That Cat gets compulsive in an out-there episode with multi-award-winning author and associate professor, the incontestable Helen Marshall. While Kaaron investigates an autograph book and Joseph discovers a horror show in the guinea pig hutch, Aaron goes fungal and transforms into the Moth Boy. Helen works through her fixation with children and death. The dark and light sides of creative obsession are discussed, as are curiosity, boredom, and fandom – toxic and otherwise. The impact of parenthood on maintaining an obsession. Obsession as fuel to complete a project – and the importance of its ending. Also obsession as possession, romanticising obsession, and obsessive coincidence. Not forgetting mortality dump reads and struggling with smalltalk. Kaaron reveals what really happened to her ducks. Joseph bemoans the dearth of peppered mackerel. Aaron keeps a secret to seem more interesting. Helen invites everyone to visit her toilet.

Paint-pots and palette-knives alluded to in this episode include:

• Emile Zola’s The Masterpiece
• JG Ballard’s Complete short stories
• Joyce Carol Oates’s Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
• John Goodwin’s The Cocoon
• CH Pearce’s Jimmy Flip Brings His Little One to Work, and It Comes My Turn to Hold It

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The Cat gets fibrous and transformative over afternoon tea with artist, paper maker and raconteur extraordinaire, the delightful Katharine Nix. While Joseph has an esoteric moment after two cups of tea and Kaaron rejects the popularly held contrivances of narrative convention, Aaron drops the bolognese and lets in the brown-snakes. Ancient alchemical processes are discussed, as are parallel evolution, the creative will, and carnivorous kelp. The urge to ask the big questions. Our quest for answers, forever on the border of a great mystery. The creative similarities between artists and scientists. The beauty of plant fibre paper making. The creative act as the thing in itself. Everyone listens as the rats in the cellar devour Katharine’s Moomins. Aaron flips the table.

Dingbats and wingdings impressed into this episode include:

• Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation and The Sleepwalkers
• Dancer and choreographer Meryl Tankard
• Mark Rowlands’ The Philosopher and the Wolf

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The Cat gets mutable (and, frankly, saucy!) in this special episode with our very own Kaaron Warren. While Aaron goes to a disastrous small-town hypnotism show and Kaaron reaches for the white-out, Joseph opens a black magic door that should have been kept well closed. Rewriting the past is discussed, and our changing perspectives on our own past. Also the vanishment of old haunts, and nostalgia – or its lack. The random scraps of things we scribble on when needs must. Writing vs typing. The addictive machinery of writing on a phone. Aaron invests in a woodchipper. Joseph goes home for sad reasons. Kaaron discovers a bizarre corner and a magic space.

Flipperts and gibbets discussed in this show include:

• Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckenridge
• Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
• Brett Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero
• American Graffiti
• Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth
• Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory
• Call-back to the infamous wet string episode

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The Cat gets performative in a barnstorming episode from the town of Beechworth, with a sensational special guest: actor, freeformer, poet and Bram Stoker Award nominated author, the preternatural Kyla Lee Ward. While Kaaron paces the women’s ward of the asylum and Aaron loses his voice to Bon Jovi, Joseph mansplains a cat into a pigeon. Kyla immerses herself in phantasmal spaces. Voices are discussed, and accents, intonation and word choice. Feeling a character in the throat. The slippery strangeness of the voice. Also working your way into a character from the outside versus working your way out from within. Rebecca is revisited, as is Kaaron’s ‘hambone effect.’ Mimicry as a stepping stone, the formation, fluidity or calcification of the self. The masks we all wear, and other matters of a deep and divers nature.

Pretexts and semblances spoken of in this episode include:

• AsylumFest 2023
• Bloodsongs magazine
• Richard Adams’ Watership Down
• Robyn Cadwallader’s The Anchoress
• Stanislavski’s ‘Method’
• Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca
• Kyla’s novella The Final Masque

Photos courtesy of the incontestable Cat Sparks. See more of her AsylumFest 2023 snaps here.

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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. While Aaron dreams of Hal Bodner, and Kaaron writes about four hairdressers, Joseph drinks whisky, eats haggis, and invokes the spirit of the dead Rabbie Burns. Lisa brings a totem. Curses are discussed, and cursed objects, with an aside concerning the online cursed doll market. Also ritual as a language, the foundations of comedy, and the sadness of dead shopping malls. That terrible moment you realise you’re part of a folk horror ritual you didn’t consent to. Kaaron remembers Marilyn Monroe’s grave. Aaron discovers a cursed cabinet. Joseph hurls his body out into the void. Lisa finds her old teacher’s book. Everyone wonders about dread mechanisms.

Snips and snails mentioned in this episode include:

• Lisa Morton’s Life On The Edge (1988)
• The origins of Burns Night
• Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
• Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man

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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. While Joseph reads another bogus biography and Aaron holds in a sneeze, Kaaron is delighted by a biscuit tin. Angela revisits the traumatising books of childhood. Solipsism is discussed, as is Nabokov’s dream Russia, and the USA of his imagination. Places of the imagination with no real-world existence. The idealisation of a place that becomes more real than the place itself. A toothless man is the telling detail. Not to mention, all the reasons why children should – nay, must! – be traumatised with dark tales. Aaron and Angela resurrect the ghost of Myrtle. Joseph makes a misguided commitment. Kaaron loses a ham bone.

Note: The story Joseph is thinking of is in fact The Happy Prince, which is a fairy tale written by Oscar Wilde – not Hans Christian Andersen at all.

Grimaces and grimoires referenced in this episode include:

• Lila Azam Zanganeh’s The Enchanter
• Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
• Angela Slatter’s Flight
• Struwwelpeter
• Encarta ’95

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The Cat gets titular in the first episode of a brand new season, with special guest Jason Nahrung, Australia's number one vampire and author of Blood and Dust and The Big Smoke. While Kaaron takes a creepy clown as her plus one and Aaron gets unwholesomely into napkins, Joseph gets a lift with a stranger to knifey-town. Jason shares his abiding love of New Orleans, and everybody learns about the life of pirate Jean Lafitte. Titles are discussed: titles from nowhere; titles by consortium; titles as a story's guiding light. The comfort of titles on a bookshelf. The dangers of writing as a tourist. Everyone agrees you shouldn't be a wanker. Kaaron and Aaron fall out over Love Story. Jason wonders where you got dem shoes. Joseph gets into jazz—wankily. Everyone agrees on the Bloody Mary.

Po-boys and beignets from this episode include:

• Harlan Ellison's I have no mouth and I must scream
• Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea
• Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange
• Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs
• Spoon's Lafitte Don't Fail Me Now and The Agony of Lafitte

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The Cat gets confessional in this last episode of Season 2, with the triumphant return of star special guest... Aaron Dries. While Kaaron looks beneath the surface and Joseph makes a snap judgment, Aaron touches his face thirty-two times. (Lah-de-dah!) Observations about strangers lead to an insight. Translation of quirks leads to obfuscation leads to ideas. Anxiety is processed into art. Also, Rebecca... again. The telling detail. The craft of observational comedy. Readers and the catalogue of reality. Aaron brings a bag of mystery. Kaaron and Joseph get literal chills.

Imponderables and consumables in this episode include:

• Emmanuel Carrère's I Am Alive and You Are Dead
• Terence Mallick's Badlands
• Kaaron Warren's Slights
• Aaron Dries's House of Sighs and Damage Inc.
• J. Ashley-Smith's The Attic Tragedy

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.