32. HAUNTED: The Island That Terrifies J.D. Barker - And Inspired His Novel Dark City podcast

32. HAUNTED: The Island that Terrifies J.D. Barker - and Inspired His Novel

2M ago 30:47

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Wood Island, Maine | Wood Island is so haunted, even bestselling horror writer J.D. Barker won’t stay the night - and he’s here to share how its chilling history inspired his upcoming book, Something I Keep Upstairs. Just as the Stanley Hotel inspired Stephen King’s The Shining (and J.D. shares a terrifying story from his own stay there!), Wood Island’s dark past—plagued by disease, starvation, vanished bodies, and eerie paranormal activity—laid the foundation for his latest novel. Most chilling is J.D.'s revelation that while writing the novel, he repeatedly created fictional scenes only to later discover he had accurately described actual historical events—information he had no prior knowledge of.

You can preorder a signed copy of Something I Keep Upstairs at dbarker.com. If you are not entirely terrified of Wood Island by the end of this episode, you can enter the contest to stay overnight at https://woobox.com/vcevs2. If you win, you have to write to us at [email protected] and share all of the details!

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👏 Special thanks to our talented partners:
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Chapters

1. Show Introduction & Support Request (00:00:00)

2. Meet JD Barker: From Finance to Fiction (00:01:26)

3. Finding Newcastle & Wood Island (00:04:29)

4. The Dark History of Wood Island (00:11:35)

5. Paranormal Energy & Unexplained Phenomena (00:16:36)

6. Writing a Novel That Wrote Itself (00:21:27)

7. Haunted New England & Historical Accuracy (00:23:24)

8. Autism as a Writing Superpower (00:26:40)

9. Book Release & Upcoming Projects (00:28:45)

34 episodes