Loading…
Hosted by Matthew Jackson · 🇺🇸 US · EN-US · 82 episodes
Established thought leaders with verified media credentials.
A podcast about horror writers and the stories that made them. Join host Matthew Jackson as he talks to some of the biggest names in horror about the scary stories that built their imaginations, from movies to books and everything in between.
Matthew Jackson hosts The Scares That Shaped Us, a arts show with 82 episodes published.
Sarah Gailey, the acclaimed author of books like Spread Me and Just Like Home , joins the show this week! We talk about their amazing new book Make Me Better , writing about grief, cult and wellness fiction, and much mor
Johnny Compton returns! The author of The Spite House and Devils Kill Devils joins the pod for the second time to talk about his new novel, Dead First ! We get into writing horror noir, Johnny's favorite crime writers, a
This week, we're joined by Alex Woodroe, author and editor-in-chief of Tenebrous Press! We chat about her new book, The Night Ship , how she views "New Weird Horror" at this stage in her career, and much more. An
Chris Panatier, author of The Redemption of Morgan Bright , joins the show this week to talk about his new book, Shitshow , and we dig into the festive madness that is Gremlin s , as well as the stealth masterpiece that
This week, author, poet, editor, and teacher Leticia Urieta joins the show! We talk about her new collection The Remedy is the Disease , balancing writing and teaching, body horror, and much more, all wrapped up in our d
Daniel Kraus returns! The newly minted Pulitzer Prize Winner is back on the show to talk about his book Partially Devoured , a memoir and critical analysis of Night of the Living Dead , which we means we spend the whole
It's an Anne Rice episode! Author Lindy Ryan joins the show to talk about her latest novel, Dollface , writing about life as a horror author, crafting her own approach to slashers, and more, all while we dig into Rice's
This week on the show, Matthew's joined by Candice Bailey and Gavin Lees, editors of the new magazine Crossroads: Folk Horror in the United States! We talk about founding the magazine, their personal interest in folk hor
Two great guests in one jam-packed episode! This week, Matthew's joined by authors Kailee Pedersen and Briana N. Cox to talk about their new books! We dig into Kailee's upcoming novel The Minimalist , Briana's new book I
Max Booth is back! The author of We Need to Do Something , The Last Haunt and more joins us this week to talk about her work, her new Patreon, and much more, and we dig into one of the all-time great '80s horror films, T
Eric LaRocca returns! This week on the show, we're talking to Eric about his wonderful new novel Wretch , and digging deep into Priya Sharma's phenomenal "Fabulous Beasts." If you love body horror, transgressive
It's our first two-story episode! Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman, writers and directors behind the new horror film Man Finds Tape , join the show this week. We talk about making a fake documentary horror film, Texas insp
It's Episode 66! Just 600 more to go until we hit horror's favorite number! This week, Matthew welcomes celebrated author Annie Neugebauer to talk about her amazing new collection, You Have to Let Them Bleed , and we dig
We're back! For our first regular episode of 2026, we're talking to two of my favorite horror filmmakers, John Adams and Toby Poser of Adams Family Films! We dig into the making of their new film Mother of Flies , discus
Happy New Year! For our first episode of 2026, we're finishing up our Best of 2025 wrap-up with a discussion on the best horror movies of the past year. We're joined by Matt Donato, one of the finest horror critics on th
It's our final show of 2025, and we're using it to look back on the best horror books we read this year. Joining us this week we've got Mother Horror herself, Sadie Hartmann! We talk with Sadie about her latest book, Fer
It's Christmas time! C. Robert Cargill returns! Based on a brief conversation we had back during Fantastic Fest, Cargill was kind enough to stop by for the second time this year to talk Black Phone 2 spoilers and to unpa
It's Clay McLeod Chapman time once again! Our friend of the show returns for his fourth (!!!) visit to talk about his new book Shiny Happy People , everything he's got coming up in 2026, and of course, we dig deep into 1
Jess Hagemann, who wrote one of the best horror novels of the year with Mother-Eating: A Documentary , joins the show this week to talk about her book and the historical deep dive that inspired it. Then we dig deep into
Bram Stoker-winning writer and editor Jonathan Maberry joins the show this week! We talk about his NecroTek and Joe Ledger series, blending genres, editing Weird Tales , and more as we dive into a discussion of Richard M
Ally Malinenko
1 appearance on this show
BJ Colangelo
writer/director/author/film critic
1 appearance on this show
Brian Keene
IWire
1 appearance on this show
Caitlin Starling
1 appearance on this show
Chris Panatier
1 appearance on this show
Christopher Golden
1 appearance on this show
Chuck Wendig
author of Wayward
1 appearance on this show
Clay McLeod Chapman
Author of Whisper Down the Lane
4 appearances on this show
Cynthia Pelayo
Bram Stoker Award-winning "quiet horror" author
1 appearance on this show
Daniel Kraus
2026 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Fiction
3 appearances on this show
Eric LaRocca
2 appearances on this show
Adam Cesare
Author of Clown in a Cornfield
1 appearance on this show
Sponsor detection runs nightly. Check back soon.
No public pitch examples yet for this show.
Generate your own personalised pitchBased on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:
Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.
Shows with the most semantically similar episode content. Pitch one, pitch all; producers cluster.
The Scares That Shaped Us has a verified contact on file. Create a free PitchCentric account to access it and generate a personalised pitch in seconds. Research at least 3 recent episodes first and lead with a specific angle that serves their arts audience.
The Scares That Shaped Us is hosted by Matthew Jackson. The show is categorised under arts (books) and has published 82 episodes.
The Scares That Shaped Us has published 82 episodes.
The Scares That Shaped Us regularly covers arts, books, tv. It sits in the arts category, with a books focus.
The Scares That Shaped Us is accessible for guests with genuine arts expertise. A personalised, episode-aware pitch will still outperform a generic one every time.
The Scares That Shaped Us hasn't explicitly signalled guest openness in recent episodes. That doesn't rule out pitching. your hook just needs to be especially compelling and relevant to their recent content.
Episodes of The Scares That Shaped Us average 61 minutes, giving guests a long-form format with plenty of time to expand on their expertise.
Our data rates The Scares That Shaped Us's guest bar at 80/100 (Premium tier). Established thought leaders with verified media credentials. Sign in to PitchCentric to see how your own Pod Score compares against this show.
Methodology. Booking Probability™ blends Listen Score, 30-day Virality, open-to-guests detection, and Apple ratings. Data refreshed every 60 minutes. Listen Score and Booking Probability are calculated by PitchCentric. Last enriched 4 days ago.