Tales from the Trunk

In this, the spookiest month, I’m delighted to welcome back to the podcast, Caitlin Starling! Caitlin reads us an excerpt from her terrific forthcoming novel, Last to Leave the Room, coming out October 10th from St. Martin’s Press, which leads us into a great conversation about the potential gaps left in for fanfic authors, among other things.

Things we mention this episode

The Death of Jane Lawrence, The Luminous Dead, Yellow Jessamine, and The Oblivion Bride, by Caitlin Starling

Neon Hemlock

And What Can We Offer You Tonight, by Premee

The Crawling Moon, edited by dave ring

Dracula Daily

Luminescent Machinations, edited by Rhihannon Rasmussen and dave ring

Turks (Final Fantasy VII)

Isaac Fellman

A Dark Song

Archival Quality, by Ivy Noelle Weir and Steenz

The White Road, by Sarah Lotz

Rotten dot com

Third man syndrome

Ernest Shackleton

The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey

Spiderman pointing

“Caver Continue,” by Caitlin Starling

The Queen’s Thief series, by Megan Whalen Turner

Severance

Shirley Jackson

Caitlin’s website, insta, and bluesky

We made it to the Biggest Number™ and Sarah Gailey is here today to help us celebrate with a retrospective on the last four and a half years of Tales from the Trunk!

Show notes coming soon!

This time around, it’s my pleasure to welcome Sarah Hollowell back to the show! Sarah reads us an excerpt of her new book, What Stalks Among Us, which releases September 12th, and then we fall down a hole of absolute gremlinry.

Things we mention this episode:

Sarah’s first episode

A Dark and Starless Forest, by Sarah Hollowell

Fast and Furious series

AEW All In

Adam Cole and MJF

Triple-H

Roman Reigns

RPF (Real Person Fic)

“The Unreality of Pro Wrestling”

The Shield (wrestling)

Dean Ambrose/John Moxley

Luchasaurus

Mantaur

Darkness Falls

Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey

The Conjuring series

The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

P-38 Lightning

Apex

The Poppy War trilogy, Babel, and Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang

The Priory of the Orange Tree and A Day of Fallen Night, by Samantha Shannon

His Majesty’s Dragon, Spinning Silver, and Uprooted, by Naomi Novik

Terry Pratchett

Regular Show, “California King” and “Eggscellent”

Labyrinth

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild

Oxenfree and Oxenfree II: Lost Signals

Return of the Obra Din

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Hades II

Hades

Animal Crossing

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Sarah’s bluesky, tiktok, insta

The Nursery Nurse tiktok

Join us again in two weeks for the 100th episode of Tales from the Trunk!

This time around, I’m delighted to introduce you to Jessica Mary Best! Jess and I do something a little different and perform for your listening pleasure part of the pilot episode of her trunked audio drama, Third Wheel! That reading leads us into a great conversation about the different approaches between written prose and writing for audio.

Things we mention this episode:

Stars, Hide Your Fires, by Jessica Mary Best

Chuck Tingle’s episode

Oliver!

Chekhov’s Gun

Brandon, Iowa

All Our Yesterdays, by Hilary B. Bisenieks

Sufjan Stevens

Fall Out Boy

Panic! At the Disco

Illinois, by Sufjan Stevens

“They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!” by Sufjan Stevens

“I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” by Panic! At The Disco

“Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off,” by Panic! At The Disco

“Of All The Gin Joints In All The World,” by Fall Out Boy

“Stars, hide your fires”

Tor dot com writeup

The Strange Case of Starship Iris

Tom Swifties

Munch Squad

Friends at the Table

Sarah Gailey

Lillian Boyd

Welcome to Night Vale

Audacity

Keep it Steady 

Unwell 

The Bear

Phoebe Bridgers

Criminal

Radiotopia

99% Invisible

The Allusionist

Articles of Interest

Fearless (Taylor’s Version)

Jess’s website and insta

This time around, it’s my delight to welcome back to the show Aimee Ogden (@Aimee_Ogden)! Aimee reads a delightful excerpt of her brand new book, Emergent Properties, available now wherever you buy books, which leads us into some great conversation about the things that made this book, whether or not those things ended up in the final draft.

Things we mention this episode:

“The Cold Calculations,” by Aimee Ogden

The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney

Aimee’s Clarkesworld interview

Wallace and Gromit

Marie Kondo

“A Half-Remembered World,” by Aimee Ogden

Translunar Traveler’s Lounge

Dropout

CollegeHumor

Sam Reich

Game Changer

Entertainment Community Fund

Jeopardy!

Wheel of Fortune

Dungeons and Drag Queens

Escape from the Bloodkeep

Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Matt Mercer

Erika Ishii

Robert Reich

Breaking News (Dropout)

Brennan Lee Mulligan

Name That Bird

Aimee’s website

Spiders Georg

Stick around next time when my guest will be Jessica Mary Best

This episode’s reading carries content warnings for discussion of COVID, self harm, horror movie gore, and suicide and suicidal ideation. If you want to opt out of that, please skip forward 14 minutes from the start of the reading.

This time around, it’s my delight to continue our summer of screams with Lor Gislason (@lorelli_)! They read us a moving personal essay about how they got so dang goopy, which leads us into a great conversation about horror media, finding your people, and of course all things goopy.

Things we mention in this episode: 

Chuck’s episode

Camp Damascus, by Chuck Tingle

Heel (wrestling)

Lillian Boyd

Hear Us Scream: The Voices of Horror Volume II, edited by Cathering Benstead

American Psycho 2

Serial Killing 101

Hellraiser

Clive Barker

Neil Gaiman

Turkey Shoot (film)

Mandy (film)

Dune (2021)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

House of 1000 Corpses

The Devil’s Rejects

Foz’s episode

Zombie

Lucio Fulci

The Lion King

Sisyphus

Bound in Flesh, edited by Lor Gislason

Dragon Ball

Animorphs (series) by K.A. Applegate

Artemis’ turning Acteon into a stag

D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, D'Aulaires' Book of Trolls, by Ingri and Edgar D’Aulaire

The Mummy

Mummies Alive!

Street Sharks

Biker Mice from Mars

Mars Attacks!

Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

Return to Oz

Wicked

Sarah Gailey

Sickos

Sarah Hollowell

“Look,” by Sarah Gailey

Star Wars tweets

River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey

Inside Out, by Lor Gislason

Resident Evil 4 remake

Control (game)

SCP Foundation

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Piccolo

Akira

Lor’s insta and blog

Joe Koch

It’s my absolute delight to welcome an absolute dream of a guest this time around: Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle)! We read from the first chapter of Chuck’s new horror novel, Camp Damascus, out July 11th from Tor Nightfire, which leads us into a great discussion on Chuck’s writing process, the things that changed between first draft and published book, and of course some of his and my favorite bits.

Things mentioned in this episode:

Game theory

Straight and Bury Your Gays (2024), by Chuck Tingle

A More Civilized Age

Kelly Lonesome

Get Out

Multi-level marketing

Grindcore

Discord

Friends at the Table

In the Lives of Puppets, by Tj Klune

Barry

Ratboys

Chuck’s BlueSky, Insta, Facebook, TikTok, Tumblr

This episode’s reading carries content warnings for children in perilous situations and description of injuries. The reading is 10:30 long.

This time around, it’s my pleasure to welcome Foz Meadows (@fozmeadows)! Foz reads an excerpt from his trunked novella, “Blood Penance,” which leads us into a great conversation about idea magpies, internet purity culture, horror, and kink.

Things we mention in this episode:

A Strange And Stubborn Endurance, by Foz Meadows

Captive Prince, by C.S. Pacat

Halloween

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Scream series

Allegory of the Cave, by Plato

“Hotel California,” by The Eagles

Lillian Boyd

Rank & Vile

Death of the author

Watership Down, by Richard Adams

Watership Down (movie)

All the Hidden Paths, by Foz Meadows

Finding Echoes, by Foz Meadows

Luminescent Machinations, edited by Rhiannon Rasmussen and dave ring

The Untamed

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Heaven Official’s Blessing

Beyond Evil

KinnPorsche

Stray Kids

“Red Lights,” by Stray Kids

“Venom,” by Stray Kids

OnlyOneOf

Foz’s tumblr and tiktok

It’s my distinct pleasure, this time around, to welcome Emma Mieko Candon (@EmmaCandon) to the show to talk about their incredible new book, The Archive Undying, out June 27th, 2023, from Tor Dot Com! After a reading from the book’s opening, we descent almost immediately into gremlin mode about the inspirations for the book (our favorite podcast (you know the one)), Star Wars, and the intersection of cultures.

Things we mention this episode:

Friends at the Table

Mike’s episode

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie

Pacific Rim

NieR:Automata

Carl Engle-Laird

Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey

The Genesis of Misery, by Neon Yang

Lindsey Hall

The Tensorate Series, by Neon Yang

Docile, by K.M. Szpara

The Kingston Cycle and Even Though I Knew the End, by C.L. Polk

The Locked Tomb series, by Tamsyn Muir

Margate Lock (Palisade character) (spoilers for Palisode 03)

Star Wars

COUNTER/Weight

Castlevania

Hellboy

Cowboy Bebop

Gundam Newtype

Studio Ghibli

Partizan

Waypoint

A More Civilized Age

Lancer

Bluff City

Marielda

Sangfielle

Donna Haraway cyborg

Jack’s music

COUNTER/Weight and Partizan soundtracks

“The Long Way Around,” by Jack de Quidt

“TANAGER. PERFECT. TOUCHPAPER.,” by Jack de Quidt

Trigun Stampede

Bigolas Dickolas

Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Utena

Trigun (1998)

Trigun (manga)

Amal El-Mohtar new Tor deal

“Seasons of Glass and Iron,” by Amal El-Mohtar

Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone

This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Ronin, by Emma Mieko Candon

Star Wars: Visions

Star Wars: The High Republic

Andor

The Mandalorian

The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang

Wookieepedia

Emma’s insta and tumblr

Seasons of Hieron

This episode's reading carries a content warning for brief, non-graphic vomiting. You can skip forward 8:10 from the start of the reading to 0:13:00 to avoid this.

This time around, it’s my pleasure to welcome Dee Holloway (@_deeholloway) to the show! Dee reads from her trunked YA novel, River’s End, which leads us into a great discussion of writing about place, what we did during the height of the pandemic, and Dee’s forthcoming novella, Little Nothing.

Things we mentioned this episode:

Stuart Dybek

The Complete History of New Mexico, by Kevin McIlvoy

Sabrina & Corina, by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Lady Bird

Joan Didion

California State Railroad Museum

Sacramento History Museum

QueryTracker

Little Nothing, by Dee Holloway

“The Highwayman,” by Alfred Noyes

Devil’s Cup, by Dee Holloway

The Craft

Blue Crush

Equus, edited by Rhonda Parrish

Luna Station Quarterly

“MONTERO (Call My By Your Name),” by Lil Nas X

Tim Curry

John Milton

Paradise Lost, by John Milton

The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

The Iliad, by Homer

The Aeneid, by Virgil

Pitchfork

John Grisham

Bigolas Dickolas

This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Kotaku and Polygon writeups

Camp Damascus, by Chuck Tingle

Lamplit Underground

Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel

The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, by Claire Dederer

Burn You the Fuck Alive, by B.R. Yeager

Dee’s insta and itch