Tales from the Trunk

Book Tour 32: Caitlin Starling – Last to Leave the Room

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

Episode 55: Celebrating One Hundred Trunkcasts with Sarah Gailey

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!

Book Tour 31: Sarah Hollowell – What Stalks Among Us

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!

Episode 54: Jessica Mary Best – Third Wheel

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

Book Tour 30: Aimee Ogden – Emergent Properties

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

Episode 53: Lor Gislason – ”My Body, My Body, and Me”

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
 

Book Tour 29: Chuck Tingle – Camp Damascus

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
 

Episode 52: Foz Meadows – ”Blood Penance”

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

Book Tour 28: Emma Mieko Candon – The Archive Undying

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

Episode 51: Dee Holloway – River’s End

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