A conversation about agency, emotion, and learning to feel everything without falling apart. This week on Sick Sad Lit, I sat down with the luminous, razor-sharp, and deeply funny Lauren McQuistin of @BrutalRecovery, to talk about her new book No Lost Causes Club getting sober young, building emotional muscles from
Exploring how literature, media, and morality collide in stories that dare to empathise with the monstrous. In this episode of Sick Sad Lit, I sit down with one of the most provocative and fearless voices in contemporary fiction: Eliza Clark. Author of Boy Parts, Penance, and She’s Always Hungry,
Exploring fear, faith, and the emotional labour of crafting stories that demand everything. In this week’s 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 what it really costs to write from the heart.
From Cursed Bunny to Midnight Timetable, a conversation about stories that turn rage into resistance. Some stories haunt you long after you close the book, and Midnight Timetable is one of them. In this week’s episode of Sick Sad Lit, I sit down with Bora Chung, the International Booker–
A conversation about writing outsiders, confronting taboos, and storytelling as liberation. Ottessa Moshfegh has built her literary career on writing the characters we’re often told to look away from: the outsiders, the unlikable, the ones whose obsessions curdle into grotesque truths about who we are. In this episode of
From Bunny to We Love You, Bunny: Exploring surrealism, satire, and the art of creation. Whoever said you should never meet your idols, clearly never met Mona Awad. For the Sick Sad Lit season 2 podcast premiere, I was lucky enough to sit down with the fever-dream Bunny queen herself
Pumpkin Spice is fine, but have you tried consuming literature that changes who you are as a person? Here in Aotearoa, our spooky season happens to be in Spring, but I thoroughly enjoy living vicariously through the Northern Hemisphere's fall-vibes in Halloween and the inevitably killer list of
Hi friends, If you're looking for a way to make even a tiny bit of difference to the horrific suffering of the Palestinian people, this is it. I am running an urgent appeal to raise money to help Ahmed Yasser and his family to buy a 14-person tent,
If you're feeling sick and helpless at the never-ending stream of horrific images and videos coming out of Palestine right now, you're not alone. But if you want to actually do something about it but have no idea where to start, there are ways to contribute
A bookish community for the unhinged, the literary, and the culturally weird. I started Sick Sad Lit as a space to explore the books and ideas that get under our skin: unreliable narrators, female rage, unsettling and unhinged stories. Now, we’re taking that conversation off the page and into
Letting Nazis spout hatred on a platform is not my idea of free speech. Update: Hi friends! I'm sharing this exit post here on my new home so anyone landing here for the first time has a bit of context as to why I made this move. I
Translated tales of rage, desire, dissociation, and descent.
book recommendations
A masterlist of every disturbing, dazzling, and darkly funny title mentioned on the Sick Sad Lit podcast.
Podcast
From Buenos Aires to folklore and rebellion—inside the gothic world of a literary horror icon.
Podcast
From Natural Beauty to Immaculate Conception, we talk about fiction, friendship, and the power of art to say the unspeakable.
Podcast
A conversation about fiction rooted in truth, the complexities of motherhood, and finding rhythm in the writing process.
Podcast
A conversation on Dorn’s latest novel, her writing process, queer literature, and how scent, identity, and power collide in fiction.
Podcast
A Conversation on Unruly Women, Rural Horror, and Literary Risk
book recommendations
How dark fiction, emotional labor, and surreal storytelling help make sense of a broken world.
On Writing
From Manhunt to Cuckoo, we explore the power of horror literature to challenge readers — and why the best fiction often comes from the margins.
Podcast
From satirical romance to horror as protest, Chuck Tingle talks identity, absurdity, and the radical act of love.
Podcast
The Sick Sad Lit podcast is a space for complicated characters, experimental form, and authors who aren’t afraid to get weird — or honest.
On Writing
Maybe I hate it here???
Book Reviews
In honour of Kendrick Lamar we are telling the honest truth.