Scribes Who Spook

June 12, 2025

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed - Ep. 1

<p>Welcome to Scribes Who Spook!</p><p>I am so pleased to launch this new podcast on Substack, because it is my first ever podcast and focuses on my favourite genre, which I enjoy reading, writing and sharing!</p><p>As this is my first recording, I haven’t purchased any fancy recording equipment for now (apologies if the sound doesn’t feel like a studio recording!), but I just wanted to begin, honestly!</p><p>In this launch episode 1, I talk about a bold and horrifically delicious book - The Dangers of Smoking in Bed - by Mariana Enriquez. It has 12 gothic stories that effortlessly combine the real with the surreal, delivering a profoundly unsettling, yet gripping and darkly poetic experience for readers and writers (in this genre).</p><p>While I don’t teach you how to write anything in this podcast, I tell you as a writer what got my attention and how, as a reader, I discovered why I enjoyed the ones I have read so far (without any spoilers because I hate them).</p><p>I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast and that you subscribe. It’s free!</p><p>If you’d like to hear more about any topic related to the books I present and discuss here, please let me know. Thanks!</p><p><p>“I found the bones after a rainstorm that turned the back patch of earth into a mud puddle. I put them into a bucket I used for carrying my treasures to the spigot on the patio, where I washed them. I showed them to Dad. He said they were chicken bones, or maybe even beef bones, or else they were from some dead pet someone must have buried a long time ago…It seems like a plausible explanation until Grandma found out about the little bones.”</p><p>- An excerpt from Anjelita Unearthed by Mariana Enriquez</p></p><p><strong>About the book</strong></p><p><strong>The Dangers of Smoking in Bed</strong> (originally Los peligros de fumar en la cama) is a psychological horror short story collection written by <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Enr%C3%ADquez">Mariana Enriquez</a>. It was first published in <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina">Argentina</a> in November 2009.<a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dangers_of_Smoking_in_Bed#cite_note-2">[2]</a> Megan McDowell translated the book to English in 2021.</p><p>“Welcome to Buenos Aires, a city thrumming with murderous intentions and morbid desires, where missing children come back from the dead and unearthed bones carry terrible curses. These brilliant, unsettling tales of revenge, witchcraft, fetishes, disappearances and urban madness spill over with women and girls whose dark inclinations will lead them over the edge.” - Source, Publisher</p><p><p>'Mariana Enriquez is a mesmerizing writer who demands to be read. Like Bolao, she is interested in matters of life and death, and her fiction hits with the full force of a train.' -<strong>Dave Eggers</strong></p></p><p><strong>About Mariana Enriquez</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Enr%C3%ADquez">Mariana Enriquez</a>, born in 1973, is an Argentine writer and journalist located in <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenos_Aires">Buenos Aires</a>.<a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dangers_of_Smoking_in_Bed#cite_note-3">[3]</a> She is currently the deputy editor of the arts and culture section of <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1gina_12">Pagina 12</a>.<a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dangers_of_Smoking_in_Bed#cite_note-4">[4]</a> Her published works also include Bajar es lo peor (1995), Cómo desaparacer completamente (2004), Chicos que vuelven (2010), <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_We_Lost_in_the_Fire_(story_collection)">Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego</a> (2016), and Nuestra parte de noche (2019). Her work has been translated into German and English and published around the globe.</p><p>Her literature is rooted in Latin America urban areas, a realistic setting she pulls from her own life. She twists Latin American mythologies, local urban legends and crimes, pagan saints, and local issues in order to integrate culture into her horror stories.<a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dangers_of_Smoking_in_Bed#cite_note-5">[5]</a> Enriquez credits a technique of blurring the realistic and fantastic for the sinister nature of her writing.<a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dangers_of_Smoking_in_Bed#cite_note-6">[6]</a></p><p>(Source: Wikipedia)</p><p>(P.S. Please refer to the updated information on the author through your own research yas Wikipedia may not have had updates to this page).</p><p>Until next time,</p><p>Happy reading or writing, or both!</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://arpitabhawal.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">arpitabhawal.substack.com</a>