In this episode of Sick Sad Lit, I sit down with one of the most provocative and fearless voices in contemporary: Eliza Clark. Author of Boy Parts, Penance, and She’s Always Hungry, Clark writes with scalpel-like precision about modern alienation. Nobody captures the digital grotesque quite like her.

We talk about the ethics of obsession, the cultural hunger for true crime, and how fiction can humanise—or implicate—those we call monstrous. Eliza shares her thoughts on revenge narratives, power fantasies, and the moral tension at the heart of storytelling. We also discuss how fan fiction and digital spaces shaped her creative evolution, the blurred line between empathy and horror, and what it means to write characters who do unspeakable things.

If you love unhinged narrators, moral ambiguity, literary horror, or stories that leave you slightly unnerved, then this episode is for you. 🖤

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In this episode of Sick Sad Lit, I sit down with R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries, Exhibit, and co-editor of Kink, to talk about the emotional labor of writing, the role of fear in creativity, and what it means to tell stories that demand vulnerability.

We explore how desire, identity, and ancestral trauma shape Kwon’s work, and how embracing discomfort can lead to deeper truth on the page. Kwon reflects on her journey through the publishing world, the slow and deliberate process of crafting fiction, and the liberation that comes from writing toward one’s own longing.

It’s a conversation about art as survival, about the fears that fuel us, and about finding freedom in the act of creation.

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Visit the Sick Sad Lit website for essays, author outtakes and more.

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In this episode of Sick Sad Lit, I sit down with acclaimed South Korean author Bora Chung: the brilliant mind behind Cursed Bunny and her haunting new collection, Midnight Timetable. Known for blending horror, humour, and political satire, Bora’s stories blur the line between the grotesque and the profound, using the supernatural to explore the most human of emotions.

We talk about her journey from university lecturer to internationally celebrated writer, how Cursed Bunny changed her life after being shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and why she believes horror can be an act of empathy - a way of writing ghost stories for a broken world.

Bora shares the inspirations behind Midnight Timetable, from Polish and Russian literature to Korean folklore, and reflects on the intersections of revenge, grief, and survival in her fiction. We discuss the challenges of translation, the politics of horror, and the strange comfort of stories that look directly at fear, and still find hope inside it.

If you love literary horror, speculative fiction, or beautifully strange stories that linger long after you’ve finished reading, this episode is the perfect listen for spooky season. 👻

Join the conversation on our Sick Sad Friends Discord.

Visit the Sick Sad Lit website for essays, author outtakes and more.

Follow Sick Sad Lit on Instagram.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.