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. While Aaron shepherds a coming out and Kaaron is betrayed by a cheap trick, Joseph ruins Lunar Park for everybody. Dan goes to Glastonbury on a quest for the holy grail. Fictional truths are discussed, as is reality as a device, the great conceit of modern literary fiction, and the amazing lie that everything is true (but is it permitted?). Also, autobiographical truths buried in fictions, the fictionalising of reality to make it readable, and the different ways we read stories knowing they’re fiction versus assuming they are, in fact, true. The value of a sense of quest. The extraordinary adventure of observing the everyday. Dan chooses wisely.

Librettos and Fisher Kings conceptualised in this episode include:

• Brett Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park and The Shards
• The Coen Brothers’ Fargo
• Daniel Petrie’s Sybil
• M John Harrison’s The Sunken Lands Begin To Rise Again and his 'anti-memoir’ Wish I Was Here
• Jorge Luis Borges’s The Aleph
• Michael Haneke’s Funny Games

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The Cat gets permissive in this latest episode with special guest, author and artist Nik Vincent-Abnett. While Joseph has an on-air fashion meltdown and Aaron DIYs his bootcuts into flares, Kaaron forgets her own name. Clothing is discussed, as an expression of character, as shorthand for a time, as a face to show the world, as skin. The cyclic nature of fashion. Each generation’s possessiveness over the style of their time. Also Hussars, apportation, and the many people who died in Nik’s house. Ghosts as camera obscura. Ugg boots as the great leveller. Selling books with boobies. Aaron wants to be buried in a clown jacket. Nik takes a terminal photograph.

Buttons and bow-ties in this episode include:

• Schitt’s Creek
• Kaaron’s The Underhistory
• Nik’s The Wipe and Savant

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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. While Joseph gets all the ups and Aaron clobbers a Hobbit, Kaaron is haunted by a butterfly cake. The ghosts at Bethnal Green are discussed, as is ham (again), Nazis (fuck ‘em), and Russell Crowe’s piss. Also scar trees, scars in time, and the awareness of historical time as a new angle from which to perceive or experience the present. The importance of The Ugly Duckling. David Hasselhoff’s frozen poo. Aaron gives Rik some sensible advice.

Scats and scent trails sniffed over in this episode include:

• Joseph’s collection The Measure of Sorrow
• Michael McDowell’s Blackwater
• Iain Banks’ The Crow Road
• John Waters’ A Dirty Shame
• Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year Of Rest And Relaxation

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The Cat gets ‘poetic and foul-mouthed’ in a bewitching episode with award-winning author and academic, the incantatory Lisa L. Hannett. While Kaaron gets a Lacroix and Joseph gets lost in the nineties, Aaron dodges the post-con blues by calling from the toilet. William Hope Hodgson is discussed, as is the gathering of disasters. An extended riff on the mixtape follows: the mixtape as a labour of love; the mixtape as a time capsule; the emotional beats of a mixtape. Also, the secret language of couples, the execution of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, and the cultural etiquette of burial mounds. The emotional safety net of a selfie and the magical thinking of everyday life. Aaron makes a mixtape confession. Lisa is careful not to say völva.

Runestones and philtres conjured in this episode include:

• Lisa’s Viking Women
• Aaron’s Dirty Heads
• M John Harrison’s The Course of the Heart

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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.

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.