In Part Three of her First Word On Horror episodes, Mariana speaks about places that retain memory, cities marked by catastrophe, and houses that refuse to release what happened inside them.

This chapter also turns inward, toward the act of writing itself. Mariana describes fiction as a negotiation rather than an act of control. Characters push back. Female characters especially demand voice and defiance. Stories that change shape as she listens, allowing the work to push back against her plans.

Watch Mariana’s episode below. 👇

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In Part Three, Barron reflects on genre as freedom rather than constraint — a home base that allows exploration instead of limiting it. The conversation moves through memory, uncanny experience, and the thin line between lived reality and the stories that grow from it.

He speaks candidly about illness, false memories, and moments of near-death, examining how the mind negotiates fear and survival when the body begins to fail. What emerges is a meditation on legacy, and the hope that the work might one day reach someone who needs it.

Thanks to our Substack subscribers and the horror community, this episode is free for everyone to watch. Independent projects like First Word On Horror exist because of your support, and we’re grateful for it.

🎥 Watch Part Three now on YouTube.

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Elizabeth reflects on growing up with the apocalypse embedded early in her imagination — and how writing about collapse feels different when it no longer feels abstract. What once carried a kind of nihilistic thrill now presses closer to lived reality.

The episode also moves through survival as a working writer: living lean, raising children, saying yes to the work that paid, and continuing to make strange, personal fiction without romanticizing the struggle. From there, the conversation turns to craft — resisting plot, favoring atmosphere and accumulation, and telling stories that hold experience rather than resolve it.

🎥 Watch Part Three now on YouTube.

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Paul reflects on his uneasy relationship with the supernatural — skeptical, but unwilling to test it — and how that tension shapes his work. Horror, for him, isn’t about answers. It’s about living with discomfort, ambiguity, and the fear of being wrong.

He talks about how stories begin with a what if, the importance of listening to the subconscious, and writing wherever and whenever time allows. The conversation moves from creative process to darker realities: violence, power, and the quiet decisions made by people who never feel the consequences.

For Paul, both the self and the world are fundamentally ambiguous. Horror doesn’t resolve that uncertainty — it confronts it.

🎥 Watch Part Three now on YouTube.

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Stephen talks about voice as something that evolves rather than settles, about trusting first impulses, and about knowing when to stop refining a story before you strip it of its power. Horror, for him, isn’t something you chase — it’s something you stay open to.

🎥 Watch Part Three is waiting. Watch it below on YouTube.

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In Part Two of her First Word On Horror episode, Mariana speaks about place, memory, and the violence that lingers long after events are meant to be “over.” This chapter is quieter, but no less unsettling. It asks us to look directly at what’s been normalized, erased, or left to rot — and to sit with the discomfort of recognition.

Part Two of Mariana Enriquez’s First Word On Horror is now FREE on YouTube.

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Watch Mariana’s episode below. 👇

In Part 2 of his First Word On Horror episodes, Laird moves deeper into the terrain that defines his work — the violence beneath the myth, the pull of ancient forces, and the ways memory, place, and survival shape the stories we tell. He speaks candidly about craft, endurance, and the cost of staring too long into the dark — and why, for him, there was never another path.

What emerges is a portrait of horror as inheritance: something earned, excavated, and carried forward.

Thanks to our Substack subscribers and the horror community, Part 2 is free for everyone to watch. Independent projects like this exist because of your support, and we’re grateful for it.

The rest of Laird’s episodes — along with full runs from every author in the series — live are here on our Substack. Subscribing not only unlocks those conversations, it helps us continue creating the kind of horror that lingers long after the credits roll.

If Part 1 traced the paths that led her here, this chapter lingers in the spaces she never fully left behind. Elizabeth reflects on memory, wilderness, and the way certain places refuse to loosen their grip — how landscapes can shape a psyche, and how obsession becomes something you learn to live inside rather than escape.

She speaks candidly about solitude, artistic survival, and the quiet pull of the uncanny. The moments where the real world tilts just enough to let something else through. These are stories about listening closely: to silence, to intuition, to the ghosts we carry forward whether we name them or not.

Thanks to our Substack subscribers and the horror community, Part 1 and 2 are free for everyone to experience. Independent projects like this exist because of you, and we’re grateful for every share, subscription, and signal boost.

The rest of Elizabeth’s episodes — along with full runs from every author in the series — live exclusively here on our Substack.

From narrative ambiguity to the dread of what isn’t shown, Paul talks about why horror works best when it refuses to hold your hand. We also get into the emotional weight of his stories, and why grief and fear are so tightly wound together.

The rest of Paul’s episodes, along with full runs from every author in the series, live exclusively here on our Substack.

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If you’ve watched First Word On Horror or The Spine of Night, you’ve already been pulled into his sonic universe: warped strings that feel like whispered warnings, shimmering tones that seem to bend the air, and textures you can’t quite place because they were never meant to be familiar. Peter is the force behind the series’ musical identity, crafting bespoke soundworlds for each author — built from field recordings, avant-garde instrumental experiments, and his own instinct for the uncanny.

In this interview, Peter talks about the alchemy behind that work: how he reads each story before writing a single note, why horror demands new sounds rather than old tropes, the joy of collaborating with Philip Gelatt, and the surprising intimacy of working with a single bass or cello. He shares the challenges, the breakthroughs, and the moments where the music stops being composition and begins to become something timeless.

It’s a rare look inside the mind of a composer who doesn’t just underscore horror — he reshapes how we feel it.

Enter the soundworld.

What first inspired you to compose music for First Word On Horror?

The inspiration for this comes from each individual story and author. So before I even began composing I would familiarize myself with the author and read the specific work the segment focused on. From there I would have an idea of what the soundworld should be and I would discuss that with Phil.

How do you translate dread, unease, or the uncanny into sound?

This is a question that I’ve thought about for many years since I’ve started composing music in the horror genre, I’ve discovered that it’s all about making the listener/viewer feel uneasy. I try to use sounds that can’t be identified and I often make my own sounds with field recordings I’ve gathered over the years. On some episodes I used a cellist and bass player, but even then I’m taking their parts and warping them with sound synthesis software I use called Supercollider. Creating masses of sound or strange acoustic / electronic hybrids. Basically I think if someone hears the old horror tropes of string clusters it’s too safe in many ways, because they are already familiar with that sound from the horror soundtrack canon and they know what a violin sounds like. I’m always searching for new sounds, which is what interests me about writing in this style.

Did you build pieces around specific authors or focus more on creating an overarching mood?

The pieces are built around the specific story mostly, but there were times when I was underscoring in a more biographical way. I wanted every author piece to have a different sound world, so each chapter utilizes a different sound palette. That being said I do have a style so that will always give a cohesive feeling across the whole series. I definitely spend the most time finding a specific sound universe when I begin any project. Once I have that I can get into a groove more easily with the actual composing.

How closely did you collaborate with the Etch team, and what was that creative exchange like?

I’ve mostly worked with Philip on this. We have worked together in the past on Spine of Night and it’s always a great pleasure. His vision is so clear, which makes our conversations very easy. We also have very similar tastes, so when he gives me references I immediately know what he’s after. I think the best directors clearly express their vision, but also give you the freedom to do your thing. I’ve worked with many directors where you’ve felt handcuffed by their direction and you end up compromising your voice. It’s a give and take of course, and as a composer you are ultimately serving the director’s vision, but with Phil it always feels like a true collaboration. I also think, because of his writing background he has a strong sense of arc and story and he can clearly articulate that to me when I need direction.

Was there a particular story or interview that pushed you to try something new musically?

I would say I tried some new things in every piece, but there were a few things I did differently on the Liz Hand and Mariana Enriquez stories. For those I hired the acoustic bass player Evan Carley and cellist Aliya Ultan respectively. I liked the idea of limiting myself to just a single soloist for those stories. I think when you put certain limitations on yourself it forces you to get more resourceful and creative. I also love the intimate aspect of a single player. You can get some wonderfully strange sounds out of the bass and cello. Both players are also in the avant garde classical / jazz scene, so they are more than willing to explore the extended techniques I dream up. I had Evan hitting a metal ruler against his bass and I has Aliya bowing the two outer strings of the cello from under the strings (which she begrudgingly did, but was eventually thrilled by haha). What I also love about those pieces is a lot of the work I do as a classical composer spilled over onto those and it didn’t feel forced at all. So in a way those pieces are me in my purest form as a composer. And it’s just great to work with actual players. As media composers we have thousands of sample libraries at our disposal, but there is nothing like getting the raw energy of an actual player to play your work. And working with players like this that understand your vision is very rare and special. So I think everything came together on these two author segments for these reasons.

Horror music often balances beauty and menace — how did you approach that tension?

I think that dialog is critical in all music. Consonance and Dissonance, Tension and Release, those are really at the core of musical experience. So for there to be any effect at all in the art of music you have to understand that relationship. I think what’s exciting about horror is you can go a lot further in the direction of dissonance and tension. Because of this, a moment of beauty will be even more poignant. I tried to bring out a lot of this in the Mariana piece La Casa de Adela. There was a certain fragility in Adela’s character, so the score is very soft and delicate at times.

Which track on the album feels most personal to you, and why?

That’s a hard question because I like different ones for different reasons, and there are many aspects to my work. But if I’m thinking about what feels the most personal, it would be the short piece Minerva from the Laird Barron episode. It just sounds like a familiar place for me to go to musically and has a thread that goes back decades in my earlier work. An almost naïve and innocent quality, something about youth which is what I was going for. The place of making music before I really knew anything about music. If that makes sense.

What was the biggest challenge in composing this score, and how did you overcome it?

As I said before, the biggest challenge is always finding that soundworld where each author’s work lives, at least in my mind. This can often take you to unexpected places. So I would say the difficulty comes in allowing yourself to lose your ego and go there. I think any artist can relate to the idea of getting out of your own way. We try to control all the parameters as artists, but the best work comes when you let your subconscious do its thing and relinquish that control.

Do you see the album as a companion to the series, or as a standalone listening experience?

My hope is that it is both, which is why I kept the order of pieces intact. It’s a long album and I do fear that it’s too much for a lot of attention spans. But we seem to be moving again to a place where people do want to slow down and have a meaningful listening experience.

What do you hope listeners feel when they experience the album?

With any music I write my intention is to take a listener on a journey, as cliche as that sounds. I also think a lot about how we perceive time. I’m reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin and in it the main character, who is a physicist working on theories of time and space, discovers music. He says something like, music is my art, an art made of time. I love that! So if I can cause the listener to lose their sense of time I’m happy. I think that’s what drew me to music in the first place, getting lost in that timeless space. We could all use a bit of that now I think.

If this interview left you wanting more, Peter’s Etch Cast episode delivers: a candid, fascinating look at the mind behind our most unsettling music.

If this kind of work speaks to you, stay with us. Independent filmmaking like this exists because of readers like you. Subscribe below and help Etch keep chasing the stories, sounds, and shadows that don’t fit anywhere else.

This episode goes deeper into the places story ideas come from, how characters begin to breathe, and the strange instincts that guide Stephen’s writing. It’s sharp, thoughtful, unexpectedly funny, and unsettling in all the ways we love. A perfect companion for the holiday weekend — something dark to balance out your leftovers.

Part 2 is waiting. Watch it below.

As always, the release of these episodes is only possible because of the people who support Etch and believe in independent projects like First Word On Horror. You keep the lights on, the cameras rolling, and the stories alive. We’re deeply grateful for you — this week and every week.

The rest of Stephen’s episodes — along with full runs from every author in the series — live exclusively here on our Substack. Subscribing not only unlocks those conversations, it directly supports the independent horror we’re making here.

Her stories rise from real streets — shaped by growing up under a dictatorship, by punk rock rebellion, and by the uncanny slipping quietly into everyday life. In this first installment of her FIRST WORD ON HORROR episodes, Mariana shares how darkness becomes part of the landscape, and why the most chilling horrors are often the ones we learn to live alongside.

Director Philip Gelatt opens the episode, setting the stage for a conversation that’s personal, political, and full of the strange magic only Mariana can conjure.

Thanks to our Substack subscribers and the incredible horror community, this first part is free for everyone to watch. Independent projects like this are only possible because of your support, and we’re deeply grateful.

The rest of Mariana’s episodes — along with full series from every author we feature — live exclusively here on our Substack. Subscribing not only unlocks those conversations, it keeps this work alive and ensures horror continues to thrive in all its beautiful darkness.

Subscribe to watch the whole series now — and support independent horror.

No one has lived a life quite like Laird’s. In this first installment of his FIRST WORD ON HORROR episodes, he brings us close — sharing stories of his youth in Alaska, his strange experiences in the Pacific Northwest, and his brushes with death and the cosmic. His work captures that uneasy balance between the vast and the intimate: the endless dark pressing against the fragile human experience.

Director Philip Gelatt opens the episode, setting the tone for a conversation that’s equal parts memoir, myth, and quiet revelation.

Thanks to our Substack subscribers and the horror community, this first part is free for everyone to watch. Independent projects like this exist because of your support, and we’re grateful for it.

The rest of Laird’s episodes — along with full runs from every author in the series — live exclusively here on our Substack. Subscribing not only unlocks those conversations, it helps us continue creating the kind of horror that lingers long after the credits roll.

Elizabeth doesn’t just tell stories — she lives inside them. Across her episodes, she shares a life shaped by art, rebellion, and wild places: from her idyllic childhood in upstate New York, through the raw pulse of the NYC punk scene, to a strange and atmospheric cabin in coastal Maine where ghosts feel possible.

In this first installment, she talks about the forces that shaped her voice — the power of obsession, the collision of music and literature, and how darkness can become a map if you let it lead you. Director Philip Gelatt introduces the episode.

Thanks to our Substack subscribers and the horror community, Part 1 is free for everyone to experience. Independent projects like this exist because of you, and we’re grateful for every share, subscription, and signal boost.

The rest of Elizabeth’s episodes — along with full runs from every author in the series — live exclusively here on our Substack.

Known for A Head Full of Ghosts, The Cabin at the End of the World, and The Pallbearers Club, Paul has a way of unsettling you long after the story ends. Director Philip Gelatt introduces this episode, setting the tone for a conversation about uncertainty, fear, and the strange comfort we find in the dark.

Thanks to our Substack subscribers and the horror community, this first installment is free for everyone to experience. Your support makes independent projects like this possible — and helps us keep telling stories that haunt.

The rest of Paul’s episodes, along with full runs from every author in the series, live exclusively here on our Substack.

This is your introduction to what the project is all about: independent conversations with the writers shaping the genre, captured with the care and depth they deserve. Director Philip Gelatt sets the stage with a special intro before Stephen takes us into his world.

The rest of Stephen’s episodes — along with full runs from every author in the series — live exclusively here on our Substack. Subscribing not only unlocks those conversations, it directly supports the independent horror we’re making here.

In this never-before-seen clip from First Word On Horror, Mariana Enriquez shares a personal story about her grandmother. A presence that hovers between memory and haunting. On this National Grandparents Day, we remember the figures who shaped us, the stories they passed down, and the shadows they left behind.

This clip is only a glimpse. Mariana’s full episodes pull you further into her life, her inspirations, and her singular way of seeing the world.

To unlock all of Mariana Enriquez’s episodes — plus more original stories from First Word On Horror — become a paid subscriber on Substack. Your support keeps strange, independent filmmaking alive.

In this never-before-seen clip from FIRST WORD ON HORROR, best-selling author Paul Tremblay explores why horror is uniquely suited to wrestle with life’s hardest, messiest questions. Not with easy answers — but with emotional truths, spoken in a language only horror dares to use.

Watch the clip below.

This moment didn’t make the final cut, but plenty of other piercing insights from Paul did.

💀 Watch his full FIRST WORD ON HORROR episodes now, streaming exclusively on our Substack.
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From dark stories to the eerie atmosphere that keeps you hooked, Philip’s insights shed light on what it takes to create a chilling experience that stays with you long after the credits roll.

Watch the video message from Philip below 👇

We’re grateful to have you with us on this dark journey. And trust us — this is just the beginning of the horror to come. 😉

Commissioned as the original poster art for the Laird Barron episodes of First Word on Horror, Jaffe’s piece captures what words often fail to say — how Barron’s fiction thrives in the space between brutal reality and cosmic collapse. But this isn't the first time the two creators' paths have crossed. Jaffe’s journey with Laird Barron began years ago when he painted the cover for Occultation, a now-iconic anthology that cemented Barron’s place among the modern masters of horror.

For this piece, Jaffe turned to Frontier Death Song, a short story steeped in myth and menace.

“In First Word On Horror, Laird reads aloud passages from his short story ‘Frontier Death Song’. The story draws inspiration from the old Norse legends of The Wild Hunt, a mythological pursuit of gods flying through the night sky, as a motif to describe the horrifying cross country journey that the main character must take while being hunted by a host of evil creatures that have him in their cross hair.

The 1872 painting by Peter Nikolai Arbo, ‘The Wild Hunt of Odin’, immediately came to mind while reading the story, and it provided a springboard for exploring different ideas for my own piece. While subtle, my piece echoes the composition of that painting.”

Jaffe’s Frontier Death Song echoes that structure — but leans hard into the unknown. Like the stories it’s born from, the painting doesn’t hand you answers. Instead, it conjures an atmosphere that asks you to feel before you understand.

“Lovecraft believed that atmosphere and mood was paramount in suggesting the supernatural, describing only what was necessary to enable the imagination fill in the gaps with what was intentionally left out.

Lovecraft did this with words; as a visual artist I try and do so with paint.”

The result is a portrait not just of Laird Barron, but of the dark universe his stories inhabit. Bathed in the eerie glow of the Old Leech moon, Jaffe’s brushwork withholds just enough to let your imagination start whispering.

“One way I can create atmosphere in my work, which I hope can be seen in my portrait of Laird, is by holding back a lot of detail and leaving large parts of it in darkness.

The portrait is the identifiable element of the composition; it's essentially a point of entry into the painting before the mind begins to wander further out into dark and liminal spaces beyond.

It's in this darkness, lit only by the uncomfortable light of the Old Leech moon, where viewer and painting can hopefully enter into a deeper and more meaningful dialogue.”

You can see more of Matthew Jaffe’s work on classic horror collections and album covers released by Yuggoth Records — and we highly recommend that you do. Follow him on Instagram at @matthewrjaffe to step further into his haunted worlds.

We were honored to collaborate with Matthew for this piece. His ability to paint what others only feel makes him a natural fit for First Word on Horror.

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