Our First Fears

On episode 9 of Our First Fears, Bram Stoker Award Finalist, Lora Senf and I explore childhood memories of our early love for John Bellairs’s classic novel, The House With a Clock in its Walls, how this book inspired us to tell our own kinds of stories, why Bellairs’s work has sparked a modern cult following, and how writing horror - for kids in particular - is a powerful kind of magic. 

Lora’s first book, The Clackity, is a must for kids and adults, both, who like their scares with heaps of heart and hope. That first one is available now in paperback, and its sequel, The Nighthouse Keeper, comes out on October 17th, 2023. You won't want to miss it! I promise. 

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 on Twitter/X. 

Today, rockstar author Lamar Giles joins me to explore one of the most notorious neighborhoods in all of horror cinema. Elm Street! With this episode, we've begun Our First Fears's first discussion of Wes Craven's classic film series, but with the second sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

Wait . . . What?

We talk about how we both came to discover the lore of Freddy Krueger long after the first film came out, about the horrors of working in video rental shops, and about what it means to have a supportive crew while navigating difficult aspects of adolescence. Lamar’s expertise about these films makes this chat an absolute necessary listen for any true fans of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Seriously. The man knows his finger-blades.

Lamar Giles’s highly acclaimed work includes the novels The Getaway, Not So Pure and Simple, Spin, Overturned, Endangered, Fake ID, the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County series, as well as Epic Ellisons: Cosmos Camp (NOT Cosmic Camp, as I incorrectly call it in the intro) and finally, the upcoming graphic novel Static: Up All Night from DC Comics, with art by Paris Alleyne. Go buy all of his books at your favorite local bookshop, like, right now!

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 on Twitter/X. 

(Content Warning: This episode mentions self-harm and suicide.) 

Have you heard of Ophidiophobia? The fear of snakes? Tough-guy action hero, Indiana Jones had it, and so does my wonderfully funny friend, author Elizabeth Eulberg, who is more scared of snakes than anyone I’ve ever met. Throughout her life, she’s somehow managed to continuously encounter dangerous snakes in places where they’re not supposed to be. And yet, she survives still! Thankfully.  

In Episode 7 of Our First Fears, Elizabeth and I discuss the shocking horrors of the first two Indiana Jones films (but especially Temple Of Doom) before touching on the poems of Shel Silverstein, city tourist photo ops with giant pet pythons, Hollywood’s implementation of the first PG-13 rating, Steven Spielberg’s talent for using children to tell frightening tales, how writing might manifest our fears into reality, and the power of ANTI-SSSSS-IPATION.

Elizabeth Eulberg’s most recent book series is called Scared Silly. The first, Curses Are the Worst, is available now, with Zombie Wedding Crashers coming in mid-September 2023.

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 and @danpoblocki on Twitter/X. 

In Episode 6 of Our First Fears, novelist and illustrator Ethan M. Aldridge shares their own personal tales of growing up in a supposedly haunted house in Utah. And I chime in with some stories about my own experiences as a haunted pre-teen in north-central New Jersey. We talk about ghosts as metaphor, visit some familiar haunted tropes from favorite fantastical fiction and film, as well as how and why we both ended up connecting so deeply to the horror genre, and hauntings in particular.

This one gets kinda personal, and Ethan was generous enough to go there with me. 

Ethan M. Alrdridge’s best-selling work includes the graphic novels Estranged, Estranged 2: The Changeling King, The Legend of Bright Blade, and most recently, the illustrated gothic novel, Deephaven, about a teen who comes to a mysterious boarding school only to learn that the place is chock-full of the darkest hallways, and secrets, imaginable. Find all their books now at your favorite local bookshop!

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 and @danpoblocki on Twitter/X. Thanks!

In Episode 5 of Our First Fears, designer and bestselling author/ illustrator Jay Cooper takes us on a tour of his night-terrors, which leads us down some dark paths of 1970s and 80s children’s entertainment. He takes us through the magic of Smurf-land, into a Labyrinth haunted by David Bowie’s goblins, past the island where Maurice Sendak spent time with his Wild Things, and into Jay’s own office studio where he once welcomed stress-induced shingles as a result of trying to impress his collaborator and pal, author Maureen Johnson. 

It’s a Gen X phantasmagoria, and you won’t want to miss it! 

Some of Jay’s work includes Styx and Scones, The Last Comics on Earth, and Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village, all of which are available now at your favorite local bookshop. 

(Please use discretion if listening to this podcast with young folk – there’s one bloody story in which a puppy is *rudely* murdered, but it’s like, only 30 seconds and easily skippable...)

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears. And feel free to reach out at [email protected]. 

In Episode 4 of Our First Fears, No. 1 New York Times Bestselling author Libba Bray takes my hand to ring the doorbell of the Bramford Apartments in New York City, where Rosemary Woodhouse lives with her husband Guy and, possibly, a cabal of evil cultists, in Roman Polanski’s 1968 film, Rosemary’s Baby. 

Our chat ranges from recent US supreme court decisions, to the cultural impact this film had over the following decades, from witch hunts, to satanic-panic, and the repetition of atrocities against women throughout history, as well as the pervasiveness and popularity of the “religious horror” sub-genre, and finally, how New York City, as a character, so often inspires terror. 
 

Fun stuff, right? I promise it’s a good one! 

(Please use your own discretion if listening to this episode with young folk.)

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears. And feel free to reach out at [email protected]. 

In Episode 3 of Our First Fears, animator and author Rob Renzetti digs with me through the very old graves of Tod Browning’s Dracula and James Whale’s Frankenstein, both from Universal Pictures in 1931. 

We revisit our introductions to these classic characters when we were kids. We examine how both films have been reinvented and their horrors possibly defanged over the past 90 years by their omnipresence in pop-culture. And we tie connections (both conscious and unconscious) to Rob’s brand new book: The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things. It’s available now from Penguin Workshop, with the second book in the trilogy arriving in January, 2024. 

(This episode can be listened to by all ages.)

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].

Episode 2 of Our First Fears is a conversation with prolific novelist and anthologist Ellen Oh, who is also one of the co-founders of We Need Diverse Books (WNDB), a non-profit dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusivity in children’s literature. 

Ellen’s first fears were introduced by her parents, who took her to horror movies at a VERY young age and then told creepy legends about spirits who might eat her face! We get into zombie movies and the evils that billionaires do and we also talk about Ellen’s latest book: Haru, Zombie Dog Hero.

(This episode can be listened to by all ages.)

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears. And feel free to reach out at [email protected]. 

For the first outing of Our First Fears, I’m talking with author Anica Mrose Rissi about one of the pillars of horror fiction for kids: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell.

This collection of American folk-tales has been so impactful since its first publication in 1981—so creepy for the generations who continue to discover it—that Anica and I each ended up recently writing our own collections of scary tales, reaching for what Schwartz and Gammell accomplished way back when.

Anica’s book is called Hide and Don’t Seek: And Other Very Scary Stories, now in paperback from Quill Tree Books. And mine is Tales to Keep You Up at Night, with MORE Tales to Keep You Up at Night coming out on August 15, 2023 from Penguin Workshop. 

Join us for an exploration of Schwartz's story-telling techniques and Gammell's illustrated nightmare landscapes, both of which made this book one of the most challenged, and terrifying, of all time. 

(This episode can be listened to by all ages.)

Follow the Our First Fears podcast on social media sites @ourfirstfears. And feel free to reach out at [email protected].