Childhood photographs of Aaron Dries, Kaaron Warren and J. Ashley-Smith

Latest episodes

Episode 42 – Grail

The Cat gets spoilerific in search of all things Arthurian with special guest, legendary New York Times bestselling author and award-winning comic book writer, Dan Abnett.

Episode 41 – Slip

The Cat gets permissive in this latest episode with special guest, author and artist Nik Vincent-Abnett.

Episode 40 – Chorus

The Cat goes positively bonkers over an audience with the best-dressed man in speculative fiction, game designer, teacher and writer, the incontrovertible Rik Lagarto.

Episode 39 – Wand

The Cat gets ‘poetic and foul-mouthed’ in a bewitching episode with award-winning author and academic, the incantatory Lisa L. Hannett.

Episode 38 – Picturebook

That Cat gets compulsive in an out-there episode with multi-award-winning author and associate professor, the incontestable Helen Marshall.

Episode 37 – Paper

The Cat gets fibrous and transformative over afternoon tea with artist, paper maker and raconteur extraordinaire, the delightful Katharine Nix.

Episode 36 – Box

The Cat gets mutable (and, frankly, saucy!) in this special episode with our very own Kaaron Warren.

Episode 35 – Mask

The Cat gets performative in a barnstorming episode with a sensational special guest: actor, freeformer, poet and Bram Stoker Award nominated author, the preternatural Kyla Lee Ward.

Episode 34 – Totem

The Cat gets spooky and kooky with a very special guest: author, screenwriter, living encyclopedia of all things Halloween, the one and only, the delightful, Lisa Morton.

Episode 33 – Prize

The Cat gets cosy in the cubby house with special guest, author of All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, Castle Full of Blackbirds, and more – so much more! – Angela Slatter.

About the show

Let The Cat In is the award-winning podcast in which three horror writers and their guests riff on objects, inspiration, and those ideas that scratch at the door, miaowing to be let in.

Canberra-based authors Kaaron Warren, Aaron Dries and J. Ashley-Smith have been meeting up to drink wine and talk shit for ages. At a book launch in 2020, they started a conversation about stories hidden in objects, which took on a life of its own. They recorded a panel for StokerCon 2021 – Let The Cat In: three authors drinking wine and talking shit about objects and whatnot. Attendees of the Con enjoyed it so much that Kaaron, Aaron and Joseph recorded a whole bunch more, opening the conversation out to some of their favourite writers, poets and artists; inviting these creative folks to share what's inspiring them, and what they do when that cat is scratching at the door.

Guests to date include Nathan Ballingrud, Alan Baxter, JS Breukelaar, Isobelle Carmody, Brian Evenson, Lisa L. Hannett, Kathe Koja, John Langan, Helen Marshall, Paul Mannering, Lisa Morton, Lee Murray, Jason Nahrung, TR Napper, Dan O'Malley, Garth Nix, Sarah Read, Lynda E. Rucker, Angela Slatter, Melinda Smith, Cat Sparks, Paul Tremblay, Kyla Lee Ward, Sean Williams and more!

Winner of the Ditmar Award 2024 for Best Fan Publication In Any Medium.

About us

Kaaron Warren

Multi-award winning author Kaaron Warren has published five novels, seven short story collections and over 200 short stories. Her novel The Grief Hole won all three of the Australian genre awards as well as two literary awards. She was recently given the Peter McNamara Lifetime Achievement Award and was Guest of Honour at World Fantasy 2018, Stokercon 2019 and Geysercon 2019. Her most recent books include the re-release of her acclaimed novel, Slights (IFWG Australia), Tool Tales, a chapbook in collaboration with Ellen Datlow (also IFWG), and Capturing Ghosts, a writing advice chapbook from Brain Jar Press.

Aaron Dries

By day, Australian author, artist, and award-winning filmmaker Aaron Dries works within the mental health and homelessness field. By night, he writes frightening and empathetic fiction, including the coming of rage novel House of Sighs, its sequel The Sound of His Bones Breaking, Where the Dead Go to Die (with Mark Allan Gunnells), and the highly-acclaimed novels A Place for Sinners and The Fallen Boys. His short fiction and art have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines domestically and abroad. Cut to Care, his first collection, is slated for release in 2022.

J. Ashley-Smith

J. Ashley-Smith is a British–Australian writer of dark speculative fiction. His first book, The Attic Tragedy, won the Shirley Jackson Award. His stories have been shortlisted twice for the Australian Shadows Awards and seven times for Aurealis Awards, winning both Best Horror and Best Fantasy. His novella, Ariadne, I Love You, is available now from Meerkat Press. His short story collection The Measure of Sorrow is due for release in 2023. J gathers moth dust in the suburbs of North Canberra, tormented by the desolation of telegraph wires.