thayer joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss his debut horror novel, Tapeworm. Set in the isolated California desert, the novel combines parasitic vampires, body horror, sexual tension, and the unraveling of longtime friendships. Thayer discusses the real writing retreat that inspired the story and his decision to replace traditional gothic vampires with something stranger, sexier, and more...

Author Lauren Lee Smith joins The Dark Mind to discuss her debut novel, The Night Pool. Set in Gold Rush-era Coloma, California, the novel follows three women confronting human brutality, supernatural forces, and the histories buried beneath the mythology of the American West. Lauren discusses transforming the land itself into a source of possession horror and using monsters as vessels for grief,...

Kailee Pedersen returns to discuss her new psychological novel, The Minimalist. The story follows gifted composer Mia Voss as she inherits her late mentor’s unfinished final composition and confronts the destructive legacy surrounding it. Kailee explores how classical music, repetition, perfectionism, and artistic scrutiny shaped the novel’s structure and psychological intensity. We also discuss A...

T. R. Napper returns to The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss his new collection, This Machine Kills Billionaires. Anchored by the award-winning novella The Hidden God, the collection explores artificial intelligence, concentrated wealth, corporate power, inequality, and the dangers of allowing oligarchs to control transformative technology. Napper discusses the possibility of AI becoming a new religio...

Boris Bacic returns to the show to discuss his new psychological horror novel, The Thing That Followed You Home. Three years after his wife Ava dies following a trip to the Appalachians, Ethan tells himself the sleepless nights and the feeling of being watched are just part of grief. Then the signs inside the house become harder to explain. Typing comes from Ava's locked office. Fingerprints appea...

Jeff Strand joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss his new novel, Fun Times at the Bloodbath. The book follows Margo, whose brother dies during the beta test of a video game so addictive that players stop eating, sleeping, and caring about anything outside the screen. When anyone tries to make them stop, the obsession turns murderously violent, and the private addiction soon threatens to become a...

In this episode, Vincent Midgard sits down with horror author Michael Boulerice to discuss his novella Inhalation. Michael talks about writing the book as a tribute to his late father-in-law and how hospice, cancer, autonomy, and grief shaped the heart of the story. The conversation explores the abandoned New England house at the center of the book, Catholic guilt, corrupted faith, family trauma,...

On this episode, philosopher and author Charlene Elsby joins the show to discuss her novel Poor Damned Souls. The book follows a nameless narrator who works behind the glass at a payday loan business called The Money Store and lives with her partner, Scott. When she begins to suspect Scott is cheating, she investigates and uncovers something far worse than another woman. Rather than running, she i...

Cleo Ballard joins the show to discuss her new psychological thriller, This Is a Lie. The novel follows Penn, a former PhD candidate who traded her dissertation for a curated suburban life that detonates when her marriage, friendships, and her teenage daughter's trust all collapse. In the wreckage, Penn returns to her abandoned work and builds Aletheia, an AI designed to detect lies and tell only...

Mark Mustian joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss his newest novel, Boy With Wings. The book follows Johnny Cruel, a boy born different in a world desperate to call him angel, devil, freak, miracle, or monster. Together, we explore Southern Gothic fiction, literal wings, freak shows, turpentine camps, Jim Crow racism, religious fear, and the brutal cost of being seen as spectacle before being un...

CJ Leede joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss her new novel Headlights, a slow burn supernatural thriller set in the high country of Colorado. We explore serial murder by proxy, violence as a contagious force, and the terrifying loss of control at the center of the story. CJ talks about grief, death, trauma, home, and why Headlights became one of her most hopeful books. The conversation moves th...

Brian Sepanzyk joins the show to discuss his short film Defile and the way empathy can curdle into survival horror. The conversation explores remote cabin dread, moral gray zones, relationship collapse, and the fear that begins when your alarm bells go off too late. Brian talks about building unease before violence, using the woods as a boundary between the ordinary and the monstrous, and deciding...

In this episode, Vincent sits down with author Ben Young to discuss his new novel Ride the Spiral. Ben talks about turning real life grief, parenting struggles, and the search for answers into cosmic horror. The conversation explores neurodivergence, desperation, mental health, string theory, absurdism, and the terror of not being able to fix the people you love. Ben also discusses the influence o...

Kathleen Rhodes joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss her new novel Vampire Missionaries. We talk about Mormon missionaries, vampires, religious pressure, dark comedy, and the horror of questioning what you were raised to believe. Kathleen also shares how her background in psychiatric mental health shaped the way she writes trauma, identity, resilience, and characters at their rawest. We also dis...

Ian Domowitz joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss Initial Condition, the third novella in his dark fantasy series The Mechanic’s Diary. The conversation explores Hanzi Boss, a being bred through a 16th century alchemical recipe and taught language like a machine learning to speak. Ian and Vincent dig into golems, homunculi, Jewish mysticism, artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the terrif...

Erin Louis joins The Dark Mind Podcast to discuss her grounded horror thriller There's No Grave Like Home. The novel follows Georgia, a former exotic dancer in her mid-forties forced to return to the rural hometown she fled decades ago after inheriting her estranged father's house. Erin opens up about how growing up as an outsider in a small town shaped the antagonists and the atmosphere of the bo...