Beth Castrodale: 'Without Empathy, Horror Fails'

Today, I enjoy talking to Beth Castrodale about her latest: The Inhabitants, an award-winning novel that brings new twists to one of my favorite sub-genre settings—a haunted house. And we discuss her efforts to bring Small Press Books and their authors more attention through her longtime project, the review website known as Small Press Picks. Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.To find Castrodale’s latest book as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.Beth Castrodale was a senior editor at Bedford/St. Martin’s and is the founding editor of the book-review website Small Press Picks. Her most recent novel, The Inhabitants, won the Horror categories of the Independent Publisher Book Awards, the National Indie Excellence Awards, and the Best Book Awards. It was a finalist in the Horror category of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. An excerpt from her second novel, In This Ground, was a shortlist finalist for a William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Award. Her début novel, Marion Hatley, was a finalist for a Nilsen Prize for a First Novel from Southeast Missouri State University Press. Castrodale has been awarded for her work with an artist grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and her stories and essays have appeared in multiple publications, including CrimeReads, Ars Medica, The Writing Disorder, and Writing and Wellness. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com