211 – Laird Barron & Cosmic Background Radiation

Talking Scared

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Laird Barron is on the podcast. This feels like cause for celebration.

Not only is Laird Barron a phenomenal writer. Not only is it wonderful that he’s back to writing and talking about writing. Not only am I lucky to be able to speak to him…

We also talked about DOGS!

Granted, a cybernetic, immortal monster hound called Rex – but a dog nonetheless. That’s just one of the crazy concepts that make up the stories in Laird’s new collection, Not a Speck of Light… and I mean crazy. These stories involve evil fathers, strange invasions, billionaire bird-women and a disaster-addicted monster – and we talk about how Laird balances the bizarre and brutal, the cosmic and the cynical, the horrific and the hardboiled.

Plus a lot of info on a very exciting project he’s currently working hard on.

Let’s all just be happy, Laird Barron is back. He’s writing. And he’s Talking Scared.

Enjoy.

Join the Laird Barron Reddit Read-along

Other books mentioned:

• When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), edited by Ellen Datlow
• The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (2013), by Laird Barron
• Blood Standard (2018), by Laird Barron
• The Fisherman (2016), by John Langan
• “On Skua Island” – in Mr Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters (2009), by John Langan
• The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron (2014), edited by Ross E. Lockhart and Jason Steele
• The Delicate Prey, and Other Stories (1950), by Paul Bowles
• The Sheltering Sky (1949), by Paul Bowles

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