Linda Drattell wrote her first poem at sixteen and started her novel thirty years ago — long before she lost her hearing in her thirties, and long before she survived the 2016 Bastille Day truck attack in Nice. She talks with Jo about the dragon that turned out to be everybody, the two women who carry her poem "The Torrent and the Tree" into chemotherapy, and the therapist who refused to discuss the attack and wanted to talk football instead. Four books in, the through-line isn't trauma — it's writing things vague enough that strangers can climb inside them.

Key Moments

• 01:12 — A Spanish teacher's homework assignment turns into a children's book about a dragon
• 02:07 — "That dragon is me." Three creators, three reasons, same answer
• 02:45 — Inside a poetry critique group: "I know more about them than my own family"
• 04:11 — A LinkedIn post becomes an invitation from the Korean Haiku Federation
• 08:37 — Going deaf in her 30s, and being the last person in the house to figure it out
• 10:02 — "The Torrent and the Tree," written at 16, and the two women who take it to chemo
• 13:22 — Bastille Day 2016 in Nice: the slow waitress who may have saved her life
• 19:07 — The second arrow: how reliving trauma paves a gravel road into a freeway
• 20:00 — Ten years on, the question that's still hard: why me, why still here

Takeaway

Leave the door open. Linda writes the tree, the dragon, and Filamena vague enough that anyone can walk in and find themselves already standing there — which is why a stranger at a book signing shoved a copy at her to sign while she went and bought a second one.

Find Linda Drattell

• Website: https://lindadrattell.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLindaDrattell/

As an Amazon Associate, Empty Hell earns from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links costs you nothing extra and helps keep the show running.

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Linda Drattell Interview: Everybody Is the Dragon

Dr. Randy Overbeck is back, and this time there's not a single ghost in the book. Abigail Trench is his first historical — a novel about the Culper Ring, George Washington's spy network in occupied New York, and specifically about Agent 355, the one woman in it whose identity nobody has ever established. He and Jo get into what the historical record actually contains (almost nothing), why he doesn't buy the standard theory about what happened to her, and how you write a British officer as a principled man instead of a villain. Then it turns into a working writers' conversation: three levels of feedback, a dozen beta readers, and the first chapter he rewrote fourteen times.

Key Moments

• 00:23 — A departure: mystery and suspense, but no paranormal this time
• 01:51 — The Culper Ring explained — six men and one woman, and the secrecy that held
• 02:21 — The sixth man's identity stayed hidden until the 1930s, 150 years on
• 04:03 — Why the revolution belongs to people working in the shadows, not just the famous names
• 05:25 — Agent 355, "the lady," and how little the record actually says
• 06:43 — The prevailing theory about her fate, and why he thinks it doesn't hold up
• 07:47 — Where the history stops and the fiction openly starts
• 09:08 — Researching Red Shadows at Saugatuck and sitting down with tribal leaders
• 11:15 — Two POVs: Abigail, and the British officer whose house she works in
• 13:14 — Book two, Robert Townsend, and Major John André
• 13:26 — Benedict Arnold was the war's most successful general before he wasn't
• 15:03 — Why a British gentleman considered spying a notch above robbery
• 15:51 — Handwriting analysis, decades later, unmasks Culper Jr.
• 17:25 — The 1774 request Parliament refused, and the three years that made it moot
• 20:55 — Diversion Books, Simon & Schuster, and the step up from small press
• 21:41 — Seven novels in and still in a weekly writers group
• 23:28 — Three levels of feedback before anyone sees a finished manuscript
• 26:37 — Rewriting one first chapter fourteen times
• 29:32 — Big publisher or not, you still promote it like an indie

Takeaway

Seven novels, a shelf of national awards, and Simon & Schuster on the spine — and he still hands unfinished chapters to a weekly group that includes a poet, a horror writer, and a sci-fi writer, because people outside your genre catch what you've stopped being able to see. Fourteen rewrites on a single first chapter. That's the job.

Find Dr. Randy Overbeck

• Website: https://www.authorrandyoverbeck.com
• Podcast — Great Stories about Great Storytellers: available wherever you get podcasts
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorrandyoverbeck
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorrandyoverbeck/
• X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/OverbeckRandy
• BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/randy-overbeck

Randy's Books

• Abigail Trench: A Novel of Washington's Spy Ring (Diversion Books, dist. Simon & Schuster) — https://amzn.to/4fWMtVT
• Book two in the Abigail cycle goes to the publisher shortly; audiobook of Abigail Trench is in production

As an Amazon Associate, Empty Hell earns from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links costs you nothing extra and helps keep the show running.

Everything Empty Hell: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

Dr Randy Overbeck Interview — Abigail Trench & the Culper Ring

Ryan Güt spent two decades holding down the groove.  He's played with some of the best including Stöner, Brant Bjork, and Mario Lalli & the Rubber Snake Charmers. On The Shastafarian, [https://www.theshastafarian.com/]his debut solo record, he puts his art and soul into it and even painted the cover art. We get into the big band grandfather who started it, the vintage keyboard room at Church Studios, why physical media still matters in an age of digital burnout, and what he'd say to the kid he used to be.

Key Moments

• From big band to the kit. His grandfather drummed big band in Chicago before moving the family to L.A. Ryan came up on saxophone and piano, and the drums took over in high school.

• A solo record built for a band. He wrote and played all of it alone, then handed it to friends and told them to play it the way they hear it, not the way he cut it.

• Vinyl over the cloud. He painted the front and back covers himself. Nobody signs a download, and nobody can delete a record off your shelf.

• First live outing for the record. Friday, Aug. 21 at the Dune Room in Indio, supporting desert legends Fatso Jetson, with Coachella Valley's Mighty Jack.

Take Away
"You're okay. It's okay to be sensitive, it's okay to be different — no one can be you, so be the best you you can be." Adopted as an infant, Ryan spent years chasing an acceptance he eventually had to hand himself.

Find Ryan Güt

• Website: https://www.theshastafarian.com [https://www.theshastafarian.com/]

• The Shastafarian on Bandcamp: https://theshastafarian.bandcamp.com

• Instagram: @theshastafarian

• YouTube: @therealshastafarian

• Live: Friday, Aug. 21 — Dune Room, Indio, CA (w/ Fatso Jetson and Mighty Jack)



Notes: Empty Hell is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through the links above costs you nothing extra and helps keep the lights on around here.

Everything Empty Hell: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

Ryan Güt: The Shastafarian, Vinyl, and Being the Best You

Dr. Linda Plunkett was a practicing clinical psychologist with a counseling practice, a ballroom dancing habit, and no idea anything was wrong — until the people around her noticed she wasn't acting like herself and an MRI found a tennis-ball-sized tumor in her frontal lobe. She talks with Jo about interviewing brain surgeons, the eight-hour surgery, the years of fibromyalgia that followed, and the moment ten days into recovery when she says a hand pulled her back — witnessed, she says, by her husband from the top of the stairs. Two books came out of it, both because people kept asking her to write it down. The third is about the storms you don't see coming.

Key Moments

• 00:58 — End of 2012: a tennis-ball-sized meningioma in the frontal lobe
• 01:08 — She didn't notice anything was wrong. Everyone around her did
• 02:39 — Interviewing brain surgeons, including the one who offered to go through her nose
• 03:02 — Choosing the surgeon on the grounds that he hadn't lost anybody yet
• 04:37 — Coming out of an eight-hour surgery feeling like an empty vessel
• 04:47 — Told three separate times in thirteen years that nothing more could be done
• 06:02 — Why she says you don't stop at one or two opinions
• 08:12 — Fibromyalgia, sleep loss, and a brain rewiring itself
• 08:20 — The journal that became Supernatural Rescue
• 13:28 — Ten days in, at the front door, at her lowest — and the hand she says pulled her back
• 17:42 — Asking "why me," and the answer that showed up six months later
• 21:21 — Still competing in ballroom dancing in her 60s, through all of it
• 24:00 — A hurricane, no word from her husband, and the seed of book three

Takeaway

Three times she was told there was nothing left to try, and three times she went looking anyway. Her point isn't that the doctors were villains — it's that a specialist who runs out of tools tends to stop at the edge of their own toolbox, and nobody is going to walk past that edge on your behalf.

Find Dr. Linda Plunkett

• Website: http://lindasplunkett.com
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@authorlindaplunkett
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindaplunkett/

Linda's Books

• Supernatural Rescue: From Broken to Beautiful — [AMZN.TO LINK 1] [https://amzn.to/4c9WP3C]
• Living a Positive Life in a Negative World: My Uphill Journey (Gatekeeper Press) — [AMZN.TO LINK 2] [https://amzn.to/4hYP0S7]
• Book three, on weathering the unexpected, is in progress

As an Amazon Associate, Empty Hell earns from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links costs you nothing extra and helps keep the show running.

Everything Empty Hell: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

This episode covers serious illness, chronic pain, and a period of despair during recovery. Nothing here is medical advice.

Dr. Linda Plunkett — Ballroom Dancing Through Brain Surgery

M.K. McDaniel went into a drug-induced coma in 1999 with a 38% chance of coming out of it. She woke up 18 days later remembering every single minute of a place she is fairly certain was hell — bombed-out cities, demons, and a shack full of women waiting on customers. Jo, who had his own near-death experience at eight years old, gets her to walk through all of it: the black void, the Christmas carol she sang out of pure spite, the dead fiance who told her she had too much left to do, and the roughly 20% of near-death experiences that nobody in the room wants to talk about.

THE TAKEAWAY: "Skip the trip. You don't need to go there. It's an option — don't take that ride."

Content note: this episode discusses medical trauma, sexual assault, and death.

KEY MOMENTS

• 01:04 — The title, explained. Why "misfit," and why "expat."
• 02:29 — Two NDEs compared. Jo's was a white void and a fight for his sanity. Hers was black and silent.
• 03:28 — "We're taking your brain offline and you won't remember a thing." She remembered everything.
• 04:08 — ARDS, lung failure, a 38% survival estimate, and an 18-day induced coma at 52 years old.
• 07:35 — The bombed-out city, the swirling fog, and the voice that asked if she knew where she was.
• 09:19 — "It's Christmas on earth. That's always the worst day in hell."
• 09:42 — She sings "Away in a Manger" to spite a demon. It works better than expected.
• 10:40 — Her fiance, dead a month, looking 35 again: "Now Mary Kay, you've got too much left to do."
• 13:31 — Nobody believed her. It took ten years to find IANDS in Seattle and people who did.
• 14:41 — About 20% of NDEs are distressing. Almost nobody talks about them.
• 17:04 — Her theory: distressing NDEs are religiously induced, and most people she meets were raised Catholic.
• 18:16 — Every "segment" of her hell traces back to real trauma in her actual life.
• 19:53 — The life review: you watch the movie, then you feel it from everyone else's side.
• 30:37 — What's next — ICU delirium, awake-and-walking ICU protocols, and getting people off induced comas.
• 34:12 — The instruction she came back with: loving, kind, merciful, forgiving, encouraging, grateful, nonjudgmental, useful.

FIND M.K. McDANIEL

• Book — Misfit in Hell to Heaven Expat: [https://amzn.to/4wcYbC0]
• Website — https://misfitinhelltoheavenexpat.com


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Everything Empty Hell: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

M.K. McDaniel — 18 Days in a Coma and a Christmas Carol in Hell

Lee Hatfield rebranded his podcast a week before we recorded this. SIPA Paranormal Chronicles is now The Paranormal Prism, he's stepping back as co-lead of the SIPA investigation team, and he's launched a second show with two UK podcasters. He's also eighteen months into a weekly release schedule I specifically told him not to attempt. We get into the medium whose money kept walking off in two different provinces, why the stick-figure cameras don't impress him, and the one question underneath his entire method: can you make it happen again?

Key Moments

 * The rebrand. Paranormal Chronicles becomes The Paranormal Prism. One beam of light in, a spread of colours out. One question, six or eight possible answers.
 * Paranormal Summat or Other. The new monthly show with Andy Booth (Alien8UK) and Tommy Cullum (Let's Get Freaky). Premiere was two hours of banter in England shirts.
 * Weekly vs. bi-weekly. I said bi-weekly so he wouldn't burn out. He went weekly anyway and is booked solid to September. Six guests batched into two weeks, then a month off recording.
 * Make it easy and they come. The one-sheet, the TidyCal link, and guests who now book themselves back onto the show without being asked.
 * Ruling out the not-normal. Faulty wiring and EMF, the alarm clock beside your bed, carbon monoxide, black mould. All of it hands you hallucinations before a ghost gets a look in.
 * The medium's missing money; SDG jail; The hand. Real life paranormal talks from the field.
 * Poltergeist in the forest. Rocks thrown, knocks on trees, footprints. In a house you'd call that a poltergeist. So why does it stop being one under trees?
 * Starting out. A logical mind, an audio recorder, a camera, a notebook and a pen. Not your phone. And have manners.

The takeaway
Rule out the obvious before you go looking for the not normal — then ask it to happen again. Belief is cheap. Repeatable is expensive.

Find Lee

 * The Paranormal Prism on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-zyT7fZF-Y-15XJfpBJgUQ
 * The Paranormal Prism on TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@paranormalpodcasthost
 * The Paranormal Prism on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61592066402942
 * Apple Podcasts — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sipa-paranormal-chronicles/id1799596747
 * Spotify — https://open.spotify.com/show/4mtVyd1Z3xbu7cEzfpZVDZ
 * New Paranormal Prism episodes Fridays at 5pm Eastern. Paranormal Summat or Other drops monthly.

Gear mentioned

 * Digital voice recorder — https://amzn.to/3ROZTeE
 * Mel Meter — https://amzn.to/4wu2eL5

Empty Hell is an Amazon Associate. The links above are affiliate links, which means we earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. It helps keep the lights off around here.

All our links in one place: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

S5 E5: Lee Hatfield — The Paranormal Prism, and Proving It Twice

Stephanie Roy joins What's Kraken to talk about her book Chemotherapy and Tequila: The Last Road Trip — part memoir, part her late sister's actual journal from the road trip she took to say goodbye to everyone she loved. Stephanie traces the road from shy straight-A dropout to the woman whose daily life is orphan Thanksgiving: married at 17, an aortic aneurysm at 23 that broke her open, a trailer park tragedy, and two deathbed promises she kept. Jo and Stephanie also go back to where it all started — ghost hunting meetups in Montreal — and ahead to the TV series she's writing now.

Take Away: Life doesn't get easier — the way you deal with it does. You can't order the tools on Amazon. You build them by living through it.

Key Moments

 * Ghost hunters at the mall — mostly there to weed out the weirdos (01:03)
 * Why Stephanie writes longhand: road trips, the Metro, and the lost art of being bored (04:56)
 * The book that's written by two sisters — her sister's journal is right there in the middle (08:32)
 * The extrovert and the introvert: a tracheotomy at three vs. quitting high school over social anxiety (10:29)
 * Married at 17 — "I knew everything" (14:44)
 * An aortic aneurysm at 23: "Call your friends. You're not going to make it." (16:03)
 * Waking up from the coma a different person — broken open, not broken (17:33)
 * Trailer park tragedy, fireworks, and never blowing up your own supply (20:41)
 * Her sister's last road trip — smiling for the kids the whole way (34:12)
 * Two promises: be there for her kids, and finish the book (36:21)
 * The memoir is becoming a TV series (41:10)
 * Advice to her younger self: hang in there — the tools are coming (44:20)

Chemotherapy and Tequila: The Last Road Trip by Stephanie Roy: Here [https://amzn.to/4aMSKln]

As an Amazon Associate, Empty Hell earns from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

Stephanie Roy: Chemotherapy, Tequila, and Fireworks | What's Kraken

In this episode of What's Kraken, Jo sits down with Mad Ange — artist, writer, publisher, burlesque performer, and lifelong Vegas weirdo — for two hours on sobriety, grief, the old internet, and the long crawl back to yourself. Funny, filthy, and a lot more personal than either of them planned.

Support Mad Ange's work at Crafty Bat: [https://thecraftybat.carrd.co/] - Grab the Ephemeronomicon here [https://amzn.to/3RvhSX2]:

We are Amazon Affiliates. If you click and buy something, we will get $

Key Moments

 * Opening riff – A virgin strawberry daiquiri so vile it deserved to die in a fire. Jo wanted to chuck it at an Uber driver; a red light killed the plan. Mid-interview, he asks if Mad Ange would've run the light for him — no hesitation: "Fuck yes."
 * Getting sober – Both came up the hard way. Mad Ange quit during shutdown — 14.5 months, six drinks since — after trying to get an abusive boyfriend to quit with her. He lasted 14 hours.
 * The feral early internet – Usenet, AOL, Lycos, and the Vegas chat rooms they were both haunting in the 90s without ever crossing paths.
 * A career with no single lane – Award-winning non-nude fetish model, ten years of burlesque, painting, sewing, stage managing, and a film-school noir parody shot in an escape room in under two hours.
 * Crafty Bat – 12 years running. She built the occult day-planner Ephemeronomicon in 10 days with YouTuber Billy Brujo.
 * The family grammar book – Reissuing an Urdu-English grammar written by her great-great-grandfather, printed out of the family home in Pakistan, with her dad on the foreword.
 * The heart of it: loss – Losing her mother, a young friend, and fellow Vegas artist Masuimi Max within weeks of each other. Grief as waves, the year after as a chrysalis, and the slow rebuild.
 * Advice to her younger self – Ignore everyone who says art isn't a real job. Keep being weird, keep being creative, keep falling in love.

Mad Ange: Sobriety, Grief & the Long Crawl Back | What's Kraken

In this episode of What’s Kraken, Jo talks with Georgie Ray about RIP Man 2, indie horror, acting, and building characters from the inside out. From self-doubt on set to the joy of making art on a budget, this one gets personal, funny, and inspiring. Support the work at https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

Support the new movie here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/z12/the-rip-man-2-rest-in-pain-again

Watch the original The RIP Man: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/the-r-i-p-man

Key Moments
Opening riff – Jo and Georgie jump right into RIP Man 2, indie filmmaking, and the fun of discovering new actors on the rise.

The Ostrich breakdown – Georgie explains her short film The Ostrich as a mix of Fleabag and Black Swan, built around the “ostrich effect” and a darker, more gruesome edge than the trailer reveals.

Female rage as a creative lane – Georgie talks about loving horror, writing female-rage characters, and how that energy keeps showing up in both her films and the roles she gets cast in.

Stage vs. screen – From playing Feste in Twelfth Night to working on film sets, Georgie shares how theatre demands instant recovery while film becomes a long game of waiting, bonding, and trying to stay present.

Actor self-doubt is real – One of the most honest parts of the episode is Georgie opening up about the inner critic, overthinking movement and performance, and how she physically shakes it off to get back in the scene.

The character bible – Georgie reveals her detailed actor process: building a full notebook for each character, down to how they wake up and what their routine looks like, so the performance feels lived-in.

Personal heart of the episode – Georgie reflects on how supportive her parents have been, and shares the advice she’d give her younger self: good things will come, love yourself, and love the people who love you.

The RIP Man 2's Georgie Ray on Horror, Acting, and Art | What’s Kraken Interview

In this episode of What’s Kraken, Jo sits down with filmmakers Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli about their chilling new Shudder premiere, Honey Bunch—a psychological thriller exploring lost memories, experimental trauma treatments, and the dark underbelly of a marriage tested to its limits. They open up about their collaborative writing-directing process, the challenges of indie horror, and how personal dynamics shape their storytelling. No spoilers, just raw insight into crafting tense, hallucinatory cinema. Catch Honey Bunch now on Shudder! 

Check out more at https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell. 

We are Amazon Affiliates—if you use any Amazon links we share and make a purchase, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Opening riff – Jo kicks off with wild energy, setting the stage for a candid chat with the Honey Bunch creators 

Insights– Madeleine and Dusty reveal how their real-life partnership influences the film's twisted relationship dynamics 

Personal story – The duo shares how their writing process evolves when directing together—collaboration, clashes, and creative breakthroughs 

Why it matters – From shorts to features--these two have resurrected the art of writing plots that twist as much as they matter.

Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli on Honey Bunch | What’s Kraken Interview

Join bestselling author Jo Szewczyk in What’s Kraken?, Empty Hell’s signature interview series where raw, unfiltered conversations cut through the noise. In just 20 minutes, Jo—known for his dark narr

What's Kraken with Jo Szewczyk · Zencastr

What's Kraken with Jo Szewczyk

Join bestselling author Jo Szewczyk in What’s Kraken?, Empty Hell’s signature interview series where raw, unfiltered conversations cut through the noise. In just 20 minutes, Jo—known for his dark narrative hit Surviving Gen X—dives deep with creators, artists, and the voices shaping culture, politics, and entertainment today.

From filmmakers to musicians, writers to activists, comedians to elected officials—What’s Kraken? brings you the stories, struggles, and process behind the people changing the world around us. No scripts. No pretense. Just real talk with real people.

Subscribe now and join our growing community of entertainment enthusiasts. New episodes drop regularly on our YouTube channel and everywhere you get your podcasts!