Sick Sad Lit

Agustina Bazterrica on Culture, Craft, and Confronting Violence Through Fiction

In the Season 2 finale of Sick Sad Lit, I sit down with Agustina Bazterrica, the internationally bestselling author of Tender Is the Flesh. This conversation didn’t just stay with me...it fundamentally changed how I read books. Together, we explore the cultural landscape of Argentina and how violence, patriarchy, and political history shape Agustina’s work. She walks me through her writing process and the structural precision behind her novels: the scaffolding, the silences, and the emotional engineering that make her fiction so unforgettable. We talk about the importance of research, the responsibility of writing violence ethically, and the role literature can play in understanding societal cruelty. Agustina also shares her thoughts on reader engagement, the challenges of being a writer in a volatile world, and why books still hold transformative power. This episode slowed me down. It taught me to look at craft with more intention. It made me a better reader. If you’re interested in literary horror, cultural critique, or the deeper mechanics of storytelling, this finale is for you. JOIN THE CONVERSATION If this episode resonated, share it with someone who might need it, and leave us a review to help more listeners find the show. 🖤 * Join the conversation on our Sick Sad Friends Discord [https://discord.gg/Ya8GyWQaNe] for monthly book club meetups, community chats and more. * Visit the Sick Sad Lit website [https://www.sicksadlit.com/] for essays, author outtakes and more. * Follow Sick Sad Lit on Instagram. [https://www.instagram.com/sicksadlit/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Torrey Peters on Writing While the World Burns

In this episode of Sick Sad Lit, I sit down with Torrey Peters, acclaimed author of Detransition, Baby and Stag Dance, for a deeply honest conversation about the realities of the modern writing life. Torrey opens up about the emotional labour of touring, the pressures of book marketing, and how societal change shapes creative expression. Together, we discuss desire, identity, and transformation—recurring themes in Torrey’s work—and explore what it means to create art that resists categorisation while inviting empathy and confrontation in equal measure. From the burnout of promotion to the beauty of connection, Torrey reflects on the messy, necessary work of making meaning in a world that often wants neat narratives. It’s a conversation about honesty, risk, and the courage to keep writing, even when everything feels like it’s falling apart. JOIN THE CONVERSATION If this episode resonated, share it with someone who might need it, and leave us a review to help more listeners find the show. 🖤 * Join the conversation on our Sick Sad Friends Discord [https://discord.gg/Ya8GyWQaNe] for monthly book club meetups, community chats and more. * Visit the Sick Sad Lit website [https://www.sicksadlit.com/] for essays, author outtakes and more. * Follow Sick Sad Lit on Instagram. [https://www.instagram.com/sicksadlit/] Photo Credit: Hunter Abrams ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lauren McQuistin on Sobriety, Self-Reinvention, and No Lost Causes Club

In this deeply honest and hopeful episode, I sit down with writer, musician, and creator Lauren McQuistin—author of No Lost Causes Club and the voice behind @brutalrecovery [https://www.instagram.com/brutalrecovery/]—to talk about getting sober young, building emotional muscles from scratch, and what it really means to reclaim your life when alcohol stops serving you. We explore sobriety as self-respect, the discomfort and beauty of feeling your feelings fully, and the weird, tender limbo of recovering before anyone expects you to need to. Lauren shares the realities of early recovery, from navigating parties and friendships without numbing through them, to rewriting the story of who you think you are and who you’re allowed to become. This is a conversation about agency, grace, and second chances; about learning that you don’t need to destroy yourself to be interesting, and that healing isn’t boring, it’s radical, difficult, and sometimes hilarious. If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s another way to live (one grounded in self-trust, community, and staying soft in a world that rewards collapse) this episode is for you. JOIN THE CONVERSATION If this episode resonated, share it with someone who might need it, and leave us a review to help more listeners find the show. 🖤 * Follow Lauren on Instagram @brutalrecovery [https://www.instagram.com/brutalrecovery/]. * Join the conversation on our Sick Sad Friends Discord [https://discord.gg/Ya8GyWQaNe] for monthly book club meetups, community chats and more. * Visit the Sick Sad Lit website [https://www.sicksadlit.com/] for essays, author outtakes and more. * Follow Sick Sad Lit on Instagram. [https://www.instagram.com/sicksadlit/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Eliza Clark on True Crime, Female Rage, and Writing the Uncomfortable Truth

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, 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. 🖤 LET'S CONNECT: Join the conversation on our Sick Sad Friends Discord. [https://discord.gg/Ya8GyWQaNe] Visit the Sick Sad Lit website [https://www.sicksadlit.com/] for essays, author outtakes and more. Follow Sick Sad Lit on Instagram. [https://www.instagram.com/sicksadlit/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

R. O. Kwon on Writing What Terrifies You

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. Join the conversation on our Sick Sad Friends Discord. [https://discord.gg/Ya8GyWQaNe] Visit the Sick Sad Lit website [https://www.sicksadlit.com/] for essays, author outtakes and more. Follow Sick Sad Lit on Instagram. [https://www.instagram.com/sicksadlit/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.