As the day became shorter, we kicked off the autumn season with a Halloween special. Published on 26 October 2026 was Book Club Ep.004: Fear in small doses. Discussing horror short stories.
Author Salina Christmas explains how horror stories help make us make sense of the absurd, because reality can be mind-boggling. As discussed with hosts Nadya Birca and Zarina Holmes, horror stories also put us in other people’s shoes to understand their situations. We also discuss the format of the horror genre, which is often published as anthologised short stories, as seen in the works of Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft.
On Halloween itself, we published the follow-up podcast, Book Club Ep.005. Witching Hour: Why we can’t stop reimagining witches.
Wicked, wise and wild, certain women were branded as witches or outcasts simply for being inconvenient to the establishment, telling uncomfortable truths, or possessing strength outside traditional social expectations. But it’s also the same kind of courage admired by authors today.
In this podcast, Salina discusses why vampires and witches give female authors the agency to rewrite our narrative in the light of the Cornell Seven scandal. Nadya introduces us to The Royal Witch by Philippa Gregory, whilst Zarina discusses the anthropology book, Mak Yong Through The Ages: Kelantan’s Traditional Dance Theatre by Ghulam Sarwar Yousuf about a coven of ‘shamanic’ female dancers and the state of their ritualistic performance in the modern age. We also talk about the emergence of a not-so-new genre which places the angry, rampaging female as the protagonist, as a response to male violence: femgore.
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