In Episode 26, author Mar Romasco-Moore talks about their love for the cult classic Disney film, Return to Oz and how it influenced their latest young adult novel, Deadstream. This is one of our favorite films EVER, and if you haven’t seen it, you absolutely must. It’s got Dorothy Gale escaping a psychiatric hospital, a talking chicken side-kick, the Emerald City in ruins, a headless princess with nefarious intentions, and a king made of stone who REALLY loves Dorothy’s infamous ruby slippers. We explore the whys and hows of the making of this film and the repercussions of its possibly unintentional horrors on unsuspecting young viewers, like us. 

Mar Romasco-Moore is also the author of the novels I Am the Ghost in Your House, Krazyland, Some Kind of Animal, and Ghostographs: An Album. Their new book, Deadstream, hit shelves on April 1st, 2025. 

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE by visiting danpoblocki.com.

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

Bestselling author, Grady Hendrix, joins Our First Fears for Episode 25 to talk about growing up as a cold-war kid, terrorized by constant reports in the 1980s of threats of a nuclear strike. He found strange solace in certain books and movies at that time, specifically Warday, The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun, Special Bulletin, and Threads. We chat about these titles and others, along with the primal places in pop-culture from where these stories may have burst, as well as how young people process The News, which, more and more, feels like its own horror subgenre. 

Grady Hendrix is the Stoker Award winning author of Horrorstör, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, We Sold Our Souls, The Final Girl Support Group, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, How to Sell a Haunted House, and more. His non-fiction collaboration with Will Errickson, Paperbacks from Hell, is a history of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and 80s. His latest novel, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, came out in January of 2025.

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE by visiting danpoblocki.com.

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

Episode 24 of Our First Fears has creepy middle-grade author, Lorien Lawrence chatting with Dan about Ed and Lorraine Warren, the real life “ghost hunters” who were played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in James Wan’s 2013 film THE CONJURING and its many sequels and offshoots. Lorien’s childhood experiences growing up near the Warrens’ infamous Connecticut home has inspired her own work about a ghost-hunting family, and the stories she shares about living in their shared hometown provide insight into a possible darkness hiding underneath the wholesome image that the Warrens built up for themselves in the media over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century. 

Lorien Lawrence is the author the middle-grade Frightwatch series, which includes the novels The Stitchers, The Collectors, and Unmasked. Her latest book, The Many Hauntings of the Manning Family, is out March 18th, 2025. Horror-master Stephen King had this to say about The Stitchers: “The chills come guaranteed!” Find all of Lorien’s books now at your favorite local bookshop.

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE by visiting danpoblocki.com.

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

In this bonus episode, your host, Dan Poblocki, reads another creepy story, this time from his recent novel MORE Tales to Keep You Up at Night, and talks again about the story’s origins. “Imogen’s Skeleton,” is about a shy girl named Imogen who realizes that she may have a few things in common with the model anatomy skeleton that hangs at the back of her middle school classroom. But when she pushes back at the bullies in her life, and in her own home, both Imogen and the classroom skeleton go through some changes . . . together. Read with permission from Penguin Random House LLC. 

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected]. 

In Episode 23, author Jeramey Kraatz joins Our First Fears to chat about urban legends. If you’re intrigued by tales of killers lurking at lover’s lanes, weirdos hiding under beds who like licking your hand in the middle of the night, creepy calls that come from inside the house, as well as creepypastas and terrifying memes, this episode is sure to send the right kind of shivers up your spine. 

Jeramey Kraatz is the author of The Cloak Society, Space Runners, and the new graphic novel I Witnessed: The Lizzie Borden Story. He also writes English dub scripts for anime franchises, including My Hero Academia. He lives in Dallas, TX.  Find all his books now at your favorite local bookshop.

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

In this bonus episode, Dan reads a chilling and chilly story from his novel Tales to Keep You Up at Night, and talks a bit about the story's origins. “The Psychopath’s Tarot,” is about a trio of teenage friends who trek to a wintery cabin in the middle of nowhere for a weekend of fun and relaxation. But when one of them discovers a strange deck of cards that appears to foretell a frightening fate for the friends, the idea of fun and relaxation soon evaporates like the steam over their quickly cooling mugs of hot chocolate.  

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

Episode 22 of Our First Fears brings you author Sam Rebelein, whose fear of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride runs through his veins, deeper than he even knows. We talk about the creepiness of the Hudson Valley in New York State, where we both live, and how our hometowns have influenced both of us, as well as the Disney artists who went looking for haunted places and found them among the architecture and ruins along the Hudson River.

Sam Rebelein is the author of the novel Edenville, as well as the new story collection, The Poorly Made and Other Things, both of which are set in his own fictionalized version of an upstate New York County called Renfield.  

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

In Episode 21, celebrated author, Adrianna Cuevas, joins Our First Fears to chat about “The Raft” segment from the 1987 anthology film, Creepshow 2. If you’re intrigued by body horror, questions of morality in scary stories, the science of decomposition, and badly behaved teenage boys getting what they deserve, this one is for YOU.

Adrianna Cuevas is the author the middle-grade novels, The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez (an ALA Pura Belpre Honor title), The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto (which won the Edgar Award), The No-Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition (currently long-listed for the Bram Stoker Award), and the soon to be released, What Fell From the Sky, along with many more. She lives in Texas, with her family. Find all her books now at your favorite local bookshop . . .

Dan Poblocki is the bestselling author of the recent novels Tales to Keep You Up at Night and More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, along with Ghost Hunter’s Daughter, Liars’ Room, The Stone Child, The Nightmarys and others. His picture book with James Rey Sanchez, My Brother’s Butt is Haunted, is arriving July 29th, 2025 from Penguin Workshop. Pre-order your copy RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on Instagram @ourfirstfears & @danpoblox and Bluesky @danpoblock.bsky.social. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

Episode 20 of Our First Fears brings to you horror-author and all-around super-star, Clay McLeod Chapman, as we chat about how he discovered Jason Vorhees as a kid. 

YES, we’re finally tackling the 1980 slasher classic, Friday the 13th! 

Together, Clay and I wonder if Camp Crystal Lake is a kind of metaphor for America. I get to posit my theory that there are TWO killers in the film, while Clay shoots that idea right back down . . . LOL.

We also talk about Clay’s freaky-as-hell new novel, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, as well as what makes a horror story “distinctly American.” It’s a fun talk. Subscribe, download, and hit play already, gee-whiz...

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears. And feel free to reach out at [email protected]. Also, check out my own socials - @danpoblox on Instagram & @danpoblocki.bsky.social. 

Episode 19 – Author Eliot Schrefer joins us to talk about James Cameron’s 1986 action/ horror classic, Aliens, which is the sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien from 1979. We get into themes of motherhood, survival, isolation, and kick-ass female action heroes, as well as how, as kids, we reacted to the grotesque images of body horror on screen, and then, how we asked questions about what, and who, is a monster. 

Eliot is a two time finalist for the National Book Award for his great ape quartet, as well as an ALA Printz honor recipient for Queer Ducks (And Other Animals). His recent novels, The Darkness Outside Us and The Brightness Between Us, are available now. Find his many, many books now at your favorite local bookshop.

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media @ourfirstfears. And feel free to reach out at [email protected]. Also, check out my own socials -  @danpoblox on Instagram and @danpoblocki on Twitter/X.

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