Show Notes
Nick Roberts is the award winning, indie horror author behind the bestselling Exorcist's House trilogy, Mean Spirited, and his debut novel Anathema, and he's one of the most reliably terrifying voices working in horror today.
He talks about being a hybrid author, splitting his work between Crystal Lake, Wicked House, his own imprint Spooky WV, and now Zando's new horror line Evil Twin. Nick breaks down structuring The Exorcist's House: Genesis like The Godfather Part II, and building suspense the way Stephen King does in 1408. He opens up about writing addiction and recovery into Anathema and Mean Spirited, and the dog named Conehead who ended up hijacking the latter. Plus, a first look at his possession anthology Haunted Minds with a foreword by Stephen Graham Jones, his next novel Can You Help Me With an Exorcism?, and his story in the Shining anthology Views from the Overlook.
Timestamps: 00:48 – Welcome to Talking Horror & Meeting Nick Roberts 02:33 – The "Is Nick Roberts Okay?" Reaction Readers Have to His Books 04:26 – Falling in Love with Horror Through Library Book Covers and Goosebumps 07:01 – Did Horror Ever Scare Him? Renting Pulp Fiction and Discovering the Craft 09:26 – The Writer-Director Dream That Fell Apart Before Film School 11:00 – Teaching English While Sneaking In Horror Film Electives 16:36 – Why Every Nick Roberts Book Starts as a Movie in His Head 17:37 – Being a Hybrid Author: Balancing Crystal Lake, Wicked House, and Self-Publishing 23:18 – From Anathema's COVID Release to Quitting Teaching for Full-Time Writing 30:44 – Why He Pantses Instead of Plots (and the Stephen Graham Jones Line That Inspired Him) 32:10 – The Stephen Graham Jones Outline He Wrote Just to Throw in the Trash 34:16 – Winning the Horror Authors Guild Debut Novel Award for Anathema 37:16 – Writing Recovery and Addiction Into Anathema and Mean Spirited 43:34 – Building Scares Like Stephen King's 1408 48:45 – Structuring The Exorcist's House: Genesis Like The Godfather Part II 54:01 – Falling In Love With a Character Before Something Horrible Happens 56:16 – Writing From the Killer's POV in My Corpse Has a Heartbeat 59:34 – First Look at the Haunted Minds Possession Anthology With Stephen Graham Jones 1:05:15 – A Tease of His Work in Progress, Appalachian Chainsaw
Grab your copy of The Exorcist's House: https://amzn.to/4zoEcmB
Connect with Nick Roberts: Website: https://www.nickrobertsauthor.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spookywv/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@spookywv
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