In this episode, Rachel Redd sits down with Luke Dumas, the author of A History of Fear, The Paleontologist, and Nothing Tastes as Good for a wide-ranging conversation on obsession, grief, identity, and writing horror that feels deeply human.
Timestamps: 00:01 – Welcome to Talking Horror & Meeting Luke Dumas 02:40 – Reading Roots: A Storyteller Before He Was a Reader 03:29 – The Boy Wizard Phase and Falling for Fantasy 04:22 – A Lifelong Jurassic Park & Dinosaur Obsession 06:50 – Discovering Horror: Weekends With Dad and the Haunted Hotel 08:42 – The Comedy Writer Who Wanted to Be David Sedaris 10:27 – Early Writing Dreams and Delusions of Fame 11:55 – Studying Literature and the Master's in Scotland 16:26 – Letting Go of the "Wonder Kid" Pressure 17:58 – The Risk-Averse Path: Writing Around a Day Job 18:29 – Grant Writing, Zoos, and Mining the Day Job for Fiction 21:08 – Book Five: How A History of Fear Found Its Agent 23:00 – The Overnight Offer That Made Him Cry 24:23 – Finding Resilience Through Five Unpublished Books 28:06 – Why Storytelling Is Woven Into His Soul 30:45 – Craft vs. Plot: Refusing to Sacrifice One for the Other 32:46 – The Heavy Plotter Who Loves Outlining Most 34:15 – The Two Wolves: Beautiful Writing vs. Getting It Out 37:37 – "I Hate Research": Faking It for The Paleontologist 40:32 – Interstitial Documents and the Book-Within-a-Book 43:43 – A History of Fear, Edinburgh, and Scottish Demonic Lore 46:02 – The Walk Through the Meadows That Sparked the Story 47:57 – Religious Trauma, Identity, and the Harm of Repression 50:13 – The Paleontologist: Excavation as Metaphor 51:31 – From "I Just Love Dinosaurs" to Ghosts in a Haunted Museum 53:55 – The Grim Ending and the Horror That Makes Him Giggle 56:46 – Raving About Nothing Tastes as Good 59:22 – Knowing When It Was Time (and Stephen King's Thinner) 01:00:20 – Weight-Loss Drugs, Ozempic, and Perfect Timing 01:01:19 – Writing Fatness From a Male Perspective 01:02:52 – Emmett: The Monster You Can't Help Rooting For 01:07:11 – Lisette, Body Positivity, and a Cousin Named Rachel 01:11:16 – Sitting With the Discomfort of "Just Change" 01:12:11 – First Look at We Don't Call Them Cages (Spring 2027) 01:13:53 – "Madagascar for Adults": Rewriting Childhood as Horror 01:14:56 – Wrap-Up & Thanks
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