Infernal Tramps: Why Horror Helps Us Face Ourselves

What if horror isn't about escaping reality, but facing it?

Author Alex Grass joins Horror Heals to discuss his new short story collection, Infernal Tramps, a wildly imaginative blend of unsettling, darkly funny and deeply human horror.

Our conversation goes far beyond the page. Alex opens up about recovery, why honesty is essential to healing, and how horror gives us permission to confront the fears we'd rather keep buried. We also dive into growing up on a steady diet of HBO horror, Stephen King's influence, why The Thing remains one of the greatest horror films ever made and how life's hardest experiences often become the richest storytelling.

Along the way, Alex shares hilarious stories about writing, one-star reviews, the changing perception of horror and why getting readers just a little uncomfortable is one of the greatest compliments a horror author can receive.

Whether you're a lifelong horror reader or looking for your next disturbing read, this is a conversation filled with laughs, insight and plenty of reasons to embrace the dark.

Learn more about Alex and Infernal Tramps.

About Alex Grass

Alex Grass is the author of several works of horror and dark fiction, including his newest collection, Infernal Tramps. His stories blend psychological horror, dark humor and the surreal, exploring the strange corners of human nature while never losing sight of the characters at their center. Drawing inspiration from classic horror, literary fiction and life's darker moments, Alex has built a reputation for creating stories that linger long after the final page.

Thank you for listening to Horror Heals. 

Share the show with someone who loves horror and someone who needs a little healing.

If you want to support our guests, check the show notes for links to their work, conventions, and fundraising pages.

You can also listen to our sister podcast Family Twist, a show about DNA surprises, identity, and the families we find along the way.

Horror Heals is produced by Mosaic Multimedia LLC.

Is horror good for mental wellness? Of corpse it is.

Transcript

Corey 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm Corey, and I'm Kendall. We have a really fun conversation for you today with author Alex Grass. His brand new collection, Infernal Tramps, has just been released. And if you're a fan of weird, unsettling, thought-provoking horror, this one deserves a spot on your reading list.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Alex has a great sense of humor, but underneath it all is a fascinating perspective on why horror matters. We talk about recovery, authenticity, growing up on whatever happened to be playing on HBO, and why facing the dark parts of ourselves can actually help us heal instead of hiding from them.

Corey 0:36

We also talk about Stephen King, Alien, the Thing, childhood horror memories, terrible fathers, video stores, and whether getting a one-star review saying your book should be banned might actually be the highest compliment a horror writer can receive.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

If you've ever wondered what inspires someone to write stories that are equal parts, disturbing, funny, and surprisingly human, you're gonna enjoy this one. Here's our talk with Alex Grass.

Corey 1:02

Alex, welcome to the Horror Heels Podcast. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I imagine this has got to be an exciting time for you. This month, your book is arriving. Are you nervous, anxious, excited, all of the above?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

It's my fifth one. I I would say that probably it's one of the good ones, along with maybe one or two other ones. But I kind of got used to it. I mean, there's no nerve-wracking experience as bad as when like you put out your first book the day it goes out. I remember that very well. I've had nothing like that. But like just you release the book and you're like, nobody's gonna read this, are they? And I was very happily proven wrong. So, you know.

Corey 1:47

Okay. We'll talk more about the book here in a minute, but just curious, what do you think about our theory of horror culture and horror movies and and books and all that being good for our mental wellness?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I think it tracks. I think my experience with the contrary p phenomenon being repression, is it's like popping mentos into a Pepsi bottle and then closing the top, you know? It's it's gonna explode, you know? It's it's gonna happen at a point. And listen, I'm a big believer in you know, a life more well lived if it's more honest and more authentic. And you you try not to pretend to be someone that you're not, and you try what you can to be completely truthful. Of course, you can't always be completely truthful, you know. Like when like your aunt comes up to you and and you know, she's got like, you know, one side of her face is palsy and she's covered in cherry angiomas. She's like, Am I beautiful? Of course, you're beautiful, Aunt Doris. Gorgeous. Listen, the world is horrible and terrible things happen, many things I think that are much more horrifying than the horror genre itself. I don't think people can reckon with the terrible things that happen to them unless they, you know, face them candidly. And that is, I guess, the idea behind the horror heels theory, right?

Corey 3:11

Was writing the stories for this particular book cathartic for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

I mean, there's always like frivolous stories, right? So, like I wrote one story, it's flash fiction, it's called A Woman of Distinction, and it's basically just like this immortal decides because some guy bumped into her on the subway and spilled something all over her dress that she's gonna kill him in like a bunker out in the middle of the woods. That was just fun, you know. But there's another one where like, you know, the character is is a wife killer who was a like a an alcoholic before you know that's what and how he ended up killing his wife. I mean, and I just just to be clear, I've not killed my wife, but I did used to be an alcoholic. When you're writing it, you know, you feel the you feel relief if you're if you're past it, and you're never really past it, right? But if you're you know, for the day you're you're beating the demon, then you look at it and you're you sort of like, wow, that's remarkable. Like I used to live my life in a very miserable way all the time. And you know, I just like uh I don't know why I didn't do anything about it. You look back now, having some distance, you're like, wow, I just feel silly, you know.

Corey 4:26

We might have to get a glimpse of your wife before this interview's over, just to be clear. You mean evidence? Right. You hold up today's news to H2R. That's funny. Young Alex, what was his first exposure to horror?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

You know, it's hard to remember because it was so, so, so young. And my dad was not a fan of the genre, but he would take me to see everything in theaters. Everything. So I remember seeing Terminator 2 when I was like six. So I'm sure it was if I had to guess, it was probably probably one of the alien movies. I was a latchkey kid, so like whatever it was on HBO, or like for that matter, whatever made for TV horror movie was on. I remember watching, and I haven't gone back to re-watch it because I don't want to ruin the experience. I remember watching the ABC miniseries uh version of The Shining, you know, but uh I do have very stark memories of what terrified me very early on. I don't know, you know, first is hard to recall. First is hard is is hard to recall because it was probably something like you know, I was five years old and I saw Killer Clowns from Outer Space or something, you know. You remember the era? It used to be you watched what was on TV. There wasn't a choice, you know? Absolutely. You watch what's on, and that's what you watch, and that's it, you know? The world used to be a lot more you get what you get and you don't get upset, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Well, it's funny that you say that because I can vividly remember being like in middle school and you know knowing that everybody watched the movie that was on last night. You know what I mean? Like, yeah I mean you would go to school and everybody could talk about it because everybody was glued to the television.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

It's so different nowadays. You gotta suggest things to people, you know.

Corey 6:20

But this isn't horror related all. I just I distinctly remember like a down the street neighbor, like three doors down, being like, You better get inside. Mork and Mindy are about to get married. I mean that's important. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

I remember like everybody freaking out about the last episode of Seinfeld.

Corey 6:39

It was wager. We went to like a screening where they showed it on upside of a building, it was such a huge thing. There's nothing else going on that night.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yeah. I mean, the last time that's people were so upset about a Jew leaving the public consciousness was about 2,000 years ago, you know.

Corey 6:56

Um so going back to those early memories, like did you have an inkling at all as a kid that you wanted to work in the horror genre or write stories and stuff? I found out you've had pretty fairy professional you know stuff just looking at your bio.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I had no idea. I really thought, you know, I was like a lot of boys, I thought it like I wanted to do what my father did. My father was, you know, was a retail executive. And I just remember him like just saying he's he would just tell me all the time, like, don't do it. It's the worst. It's like it's just like soul sucking, you know, never work retail, he said. So never work retail in any part of of the the vertically integrated industry of retail, you know.

Corey 7:40

Well, he was right. Of course, as a kid, you know, worked some retail. And when we moved to California, I'm like, I swore I'm like, I'm never getting back on retail. But in order to do the marketing and community outreach for the company that I ended up working for, I had to become a store manager first, which actually wasn't that it was a big company to work for. But and then, you know, within a year I transitioned over a corporate, but you know, and was there for eight or nine years, which that was the good side of that was like the marketing wasn't like hard sell kind of thing. It was really all around animal rescue, which were like crazy animal people anyway, so which is why we're surrounded by dogs.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

If you're doing retail and animal rescue, you know, like it's like that's a very different type of retail than you know, you know, like r ring it up plan B at Dwayne Reed, you know?

Corey 8:27

So when did you eventually realize, like, hey, I, you know, I want to write and things are gonna get a little dart?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

I always wrote. I always wrote, and I always wrote more than other people, but I it wasn't like really to any end, you know. I was just writing because like, oh, this might be fun. Or, you know, I remember when I was like 14 or 15, I wrote, you know, just basically like yeah, I I think the technical term is doggeral, but the like dirty dirty limericks basically, but with you know, they you know, much more visceral imagery than you know you would typically associate with dirty limericks. I you know, like all that stuff, yeah, you know, you know, like r romanticizing the wretched, like teenage boys do, you know, like like crack hores and guns and violence and all the stuff you see on TV. And you know, because you're not a parent yet, you don't realize how awful all that stuff actually is. Um so I was writing those stories, and then of course, you know, I tried my hand as every every young Jewish boy from my generation did he's writing hip-hop lyrics, and you know, merce merciful, mercifully those those are you know that have been long chewed up by the the garbage disposal or the uh and you know I was always writing. I really had no clue though that I would make something of it. And for a long time I was really not in a position to make anything of it. And I didn't really have the you know, it takes like endurance and it takes endurance and like psychological will to write a whole book, you know, and it's not like other things, like other things are very hard, but if you're doing them with other people, you know, the harder it is sometimes the easier psychologically it can be because then you band together, you know. Writing on your own is like, you know, it's testing yourself against yourself. And you know, you don't want to be your own referee and advisor when you know you spent decades being an alcoholic, you know. So it's a big challenge. But I think that it's unique along with you know the other art form media like painting and music, you know, you take something from yourself and you leave it, and it there's you know, there's posterity and you know, you can reference it or you can I don't know. It's like mental bricklaying, you know, you can go back a hundred years later and say there's the cornerstone.

Corey 11:11

When you first started getting into the horror writing, were you the sole audience, or did you have aspirations of you know this could be something for people?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

I think it happened all at once. I think I came out of rehab and I started reading a lot of Stephen King. And I can't remember exactly why that was. I really cannot remember why that was, especially because for years and years and years I had read no fiction at all. Like none, no fiction until like just the year before, leading into rehab, and then I picked up um trying to remember the first Stephen King book I read when I, you know, it might have been Dr. Sleep, actually. There's a recovery theme in that book, and it must have resonated with me. I just became basically obsessive about it. I read like 30 Stephen King books, and obviously the longer you read and the longer you write, the further you get away from even the most paternal figures and horror and Stephen King's A Good Ways in my rear view, but I'm not gonna knock a guy just because you don't shit on a hamburger just because you like steak. Stephen King for you know horror readers and writer. You know, that's the Big Mac.

Corey 12:20

Do you think it was like, was it maybe consciously or subconsciously you started reading Stephen King after he had his accident and got sober?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Interesting. I think there was a a wide gulf between those two instances. I remember learning about the accident when it happened. I remember it sticking in my head. I remember that sticking in my head. I remember when John Candy died, it really stuck in my head. You know, my dad was a huge fan of John Candy.

Corey 12:46

Stephen King definitely has his parental figures make some interesting choices. As a father of two young men, does that seep into your consciousness when you're approaching writing, or are you gonna have some fucked up fathers in your stuff too?

SPEAKER_00 12:59

No, there's plenty of fucked up fathers, you know, because like my father was a fucked up father. I still love the guy, you know. Yeah, at a certain point, you have to like you have to reckon with that. It's very rare for sons not to have some sort of agita with their fathers. You know, I dealt with it in my way. For a long time I was very angry, but it's reality, it's part of life, and it's unpleasant to go through, but it's very good for storytelling, it's very compelling. Yeah, people people want to read about it. And there are things that are sacred though. There are certain things that as regards children that I won't write. I just other people can do it, I can't do it. I want the most terrible things to happen to adults, just like more bizarre, that would be fantastic. If a woman could get a modifiable butt implant that she could control with her smartphone, and it ends up sucking the juice out of her body and spinning up redopplegangers, that is better for me. I don't want that to happen to a 10-year-old boy.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

No, right, you know.

Corey 13:58

So when you're starting to assemble a book like Infernal Tramps, do you are you approaching it organically or is it thematically you just start writing and seeing like, well, these stories kind of will work together pretty well in a book form?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

I think it's you know, just like the stories are collected from the course of like a year and a half, two years, and probably, you know, there's three times as many that aren't in the book. So I think subconscious, I was like picking out stuff that I thought could thematically go together. I can recognize that because one of the stories in the book, which like doesn't really fit, it's called the Black Gaucho of Revendication, is just sort of about like this outpost in, you know, in a world where there's commercial space travel and and commercial freight hauling, and this guy's the last human on, you know, in some colony. And I look back on it and I'm like proud of the story, but probably people will read the book and be like, wow, this is weird. A couple pages ago, you were talking about like a dog the size of a horse killing people, and like now you're talking about there's always room for the sad stories because people want to feel sad sometimes. You gotta feel it every once in a while, you can know what the other side of the spectrum is. People who haven't gone through like a lot of very difficult times in their life, they're at risk of like not having a lot of substance. I'm not saying it's always the case, but you gotta know what it's like to get knocked around because like when you feel the relief of getting through like an incredibly hard time and you just like come through the other side and you're just like, Yes, like I did it, it's like it's really the feeling of victory that you have to know what it's like to lose many, many times to understand how winning can feel that good.

Corey 15:51

So when you um see reviews or people putting stuff together, like what talking about the book, and you hear things like Twilight Zone meets hostile or get ready to be disturbed, is that like a point of pride? Or you're just like, wow, what are they doing?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

It's my favorite. And you know, like I I've I try to be humble, it's so hard. I'm just a child, you know, like mommy, look at me. I see it with other authors too. Like, actually, I love seeing it with other authors, like there's the the ones who write like Splatter Punk and and they they post like their one-star reviews, and and I haven't had anything like that, but like I would love it if someone was like, This book should be banned.

Corey 16:30

I'd be like, Yes, best plebiscita you can get, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah, for sure. But I read one review and it made me so so happy. And it like the reviewer said, Mr. Grass, I beg your pardon, but who did who hurt you? And also, please continue.

Corey 16:50

That's great. What do you want people to know before they crack open the cover or open the PDF?

SPEAKER_00 16:57

I would say that I work very hard without compromising the weirdness to give something to readers so that they can enjoy it the way that I enjoy my favorite stories. And that's my great hope to find somebody who will be affected by one of my stories the way I've been affected by something spectacular. Like I remember reading Lazarus by Leonid Andriev, and it's like basically Lazarus is resurrected, but you see it from the standpoint where he's sort of infecting everybody with this cosmic dread. And it just like bowled me over. I just like it's amazing. These are words, and these words are affecting me, you know, if you think about it, because there's nothing and there's no connection, it's not like food or alcohol, it's not a biological process in the strict sense. You read something on the page and it alters your brain chemistry and it stays with you. I'm very aware of that. And uh I try very hard, and I like to give people, you know, really, really weird shit that freaks the hell out of them, you know. And I think I do an alright job at it. Do you envision seeing your stories on the screen? Any writer who says no is a liar. I have said this many times. Because all of us grew up, no matter how much we read, we see we saw more movies, with only the most extreme limited exception, unless you're an Anabaptist living in central Pennsylvania. You've seen more movies than you've read books. I would love one day to look at a movie and to be able to say, like, wow, they really got it all wrong. I would just like, why is the grandfather a female school teacher now? I just like, why is this 30 years in the future?

Corey 18:43

What and congratulations just on being able to produce you know new and unique horror in 2026. We're living through interesting times. As you said, you know, the world is a mess, but and and we're also living through interesting a time of horror being kind of you know and more embraced by the mainstream.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah, there's some really great stuff out there, like really great stuff right now. You know, you have like Robert Eggers making like critically appealing movies. From the cinematography to the to the the choice of actors, and it's just it it's it's very different from when, you know, when we were young. And Harr was like, I don't know, there are certain things that just it was almost like people looked at you like you were, you know, like you're a genuine sick. I talked about this with people, like, you know, people used to look at other people who use steroids like they were child molesters, you know? That's how they looked at them. And but it's more, it's embraced much more. And you kind of look at it and there's like sort of you miss it being d dangerous and forbidden because you're sort of drawn to it because it's dangerous and forbidden. But the grass is always greener, right? Right, right. Like, who's gonna sneeze at you know, a hundred million more people liking horror? It just means they're gonna put more effort into it and I'm gonna be able to enjoy more.

Corey 19:59

No, I definitely remember the stigma. I mean, it was like you think like, what's the reaction going to be to the mother who finds the Playboy under the kid's bed or then or finds Fangoria magazine, and all of a sudden we're getting some therapy rank?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

I was a bad kid in school, and it wasn't because of the media I consumed, I was just a bad kid, you know? Some kids are just bad kids. Usually it has to do with a parent being a bad kid. My dad was a bad kid before me, and presumably his grandfather, all the way back to the to the very first uh predecessor of the grass family in the Horn of Africa, probably taking it take somebody's pelt that didn't belong to them, you know. But at the time, my mom really thought it had to do with heavy metal, so she'd set my dad in to take like my whole, and you remember the CD cases, you know, like the books of CDs. I had like 500 of them. And God, I like I love that thing. And there is nothing more useless now, but I loved it at the time. He's like, All right, give me all the heavy metal ones. And I just looked at him, I'm like, I gave him this look like, what are we doing? And he's like, Listen, your mother wants this, okay?

Corey 21:07

Alex, the last question that we always ask on the podcast is who is your favorite final person, the survivor in a horror movie or horror book or whatever like?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Oh I know, it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

You know what? This is a cheap answer, but I'd probably say the alien from the thing. You know that either McCready or Childs has the thing in them. And it's like sort of it's the ultimate fidelity to the to the genre uh that seeks to draw dread out of the people enjoying it. Um that your person will be, or your, I mean, your final character will be the thing that can ultimately destroy the world. And then short of that, I mean, like it's the time I grew up in Laurie Strode. I'm sure like everybody just mostly wants to say Laurie Strode. Like, listen, people liked watching Michael Jordan play because he was Michael Jordan, you know, and uh people enjoy Laurie Strode because you know, she she she strode.

Corey 22:11

Yeah, she strode, yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Oh my god, oh my god. I just like I remember seeing trading places and when when it showed her with her top off, and I was just like, oh my god, you know, when you're like a little kid, you're like, I want to live in this scene, you know.

Corey 22:31

Yeah, I hear you. Of course, that was one of those that played on HBO, you know, consistently. So you're you're seeing it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Oh my god. And you never see that play now for very obvious reasons.

Corey 22:41

Well, we're yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Yeah, you know.

Corey 22:45

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and doing this, and congratulations on the new book.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be on it at a great time. Can I plug it? If you want to find the book and anything related to the book, you can go to www.infernaltramps.com and on Amazon and look up the name Alex Grass. That's G-R-A-S-S like the green grass, Infernal Tramps. And that's my feel.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

I love guests like Alex because he'll have you laughing one minute and then drop a line that makes you stop and think.

Corey 23:20

One thing that stuck with me was when he talked about repression. His point was simple. If we keep shoving everything down, eventually it's gonna come back out somehow. Horror gives us a safe place to explore those fears instead of pretending they don't exist. That's really the heart of what horror heals is all about.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

And congratulations to Alex on the release of Infernal Tramps. We have links in the show notes where you can pick up the book and learn more about his work.

Corey 23:42

We'd also love to hear from you. Which horror author first pulled you into the genre? Was it Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Clive Barker, somebody else? Let us know on social media. A Horror Heels Podcast is produced by Joseph Multimedia LLC.