Dec. 10, 2024

041 - Counted With The Dead by Peter O'Keefe

041 - Counted With The Dead by Peter O'Keefe
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Season 2

Peter O'Keefe started his career working with George R. Romero on the television series Tales from the Darkside. His recent novel retells the classic Frankenstein story told within the dreary apocalyptic landscape of late 90s Detroit. We discuss the corpse that was Detroit during the 90s, his time writing scripts, his short movies, and Counted with the Dead.

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You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of

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Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube. Welcome, Welcome to episode

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forty one of the Weird Reads podcast. This week, I

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have a guest spent a few weeks now since I've

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talked to him, and I apologize to Peter for taking

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so long to get this up in podcast format, but

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I have gotten behind, which is pretty familiar for me

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if you've been listening to the show for any length

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of time. But Peter O'Keefe wrote the fantastic Counted with

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the Dead, and he and I sat down and we

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talked about his love hate relationship with Detroit, and we

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also talked about his book Counted with the Dead, which

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is a fascinating retelling of Frankenstein that I highly recommend. So,

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without further ado, here is my conversation with Peter O'Keefe.

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Hello everyone, today, I am joined by Peter o'keith. Now,

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thank you for coming. When you texted me, or not

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texting me, he sent me an email. I think it

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was way back in May.

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Yeah, somewhere around there before my book came out in Ji.

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Yeah, well, well before when did your book come out? Yeah, Okay,

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so it was not well before, but it was at

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least a month before, and all you wanted was was

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for me to review it. But I'm like, do you

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want to come on my show?

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I'm yeah, that's very cool. I'm happy you did, so.

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Would you mind giving us a brief introduction? Who are you?

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And I'm I'm Peter O'Keefe. I'm fairly new to fiction

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horror writing. This is my kind of With the Dead

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is my first novel. I've kind of led a very

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zigzag career and life. I grew up in Detroit, lived

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there for basically the first three decades of my life.

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It's been had pretty much a waste troll youth, I

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guess I could say, because it took me ten years

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to earn my four year art degree and at Wayne

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State in Detroit, and I went to New York. I

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wrote some plays, had some stage readings, was making art

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and then I entered the Writers Guild used to have

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a fellowship program, and I said, well, I'll write a script.

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And I got a book on screenwriting and wrote a

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script and entered it and was awarded a fellowship. That

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got me an agent, got me a gig on the

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show called Tales from the Dark Side back in the day.

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And then I wrote a script which actually, and this

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is decades ago now I'm not going to say how many.

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I wrote a screenplay, a horror screenplay that became this

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book that I just published in June, and it got

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a lot of attention. It got me a ton of meetings.

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So I moved to LA. I got some writing assignments.

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I optioned this script ten or twelve times over the years.

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Never made, never really came close to getting made, but

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you know, I made a little bit of money on options,

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and I kind of lived out there for a decade,

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alternating between writing assignments and working as a word processing TELP.

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You know. So I finally decided I was kind of

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a square peg in a round hole and returned to

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the Midwest versus to South Bend and then to now

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my wife and I were and were seeing Wisconsin kind

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of they're both kind of rust belt light, very reminiscent

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of Detroit where I grew up. And you know, once

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I left LA, you know it. You know, at that point,

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it wasn't a lot going on social media wise, so basically,

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when you were gone, you were gone. So I didn't

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get any more assignments. I started making my own short films.

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You know. I started just I made a documentary that

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was awardedly an Emmy, not actually a documentary about artists

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in the Midwest, and uh yeah, I just kind of

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bounced around from you know, a variety of jobs, video copywriter,

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you know, whatever, making a living. Yeah, and then I

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but the script kind of What the Dead just stuck

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with me, and a couple of years ago, I just

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sat down and wrote it as a as a novel,

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and it just felt right because I was able to

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go so much deeper into the characters, so much deeper

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into the world that they existed in in Detroit in

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the late nineties. And so it's it's been. It's gotten

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a good reception from reviewers. I wish they had sold

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more copies, but I'm still working on that, and you know,

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and I've you know, sold some short stories and you

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know worked. I'm pushing another horror novella and writing another

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horror novel at the moment, and you know, that's that's

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where I'm at. Now.

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What was the uh the novel we're talking about is

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Counted with the Dead. What was it like transcribing it

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from its script format into the novel, Did you just

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like have the story outline basically, and then.

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Yeah, I mean basically the screenplay became the outline where

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I basically you know, worked scene by scene through that,

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you know, and lots of things changed, you know, Whole

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parts of the story got thrown out, Characters got thrown out,

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characters got added. You know, white characters became black, Black

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characters became white, and great characters became gay, you know,

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you know, just you know, things changed, and and what

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really you know, the two things where I was able

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to really go deeply into their inner consciousness, you know,

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their thought process, which was great. You can't do that

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in a screenplay. And I was able to really go

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deeply some people may think too deeply into the geography

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and of Detroit, and you know, kind of the world

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they moved through, which you know, a screenplay is exterior

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factory day, you know, and I was able to go

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and describe the factory they're in and describe the environment.

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And yeah, I actually feel I actually really loved that

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that part of the book because it felt like the

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novel had a love hate relationship with with Detroit and

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Detroit very much plays a character.

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Detroit is the character. I mean, it's kind of it's like,

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you know, it's basically a retelling of Frankenstein, but instead

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of of the monster climbing the Alps and hiding in

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the wilderness, he's in this what was then a ruined

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city of you know, blocks of abandoned skyscrapers and factories,

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which have now I have to make the point, have

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now all, you know, almost every structure in my novel

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that was abandoned at the time I wrote it, or

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the era that I wrote it in, has now been

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completely rebuilt.

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Yeah, rehabilitated.

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So it's been a complete turnaround.

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Yeah, that's like I said, Like I was saying that

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that part of the novel really impressed me. It had

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like an other worldly feel to it. The atmosphere I

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felt was steeped in dread, and it was like painted

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in gray and blacks, and it's very visual. You could

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kind of tell that it might it might have been

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a screen I was going to ask a question about

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this because it felt like it might have been a

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screenplay before.

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But it is a very ear the environment. Because when

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I was in art school in Detroit, I had friends

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who basically you know, moved into abandoned skyscrapers and you know,

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Jerry rigged their own power and lived in those places.

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And and that's just a spooky, a spooky, dark, dangerous

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world to exist and to make art, you know, And

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that's in a lot of ways trying to recreate that feeling.

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It's almost like an apocalyptic apocalyptic wild West.

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Yes, yes, So can you tell us what the.

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Story is about before we move on just a little

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bit so listeners will have an idea.

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Basically, the story centers around a mafia hit man in

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Detroit who wants to he wants to get out, he's

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had enough his and his last his last hit turns

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out to be the man who has married the hitman's

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ex former love of his life. So he's he's motivated

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to carry this out. And then then for him, you know,

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that's it, I'm done, And for him it becomes this

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very desperate search for absolution, because that was the original

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idea behind it, you know, the very very Catholic kind

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of idea is how badly can you sin? How badly

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can you do and still be forgiven? And you kill

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people and then go to confession and be forgiven. I mean,

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is that possible? So he becomes determined, you know, he

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goes to his priests. His priest says, no way, am

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I giving you absolution for all the things you've done.

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You know, you've done nothing to fix it. And so

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he goes out into the world to try to fix this,

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and then, to his horror, his past life comes back

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to haunt him in a form of this Frankenstein monster

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created from the bodies of all those past victims and

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using the now deranged brain of his final victim. And so, yeah,

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so it becomes the hit man hunting the creature and

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vice versa through these you know, this very dark world

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of nineteen nineties Detroit.

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Yeah, you mentioned the characters. I really enjoyed the characters

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because they're not your typical fiction characters. These uh, these

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these guys Jack and his brother Marty, they're not They're

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fun to watch, but they're not exactly easy to like.

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They've done They've done some bad things and he probably

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wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alleyway. Yet

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Jack does have an interesting redemptive journey throughout this book

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because of everything else that goes on.

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Yeah, and that's that's bag. I mean the original title

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was Absolution. Okay, yeah, that's of the screenplay. That's I mean,

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it is all about what how far bad can you go?

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And go back?

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And maybe even how do you find redemption when you've

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gone that far?

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Yeah, because it and it's it's also you know, you

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mentioned the brothers. I had been to a lot of

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meetings about this script in l A and and to me,

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it was always this horror story, Mafia versus Franken, hit

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Man versus Frankenstein. And and then I met with this

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one producer who he says, you know, I read this,

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and to me, it's it's not really a horror story.

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It's a story about two brothers. And I had never

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even thought about that that that's what it was about.

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And and it makes sense because it was written. The

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screenplay was written at a time when you know, I'm

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one of eight siblings and the brother closest to me

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we both lived in New York City at the time,

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and at the time I was writing this screenplay, he

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was dying of AIDS. So it was just a you know,

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and I just buried myself in writing this thing to

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kind of deal with what was going on around me.

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And so it became, I guess subconsciously about two brothers.

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You know, you know, my brother and I were nothing

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like Marty and Jack, but that relationship, yeah, kind of

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kind of wove its way into the story.

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Yeah, did you find yourself exploring your relationship with your

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your siblings, especially the one who passed away when you

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were transforming this into a novel?

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And in some ways, I mean his world, you know,

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he was he was a gay man, and his world

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kind of comes into it a little bit. And the

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Marty character, who's a closet a gay man. My brother

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was class but I certainly knew a lot of men

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like that, and and and just the kind of in

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developing it from the screenplay, you know, the kind of

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interplay between two brothers, you know who who say things

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to each other that in any other context might be unforgivable,

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but because their siblings, you know, it's kind of part

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of their relationship and in the end that that relationship

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is the most important thing in the world.

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Yeah, they even betray one another, and after the initial

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shock and anger of it, there's still forgiveness when if

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it was anybody else, Yeah, they're no way. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely,

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I have I really loved their dynamic together. I also

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loved the monster. The monster itself was kind of scary

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and went well constructed pun intended. Yeah.

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I mean that was the fun part of turning it

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into a novel, because you know, there wasn't much room

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to describe the monster in the screenplay, but in the

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novel you can go not just into his physicality but

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into his thought process. And you know, he's this former

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guy who was not really a bad guy, but whose

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brain has become damaged in the process of being you know,

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removed from his skull and put into the skull of

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this beast. And so that was fun. Yeah. So yeah,

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I just enjoyed that. And I remember when this when

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the screenplay was being shopped, occasionally a producer would show me, oh,

229
00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:43.440
I hired this artist to do their idea what the

230
00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:46.639
monster looks like, and then it would always be no,

231
00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:50.000
it's nothing like that, you know, So this way, it

232
00:15:50.039 --> 00:15:53.159
was a really really you know, envisioned the way I

233
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saw it.

234
00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:58.120
Yeah, what I really liked about him was how confused

235
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he was and he's he's kind of like he kind

236
00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:06.759
of reminded me of the original Frankenstein. Monastery's delirious, confused

237
00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:09.360
and angry, and he's trying to figure out not only

238
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what happened to him, but his place in the world.

239
00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:15.840
And so that was like, uh, that made him terrifying

240
00:16:16.159 --> 00:16:19.000
and dangerous, I found, And that was like very well

241
00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:20.360
done and.

242
00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:23.039
Also hopefully a little bit sympathetic because you know.

243
00:16:23.039 --> 00:16:26.399
Yeah, absolutely, because he's gone through something right, you know,

244
00:16:27.559 --> 00:16:29.559
and in the end, you know, there there is some

245
00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:34.039
sympathy for him. I think, yeah, absolutely. I've noticed that

246
00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:38.639
a lot of old classics get retellings all the time,

247
00:16:38.679 --> 00:16:42.240
but I find that Frankenstein retellings. I don't know if

248
00:16:42.279 --> 00:16:48.559
there's more. Maybe Dracula holds the uh, the the championship

249
00:16:48.600 --> 00:16:52.639
for this, but I think Frankenstein is very close behind.

250
00:16:53.159 --> 00:16:56.759
What do you think it is about Frankenstein stories that

251
00:16:56.759 --> 00:16:59.279
that people want to use to retell it.

252
00:17:00.200 --> 00:17:05.880
I think it's just Mary Shelley's vision of the of

253
00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:12.119
this beast. It is so I mean, it's so captivating,

254
00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:15.599
you know, it just could go in so many different directions,

255
00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:18.960
and and the whole thing of the beast, and and

256
00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:21.599
to me, the beast and his creator, you know, that

257
00:17:21.799 --> 00:17:27.480
dynamic and the whole thing of of you know, being

258
00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:34.279
a frightening, horrifying creature, but also being lost and trying

259
00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:37.319
to figure out what happened to me? How how do

260
00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:39.480
I survive in this world? How do I learn to

261
00:17:39.519 --> 00:17:42.799
speak to people? You know? And everyone who sees me

262
00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:47.240
is horrified at the sight of me. There's just you know,

263
00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:49.279
it just seems there's so many there's so many different

264
00:17:49.279 --> 00:17:53.079
ways into the story where you can tell it this way,

265
00:17:53.319 --> 00:17:55.599
you know, tell it in the future, or tell it

266
00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:58.519
in Detroit in the nineties, or you know, tell it

267
00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.279
as you know, a female version the Frankenstein, you know.

268
00:18:01.400 --> 00:18:04.200
I mean, it's just so many places you can set

269
00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:06.279
it and and so many ways you can look at

270
00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:07.160
those characters.

271
00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:12.599
Absolutely, I wanted to talk a little bit about the

272
00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:19.400
pros because I found it it's very beautiful pros. It's

273
00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:22.119
it's even like maybe on the dent side, which is

274
00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:26.519
fine because if some people they can't do dent pros.

275
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But I found you did it very well. Does this

276
00:18:29.519 --> 00:18:32.240
come naturally to you or did you find you had

277
00:18:32.279 --> 00:18:34.480
to struggle to get the words just right now?

278
00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:37.480
Now? I mean, I write kind of the things I

279
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:43.359
like to read, and it's you know, I'm kind of

280
00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:48.920
a perfectionist when it comes to describing a place or

281
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:53.119
a person or an event. So you know, I'm a

282
00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:56.279
very slow writer. I just spend a lot of time

283
00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:00.319
honing that down. So it's exactly the way I see

284
00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:03.000
it in my head. And that sometimes leads a dense

285
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:08.759
pro pros and it and it was denser, believe, oh yeah,

286
00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:14.599
because the novelist, uh could be you know Iglesias edited

287
00:19:15.240 --> 00:19:16.039
the manuscript.

288
00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:17.640
Oh nice, Yeah, I think I saw that.

289
00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:22.359
Yeah, and ten thousand words of description went out the window.

290
00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:29.279
So because yeah, I mean it was even denser. That's

291
00:19:29.319 --> 00:19:33.759
a good free hand, I will, you know, I mean Frankenstein,

292
00:19:33.799 --> 00:19:37.319
the original Franksin is incredibly dense. Yeah, it's it's for

293
00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:40.559
modern readers. It's hard to read because it is so

294
00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:46.319
you know, every every little pebble described, and yeah, every

295
00:19:46.799 --> 00:19:52.119
of ice described an incredible detail. But that's one of

296
00:19:52.119 --> 00:19:54.039
the great things about it. But you you couldn't do

297
00:19:54.119 --> 00:19:58.000
that today. You could do that today and get published. No,

298
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:02.119
So I try to draw the line. I try to

299
00:20:02.119 --> 00:20:06.680
to My writing's kind of dense, and you know, yeah,

300
00:20:07.039 --> 00:20:10.599
it's it's also being kind of set free. Because my

301
00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:17.319
various careers have been as screenwriter and copywriter and video writer,

302
00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:21.279
producer and commercials writer and things where we had to

303
00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:25.920
be very very you know, keep it going and just

304
00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:30.200
use as few words as possible. And I got good

305
00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:32.559
at that, but it's not it's not what I wanted

306
00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:35.640
to do. I wanted to really, you know, tell the

307
00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:38.039
story the way I want to tell it, and this,

308
00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:40.200
the novel, allowed me to do that.

309
00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:44.160
It feels like you have a love for the English

310
00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:49.440
language and you like to play around with sentences and words.

311
00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:52.880
Yeah, yeah, I mean I I guess that's true. I

312
00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:57.880
guess I have a love for storytelling and words are

313
00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:01.559
the tools to tell those story So I really get

314
00:21:01.559 --> 00:21:06.079
focused on kind of being a perfectionist. You know. I

315
00:21:06.119 --> 00:21:08.400
spent a lot of time just looking for the right

316
00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:12.920
word or the right turn of phrase, which, like I said,

317
00:21:13.039 --> 00:21:19.119
makes me a very slow writer. But I mean I'm

318
00:21:19.240 --> 00:21:21.880
very I'm happy. I'm proud of the results, you know,

319
00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:22.920
that come out of that.

320
00:21:23.400 --> 00:21:25.680
I have a feeling that you're the type of writer

321
00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:29.440
who likes to correct as you go, So you want

322
00:21:29.480 --> 00:21:31.480
to get the sentences just the way you want them

323
00:21:31.599 --> 00:21:35.519
as you're going, and then you don't continue until you're

324
00:21:35.559 --> 00:21:36.720
happy with where you're at.

325
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:39.960
I do that a lot, and and then I do

326
00:21:40.039 --> 00:21:43.559
ten more passes to do it again, you know, yeah,

327
00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:46.000
because yeah, people are like, oh my god, I did

328
00:21:46.119 --> 00:21:49.519
three drafts on this thing, and I'm like three, I

329
00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:53.279
do thirty, you know. Yeah, every time through looking for

330
00:21:53.319 --> 00:21:54.960
a better way to say that, you know, a better

331
00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:56.960
way to turn that phrase, or a better way to

332
00:21:57.000 --> 00:21:58.839
describe that scene or that person.

333
00:21:59.279 --> 00:22:02.440
Yeah. Now, were you always a big fan of Frankenstein?

334
00:22:03.240 --> 00:22:06.839
It was. It was one of the books that really

335
00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:09.960
got me into the genre. It's the one that has

336
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.519
always stuck with me. Yeah, there was something about that story.

337
00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:19.160
Yeah, me too, honestly. Yeah. I always found that I

338
00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:26.359
could identify with the Monster for certain circumstances, and that's

339
00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:27.960
one thing that really drew me to it. And I

340
00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:32.680
think although no movies really captured that the essence of

341
00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:35.680
the book, they were able to at least capture that

342
00:22:35.920 --> 00:22:41.599
sort of identity crisis, the the you know, who am I,

343
00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:44.759
where do I belong type feeling, And.

344
00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:47.680
You can also identify with the creator of the Beast,

345
00:22:47.799 --> 00:22:48.039
you know.

346
00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:51.759
Frankenstein, especially being the writer.

347
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:56.119
You know, yeah, his kind of arrogance and you know,

348
00:22:56.200 --> 00:23:01.119
the you know, the unintended consequences of what he's done

349
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:05.640
and to deal with what he's done, what he's done

350
00:23:05.680 --> 00:23:08.559
and the way it destroys the people around him. I

351
00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:11.160
mean that's he's also a great character.

352
00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:16.720
Absolutely, yes. So where where did you start with your

353
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:20.440
journey with horror? How far back does it go? When

354
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:22.880
did you start reading or watching horror movies?

355
00:23:23.799 --> 00:23:27.759
The way I like to tell it is, there's no

356
00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:32.960
I'm a falling away Catholic. But I grew up you know,

357
00:23:33.359 --> 00:23:38.240
in a you know, Detroit Parish school and then Detroit

358
00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:44.599
High School, Catholic high school, and it's like, in my mind,

359
00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:47.400
how can you grow up that way and not become

360
00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:53.759
into horror? In second grade, we had this elderly nun

361
00:23:54.440 --> 00:23:56.480
who you know, had had a sheet of glass on

362
00:23:56.519 --> 00:24:01.720
top of her desk, and underneath he had these images

363
00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:07.039
of the Christian martyrs m hm, of you know, being

364
00:24:07.319 --> 00:24:13.599
skinned alive, being burned. And the one that always stuck

365
00:24:13.640 --> 00:24:20.279
with me was this entire family in ancient Rome. Mom, dad,

366
00:24:20.279 --> 00:24:23.400
and the kids all have their both hands cut off

367
00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:26.960
and or one by one being thrown into a boiling

368
00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:30.519
pit of something or other. H I was like, how

369
00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:34.279
can you not become a horror writer? You know, constantly

370
00:24:34.359 --> 00:24:38.079
hearing about the martyrs and their courage under torture and

371
00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:40.000
you know, horrific acts.

372
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:43.119
And if you had pictures of like hell Raiser or

373
00:24:43.720 --> 00:24:46.720
Freddy Krueger on your desk, he'd be, uh, yeah, if

374
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:48.480
you grew up like that, you know, he'd be like,

375
00:24:48.680 --> 00:24:49.720
there's something wrong with you.

376
00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:54.839
Not to mention, you've got this guy in front of

377
00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:56.759
every classroom nailed.

378
00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:59.960
To a cross, you know, looking like he's an Eggan.

379
00:25:00.680 --> 00:25:01.960
Kind of a dark way to.

380
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:03.160
Look at the world. Yeah.

381
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:09.559
I was mainly a kid into sci fi, and then

382
00:25:09.920 --> 00:25:13.279
then I think it's reading Frankenstein probably, I don't know,

383
00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:18.000
junior high or something that turned me more from sci fi.

384
00:25:19.160 --> 00:25:21.920
You know, to me, sci fi was hard because it's

385
00:25:21.960 --> 00:25:23.839
always about the future, and I always wanted to write

386
00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:27.200
about things that were happening to me now, you know,

387
00:25:27.799 --> 00:25:30.720
time and place, and horror was a good way to

388
00:25:30.759 --> 00:25:34.400
do that. And then I, you know, I wrote some

389
00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:37.319
horror and I wrote the original screenplay for kind Of

390
00:25:37.319 --> 00:25:40.319
with the Dead, and I had some horror assignments as

391
00:25:40.359 --> 00:25:43.160
a screenwriter. But and then I made some short films

392
00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:47.640
that are horror films, and I made early I was

393
00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:53.079
way ahead of my time making this web series. Sister

394
00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:57.720
Mary Martha's Martyrology, where Sister Mary Martha has a talk

395
00:25:57.759 --> 00:26:03.079
show and she interviewed is the dead Christian martyrs. She's

396
00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:05.240
able to bring them on her show, you know, and

397
00:26:06.519 --> 00:26:11.359
of course what could possibly go wrong? And yeah, so

398
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:15.200
it's always kind of been there, but I've never until

399
00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:18.599
I addressed, you know, turning the screenplay into a novel.

400
00:26:18.599 --> 00:26:21.680
I never really had the time to really dig into it.

401
00:26:21.680 --> 00:26:22.920
It was always like, oh, I got to go to

402
00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:28.319
work and make videos, make commercials or whatever. Yeah, you know,

403
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:30.079
And finally when I had the time to just sit

404
00:26:30.119 --> 00:26:33.759
down and write a novel, you know, I was like, God,

405
00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:35.319
why did I do this so much sooner?

406
00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:42.000
Yeah, Well, at least it came because you could have

407
00:26:42.119 --> 00:26:44.160
never never approached it, right.

408
00:26:44.559 --> 00:26:49.039
Yeah. And another influence I think is Greek mythology, you know,

409
00:26:49.559 --> 00:26:52.759
all that stuff, all those things about you know, gods

410
00:26:52.799 --> 00:26:57.119
and men and monsters and cyclops and and all that

411
00:26:57.119 --> 00:27:01.079
sort of thing. I always was fascinated by that. Yeah,

412
00:27:01.359 --> 00:27:03.720
there's a lot of monsters in there. The first thing

413
00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:07.720
I ever wrote, I was still in art school and

414
00:27:07.799 --> 00:27:12.839
I was doing posters for this dance troupe in Detroit,

415
00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:16.240
Clifford Fiers Dance dance troupe, which was an very athletic

416
00:27:16.279 --> 00:27:21.599
African American dance troupe, Dunham based Katherine Dunham type dance.

417
00:27:22.519 --> 00:27:27.240
And I was doing the posters and and the the

418
00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:31.680
Chris Clifford fair Is one point said, boy, I wish

419
00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:34.680
someone would write a libretto for me that we could

420
00:27:35.119 --> 00:27:38.000
do a whole performance. And I'm like, and I was

421
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:41.519
taking some creative writing classes, you know, just for credit,

422
00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:46.920
and I said, I'm a writer. And I wrote, you know,

423
00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:50.720
the story of Theseus and the Minotaur as a libretto,

424
00:27:52.039 --> 00:27:53.680
which I had to go to the library and see

425
00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:56.960
what a libretto was before I could do it. And

426
00:27:57.079 --> 00:28:02.279
he loved it. He corea aft it and it you know,

427
00:28:02.440 --> 00:28:04.839
premiered did he tried Institute of Arts and it was

428
00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:08.359
I was like, oh, I like this, I like writing nice.

429
00:28:08.519 --> 00:28:14.440
But nothing nothing went so easily ever again, you know quickly, No.

430
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:17.240
That that never happened. I wouldn't say that never happens,

431
00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:20.079
but like, have you ever worked on a short story

432
00:28:20.440 --> 00:28:22.599
or perhaps a novella or a novel or it just

433
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:25.440
like popped out of you and you're just afterwards like

434
00:28:25.799 --> 00:28:27.160
that was a great experience.

435
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:32.519
Yeah, I mean I've actually written some short stories. One

436
00:28:32.599 --> 00:28:36.119
I can think of in particular that's kind of a literary,

437
00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:41.039
a very dark literary kind of story that just I

438
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:45.279
literally dreamed the story and woke up and wrote it

439
00:28:46.720 --> 00:28:49.519
and and then sold it as a short story. It

440
00:28:49.640 --> 00:28:55.240
was it just it just came. That happened so rarely.

441
00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:00.920
Yeah, I love it when that happens. Honestly, You've worked

442
00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:05.079
many jobs in in in your life, and I have

443
00:29:05.119 --> 00:29:08.599
a list here from your web page. You've worked as

444
00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:13.039
a night janitor, a postal clerk, loading doc worker, warehouse grunts,

445
00:29:13.079 --> 00:29:16.440
and store clerk, among other like what you've already mentioned.

446
00:29:17.559 --> 00:29:21.519
But doing these more blue colored type of work, did

447
00:29:21.559 --> 00:29:23.680
you find that's fieled your creativity at all?

448
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:29.880
In some ways, the monotony of those jobs would allow

449
00:29:29.960 --> 00:29:32.160
your mind to kind of wander and you'd come up

450
00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:36.880
with ideas. But I think was the main value was

451
00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:40.400
the people I met and the situations I found myself in,

452
00:29:42.279 --> 00:29:47.160
you know, those things just you know, as a writer,

453
00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:49.480
living living a life is I think is the most

454
00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:53.680
important thing to be a writer. I mean, I was

455
00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:58.920
sixteen years old with my first real job. I'd had

456
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:03.079
other jobs, first real you know, clock in and clock

457
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:09.720
out job in a warehouse in downtown Detroit, and that,

458
00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:13.480
you know, it was what an introduction to the real

459
00:30:13.559 --> 00:30:19.000
world of Detroit. It was the entire warehouse crew was black,

460
00:30:19.119 --> 00:30:22.720
the entire dock crew was white. I had a job

461
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:27.880
kind of taking stuff between those two crews, and and

462
00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:32.279
then at one point everything exploded into this racial conflict.

463
00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:37.240
And just just to see that, you know, to experience

464
00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:40.319
that and to have friendships on both sides of that

465
00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:44.480
was you know, that's something I keep coming back to

466
00:30:44.519 --> 00:30:46.400
in my writing, and there's an undercurrent of that and

467
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:49.200
kind of with the dead, you know, these the racial

468
00:30:49.240 --> 00:30:53.079
geography of Detroit and the politics and all that stuff.

469
00:30:53.319 --> 00:30:57.200
I have to wonder if that that experience didn't influence

470
00:30:57.480 --> 00:31:02.960
and maybe even a large part your short race memory.

471
00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:10.400
Yeah, that was very much influence that. It's a very

472
00:31:10.480 --> 00:31:15.279
dark video about cops, basically in a cop bar, and

473
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:19.559
gender and race play a big part. And that was

474
00:31:20.359 --> 00:31:25.079
one of my first roommates when I left home was

475
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:32.160
an extra Troy cop and and he was still buddies

476
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:36.119
with all his buddies on the force, and they would

477
00:31:36.119 --> 00:31:39.319
come over and we'd smoke dope and they always had

478
00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:44.839
the best dope and drake, you know, beer and tequila

479
00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:48.759
shots and you know whatever, and the stories they would tell. Yeah,

480
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:53.519
and their attitudes. I mean, I really liked my roommate,

481
00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:55.079
he was a really good guy. But some of these

482
00:31:55.079 --> 00:31:58.680
guys were just frightening. Yeah, And the stories I told

483
00:31:58.680 --> 00:32:01.880
were frightening, and you just hoped sometimes they were not true,

484
00:32:03.480 --> 00:32:05.599
but it was certainly. It was a lot of material

485
00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:09.440
and a lot of that went into that film Race Memory.

486
00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:12.599
Yeah, that was really well done. I watched that and

487
00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:15.680
I got kind of lost in the whole thing.

488
00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:18.119
Because some of the some of the stories the guy,

489
00:32:19.079 --> 00:32:23.079
the white maybe former cop, were actually stories I heard

490
00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:27.119
cops tell. Oh really, you know, pretty much almost a

491
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:32.240
word for word. So yeah, I was those are kind

492
00:32:32.279 --> 00:32:33.839
of things that make you a writer, you know, just

493
00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:40.799
experiencing people like that, absolutely diving into those worlds, those

494
00:32:40.839 --> 00:32:42.599
other worlds that are so different than your own.

495
00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:47.480
Yeah. Now, your bio also mentions that your your I

496
00:32:47.480 --> 00:32:51.559
guess your professional creative writing journey started with writing for

497
00:32:51.720 --> 00:32:55.079
George jar Romero's Tales from the Dark Side, which you

498
00:32:55.160 --> 00:32:59.960
talked about in your uh in your introduction. Now, I'm

499
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:02.359
sure you've been asked this before, but how did you

500
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:04.279
get connected with Romero?

501
00:33:05.240 --> 00:33:07.839
I'm trying to reb I was never I never even

502
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:11.960
met him. Tom Arnold was the show runner.

503
00:33:12.240 --> 00:33:13.960
Basically liked Tom Arnold.

504
00:33:14.759 --> 00:33:22.079
No, this was another okay, And that's when I I

505
00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:25.519
right at the same time, I got the writers Guilled Fellowship.

506
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:31.359
I can't remember how I I think I might have

507
00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:34.440
just cold called him, like, hey, I just got this

508
00:33:34.519 --> 00:33:36.920
writer's Skilled Fellowship. And because I didn't even have an

509
00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:41.400
agent yet, and I went in there and pitched some

510
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:45.480
stories and they, you know, hired me. And I wrote

511
00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:49.559
three episodes and you know, some of them I'm proud of.

512
00:33:49.599 --> 00:33:52.240
Some of them I'm not so proud of. Yeah, it

513
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:55.880
was a good experience pitching because I, you know, I'm

514
00:33:55.920 --> 00:34:00.519
basically especially know it's basically a shy person. Going and

515
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:05.319
pitching to people was hard. And I would spend a

516
00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:08.760
week coming up with all these stories I thought would

517
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:13.159
be perfect for Tom. Yeah, and I'd pitched the first one,

518
00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:15.480
now I already did that. I pitched the second one

519
00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:18.239
that's thought for us. I pitched the third one. Oh,

520
00:34:18.280 --> 00:34:21.920
we're doing that same story next next month. And and

521
00:34:21.960 --> 00:34:23.880
then I'd like make something up out of the top

522
00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:26.639
of my head and you go, Oh, I like that,

523
00:34:27.719 --> 00:34:30.400
I have to go figure out how do I write

524
00:34:30.400 --> 00:34:34.679
this story that you know, there's no story there yet. Yeah,

525
00:34:34.840 --> 00:34:37.280
and you know, so it was good. It was good experience,

526
00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:38.199
it was good practice.

527
00:34:38.920 --> 00:34:41.920
And yeah, so he never got to even talk to

528
00:34:41.960 --> 00:34:43.280
George Ramiro or he.

529
00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:44.880
Was you know, this was I don't think he was

530
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:47.559
in New York in those days, okay, And they were

531
00:34:47.559 --> 00:34:48.880
based in New York at that point.

532
00:34:49.679 --> 00:34:52.239
So was he just like had his name on it maybe?

533
00:34:52.320 --> 00:34:59.559
Yeah, producer. Yeah, i'd have directed some episodes, I don't remember, Okay. Yeah,

534
00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:02.800
he was the at the top, and you know, people

535
00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:06.679
like like Arnold, you know, we're the ones that chose

536
00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:09.880
the stories and I are all kinds of different directors

537
00:35:10.280 --> 00:35:12.159
and all kinds of different writers.

538
00:35:12.519 --> 00:35:15.159
Did you ever get to like check out any of

539
00:35:15.199 --> 00:35:16.639
the sets or anything like that.

540
00:35:17.960 --> 00:35:21.119
No, because when I was in New York, they had

541
00:35:21.119 --> 00:35:23.199
already started making them in LA.

542
00:35:23.800 --> 00:35:25.039
Oh okay, Yeah, so.

543
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:27.159
I wrote my three when I lived in New York

544
00:35:27.199 --> 00:35:29.039
and they were being made in LA at the time,

545
00:35:29.079 --> 00:35:31.360
and by the time I moved to LA, the show

546
00:35:31.519 --> 00:35:32.679
was done.

547
00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:36.960
So that must have been a pretty cool experience though,

548
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:41.079
because that was on like primetime TV. Right, did you

549
00:35:41.119 --> 00:35:43.760
ever like get excited and sit down and watch your episode?

550
00:35:44.039 --> 00:35:46.360
Oh yeah, yeah, and you know, of course told everyone

551
00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:48.719
in my family and you know, all that stuff, because

552
00:35:49.079 --> 00:35:50.880
you know, at that point, Tales the Dark Side was

553
00:35:50.960 --> 00:35:53.760
pretty well known, pretty well known show, and so that

554
00:35:53.880 --> 00:35:54.280
was fun.

555
00:35:54.639 --> 00:35:55.960
I used to watch it all the time.

556
00:35:56.920 --> 00:35:59.840
I loved the opening credit sequence of that show.

557
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:01.320
Mm hmm, you know.

558
00:36:01.400 --> 00:36:03.199
So, yeah, it was It was fun. It was a

559
00:36:03.239 --> 00:36:07.239
good experience that I never really had any other TV

560
00:36:07.400 --> 00:36:11.559
experience after that, though, I kind of went into features

561
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:17.639
and I wrote. I wrote one television movie for a

562
00:36:17.719 --> 00:36:22.880
German network. Was fun and interesting. I got to go

563
00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:30.599
to Munich and have meetings and stuff and and I

564
00:36:30.599 --> 00:36:36.239
I shouldn't even tell this story, but my my biggest

565
00:36:37.199 --> 00:36:41.360
you know, wish I could take it back moment of

566
00:36:41.400 --> 00:36:45.400
my career was I was doing okay, I was getting

567
00:36:45.400 --> 00:36:49.519
all these you know, various writing assignments, and I got

568
00:36:49.519 --> 00:36:54.360
a writing assignment from Imagine Universal and I just froze.

569
00:36:55.159 --> 00:37:01.519
I just froze, complete writer's block. And for months I've

570
00:37:01.519 --> 00:37:06.679
been going in and having meetings with Michael Mann and

571
00:37:07.719 --> 00:37:10.400
you know, he put in my agent at the time.

572
00:37:10.440 --> 00:37:13.559
He just liked for some reason, he liked me because

573
00:37:13.559 --> 00:37:17.760
I was from Detroit anyways, and you know, went to

574
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:20.599
all these meetings. I'd pitch all this stuff and nothing

575
00:37:20.599 --> 00:37:24.400
ever came of it. And then I'm sitting there with

576
00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:30.000
writer's block on this imagined project and they're calling me,

577
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:34.639
where's the draft? Where's the draft? And my agent calls me, Oh,

578
00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:38.440
Michael Man wants you to write a TV movie. But

579
00:37:38.920 --> 00:37:43.840
it needed to be done like right now, and I

580
00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:47.599
didn't do it, and I just, you know, I should have,

581
00:37:48.159 --> 00:37:50.760
you know, I should have taken drugs or something and

582
00:37:51.239 --> 00:37:54.280
try to do both projects at once. Is the nothing.

583
00:37:54.400 --> 00:37:54.559
You know.

584
00:37:54.639 --> 00:37:56.440
I was never able to get another meeting with him

585
00:37:56.480 --> 00:37:56.800
after that.

586
00:37:57.280 --> 00:37:59.840
Oh yeah, And.

587
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:01.639
It's one of those man if I had that to

588
00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:03.920
do over again, if I could go back and visit

589
00:38:03.960 --> 00:38:04.760
my younger self.

590
00:38:05.360 --> 00:38:08.760
Yeah, but you know you got to you gotta be

591
00:38:08.800 --> 00:38:11.840
gentle with yourself too, right if it's if it's not

592
00:38:11.880 --> 00:38:15.760
going to happen, it's not going to happen. So I wouldn't.

593
00:38:15.960 --> 00:38:18.960
I'm sure you've had time, but I don't. You don't

594
00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:20.599
need me saying this, But you know you shouldn't be

595
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:23.119
so hard on yourself for that cause, oh yeah, because

596
00:38:23.159 --> 00:38:23.400
you know.

597
00:38:24.519 --> 00:38:30.440
Like, it's that that Catholic guilt. Yeah, complex. Yeah, even

598
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:32.760
though I'm not a hit man, I'm constantly hard on myself.

599
00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:37.119
You feel like a hit man of your own self?

600
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:39.639
Right, find absolution somehow.

601
00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:44.559
Yeah, Now that's not the short that I mentioned. Race

602
00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:46.679
Memory isn't the only one you've done. You've done a

603
00:38:46.679 --> 00:38:49.440
bunch of others. But I wanted to talk briefly about

604
00:38:49.480 --> 00:38:53.800
Sister Mary Martha's or Martyrology. Can you tell us what

605
00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:57.519
that's about? And where can if every anyone who wants

606
00:38:57.599 --> 00:38:59.719
to watch these videos, they can just go to your website.

607
00:38:59.800 --> 00:39:02.639
Yeah, go to my website, or go to video or

608
00:39:02.679 --> 00:39:04.800
go to I think they're on YouTube. Still, it's been

609
00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:08.119
so many years since I've looked at them, but Vimeo

610
00:39:08.280 --> 00:39:15.239
or my website, and and this I'm mean basically, yeah,

611
00:39:15.519 --> 00:39:17.639
it's been so long since I made those I don't

612
00:39:17.639 --> 00:39:21.400
even remember the names of the saints. But she we

613
00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:25.239
shot the first episode trying to make it look like

614
00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:30.960
an amateur production. So we purposely shot it to look

615
00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:34.840
really amateurish, and that came back to bite bite me,

616
00:39:34.920 --> 00:39:36.960
because everyone's like, this thing looks terrible. I don't want

617
00:39:36.960 --> 00:39:40.199
to watch this thing. So so after that we got

618
00:39:40.280 --> 00:39:41.239
rid of that concept.

619
00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:43.000
And she just.

620
00:39:44.400 --> 00:39:49.880
She just sits at her desk and magically these martyrs appear,

621
00:39:50.920 --> 00:39:54.599
and she interviews them, and she magically ends up, you know,

622
00:39:55.480 --> 00:39:58.679
in their place in some instances, being tortured, you know,

623
00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:02.639
by a torture her in a in a in a mask,

624
00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:08.559
you know, with torture implements, and and yeah, it's hard

625
00:40:08.599 --> 00:40:11.559
to describe. It's hard to describe, you know. She she

626
00:40:11.719 --> 00:40:16.960
rescues one saint who was swallowed by a dragon according

627
00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:21.079
to the various martyrologies, and she manages to rescue her

628
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:26.360
from the the mouth of this dragon. And but then

629
00:40:26.440 --> 00:40:31.159
the dragon someone else has to replace this saint, this

630
00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:34.480
martyr that's been freed, and at first it looks like

631
00:40:34.519 --> 00:40:36.719
it's going to be Sister Mary Martha, but then it

632
00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:39.320
turns out to be this evil priest who's always trying

633
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:44.039
to shut her down, who gets slurped up. So it's

634
00:40:44.079 --> 00:40:49.159
just kind of a wild, crazy fun look at these

635
00:40:49.480 --> 00:40:52.920
and these crazy martyrology stories, you know, the Christian martyrs

636
00:40:52.920 --> 00:40:57.360
of you know the things. You know, this one, you know,

637
00:40:57.440 --> 00:40:59.599
they tried every way to kill her, and they couldn't

638
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:01.280
kill her. They tried to burn her or they tried

639
00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:03.800
to poison her, they tried to kill her of arrows,

640
00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:06.480
and finally she got swallowed by a dragon. You know,

641
00:41:06.559 --> 00:41:09.719
it's just like, how do you you know, how do

642
00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:13.159
you not want to you know, visit revisit those stories?

643
00:41:13.280 --> 00:41:13.519
You know?

644
00:41:13.639 --> 00:41:17.840
Yeah, are shorts a thing in the past now or

645
00:41:17.840 --> 00:41:18.320
are you still?

646
00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:22.599
Pretty much? I mean because the time, and I mean

647
00:41:24.679 --> 00:41:27.119
if I went, it would certainly be easier now. You know,

648
00:41:27.679 --> 00:41:31.719
I usually had the rent cameras and lights and and

649
00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:33.800
sometimes when I was working as a producer, I could

650
00:41:33.840 --> 00:41:41.320
use their equipment and use actors and not actors. And yeah,

651
00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:43.880
I mean the amount of work that went into each

652
00:41:44.119 --> 00:41:50.800
one eventually just got to be too much, you know,

653
00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:53.559
I just you know, I need to just sit down

654
00:41:53.599 --> 00:41:56.440
and work at a word process or to tell stories.

655
00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:00.119
And then, of course, my sister Mary Martha went and

656
00:42:00.119 --> 00:42:04.559
and got married and started having babies. Although I did want,

657
00:42:04.599 --> 00:42:06.800
I really wanted to do an episode with her pregnant,

658
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:09.079
but yeah, it just didn't happen.

659
00:42:10.719 --> 00:42:12.559
So is it more of a relief now that you

660
00:42:12.599 --> 00:42:16.360
can just like roll out the computer and start pounding

661
00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:17.280
away on the keyboard.

662
00:42:17.639 --> 00:42:21.480
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I if I was younger,

663
00:42:22.079 --> 00:42:24.119
I would love to get back into doing that, But

664
00:42:24.719 --> 00:42:27.239
now I've got so many stories I want to tell,

665
00:42:28.280 --> 00:42:30.679
and the only way I can tell those stories is

666
00:42:30.920 --> 00:42:33.440
writing them. If I go out and try to make

667
00:42:33.440 --> 00:42:38.159
them as videos or movies, you know, I'll never even

668
00:42:38.480 --> 00:42:43.599
make a dent in that backlog of stories. So yeah, yeah,

669
00:42:44.079 --> 00:42:45.880
you much more control when you're writing. I mean, you

670
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:48.039
can yeah, set it anywhere.

671
00:42:48.159 --> 00:42:49.400
You know, you're your own director.

672
00:42:49.559 --> 00:42:53.719
Number of extras, you know, you don't have to although now,

673
00:42:53.760 --> 00:42:56.320
of you know, I would never use AI, but I

674
00:42:56.320 --> 00:42:58.480
guess people are using AI to do all that stuff,

675
00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:01.960
you know. But I just yeah, just I just like

676
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.360
look at the screen and writing the story.

677
00:43:04.920 --> 00:43:07.920
Yeah, I mean, you can be your own director and

678
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:09.840
you don't have to worry about the budget for all

679
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:12.159
the explosions you're putting in, and I don't have.

680
00:43:12.119 --> 00:43:15.679
To worry about actors not showing up or not not

681
00:43:16.119 --> 00:43:17.599
you know, embracing your vision.

682
00:43:18.079 --> 00:43:22.840
Yeah, exactly. Now, were you always maybe dabbling in short

683
00:43:22.880 --> 00:43:25.239
stories or writing novels throughout your life or did this

684
00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:26.280
all come later?

685
00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:32.480
This mostly came later because I started out after I

686
00:43:32.519 --> 00:43:35.559
did that that dance for a Minotaur, I started writing

687
00:43:35.599 --> 00:43:38.760
plays and I had a little bit of success. I

688
00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:41.360
got some stage readings in New York and Chicago, and

689
00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:47.920
then I started writing screenplays because I got the fellowship.

690
00:43:48.119 --> 00:43:50.239
So it always and then the jobs I would get

691
00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:54.000
when I wasn't writing were related to that, you know,

692
00:43:54.119 --> 00:44:02.079
writing marketing videos or training videos or commercials or you know, documentaries.

693
00:44:02.840 --> 00:44:06.760
So I never really had the kind of the mental space,

694
00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:12.199
the bandwidth too, you know, do the day job and

695
00:44:12.239 --> 00:44:15.440
make short films and think about writing short stories or something.

696
00:44:15.559 --> 00:44:20.000
So yeah, so once once I decided, you know, this,

697
00:44:20.119 --> 00:44:25.079
making videos is just too hard and started writing, just

698
00:44:25.280 --> 00:44:28.760
you know, and that's been in the last I don't know,

699
00:44:29.079 --> 00:44:31.320
five six years or so.

700
00:44:31.519 --> 00:44:37.679
Nice now you mentioned AI or just like a question

701
00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:40.199
or two ago, and I was wondering that there's a

702
00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:43.039
lot of writers and I think I'm sort of on

703
00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:47.599
board with them that are really against AI. What are

704
00:44:47.639 --> 00:44:50.280
your feelings about I have it in.

705
00:44:50.119 --> 00:44:52.239
My contract for kind of with the Dead, no AI

706
00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:54.360
covers or anything.

707
00:44:54.480 --> 00:44:54.679
Yeah.

708
00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:59.840
Completely, I'm in the same boat you're in. I just

709
00:45:01.880 --> 00:45:05.480
I don't know, it's just taking the human imagination out

710
00:45:05.519 --> 00:45:05.760
of this.

711
00:45:06.480 --> 00:45:08.280
Yeah, to me, to.

712
00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:12.440
Me my dreams already, AI. You know, they put together

713
00:45:13.159 --> 00:45:17.519
people in scenes and situations from my entire life, and

714
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:20.000
you know, like, who needs a I when you know

715
00:45:20.079 --> 00:45:24.440
you can put those kind of stories together on your own. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

716
00:45:24.480 --> 00:45:27.960
I just yeah, it's it's slow, you know.

717
00:45:28.199 --> 00:45:30.880
Yeah. I think also you've got to wonder what the

718
00:45:30.880 --> 00:45:34.400
intention is. If somebody is going to have chat GBT

719
00:45:35.079 --> 00:45:37.199
write their novel for them, is it What are they

720
00:45:37.239 --> 00:45:41.280
looking for? Because I when I'm writing a story, it

721
00:45:41.320 --> 00:45:43.960
can be very frustrating and hard to do, but when

722
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:47.599
it works, there's nothing else like it in the world. Yeah,

723
00:45:47.719 --> 00:45:48.559
it makes it too.

724
00:45:48.440 --> 00:45:55.039
Easy, too easy, and not very good, and that scares me.

725
00:45:56.320 --> 00:45:59.719
In terms of you know, literature, in terms of publishers,

726
00:45:59.800 --> 00:46:02.960
and in terms of movie producers, they don't always care

727
00:46:03.039 --> 00:46:07.679
if it's good. Yeah, as long as it's quick and

728
00:46:07.880 --> 00:46:10.760
as long as they get in an audience. And once you

729
00:46:10.800 --> 00:46:13.440
train people not to expect much from films or not

730
00:46:13.480 --> 00:46:17.039
to expect much from novels, you're going to get an

731
00:46:17.039 --> 00:46:19.559
awful lot of people that are perfectly happy with AI

732
00:46:19.679 --> 00:46:22.360
produced content. That's the part that scares me.

733
00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:25.119
That's what scares me too, honestly, because I could see

734
00:46:25.119 --> 00:46:28.360
that happening. Yeah, I mean, it would be too easy

735
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:30.960
for that to happen. I think there is a readership

736
00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:35.239
that wants their stuff created by humans because you do

737
00:46:35.360 --> 00:46:40.320
lose that human connective tissue. You could say, to watching

738
00:46:40.400 --> 00:46:44.119
a movie, what you identify with? If it's written by

739
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:48.079
a robot, then what am I supposed to identify with?

740
00:46:48.119 --> 00:46:51.239
Where's the story? You know, like, is this a robot

741
00:46:51.280 --> 00:46:52.639
story or is it a human story?

742
00:46:53.000 --> 00:46:56.000
Yeah, And we talked about, you know, my kind of

743
00:46:56.119 --> 00:46:59.280
dense style and kind of with the dead, and you're

744
00:46:59.320 --> 00:47:01.000
not going to get that with AI. I mean that's

745
00:47:01.800 --> 00:47:03.480
my particular.

746
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:06.400
You know, process your fingerprint.

747
00:47:06.519 --> 00:47:09.960
And not not just pulling descriptions out of off the

748
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:13.840
internet from you know, one hundred million different sites to

749
00:47:13.960 --> 00:47:18.159
put together your your little mosaic and having you know,

750
00:47:18.360 --> 00:47:23.400
walk through those abandoned buildings, you know, just that experience,

751
00:47:23.519 --> 00:47:26.280
that human experience. I don't think it's going to be

752
00:47:26.360 --> 00:47:31.039
replicated by AI pulling up photos of old buildings and yeah,

753
00:47:31.320 --> 00:47:32.639
manufacturing a scene.

754
00:47:33.119 --> 00:47:38.119
Yeah, and that you know you mentioned like them AI

755
00:47:38.280 --> 00:47:41.360
pulling from different works of art. That's a whole other

756
00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:45.639
can of worms, because you know it's theft and nobody's

757
00:47:45.639 --> 00:47:48.079
being credited or paid for that. And that's a huge

758
00:47:48.079 --> 00:47:48.880
issue as well.

759
00:47:50.280 --> 00:47:53.280
Yeah, all right, Yeah, yeah, I hope. I know the

760
00:47:53.320 --> 00:47:56.760
Writer's Guild has made some some progress in that area

761
00:47:56.800 --> 00:48:03.320
of their last contract against using A and yeah I

762
00:48:03.360 --> 00:48:06.960
think that. Yeah, yeah, don't you want to go down

763
00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:09.360
that path? It's kind of scary.

764
00:48:10.079 --> 00:48:12.199
What do you think of people who use AI just

765
00:48:12.280 --> 00:48:15.480
to like assist them like maybe in writing their book

766
00:48:15.559 --> 00:48:21.320
blurbs or helping edit or or or whatnot stuff like that.

767
00:48:22.079 --> 00:48:30.920
You know, I haven't given that a lot of thought even,

768
00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:32.960
you know, because you have a lot of people using

769
00:48:33.039 --> 00:48:36.480
AI to write their work emails and that sort of thing.

770
00:48:37.639 --> 00:48:41.239
And to me, it gets to the point where your

771
00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:47.519
AI generated message is talking to their AI generated messy

772
00:48:47.679 --> 00:48:51.760
and so how is anything getting accomplished? And that's a

773
00:48:51.800 --> 00:48:55.880
very good point. Yeah, And usually the best things happen

774
00:48:56.039 --> 00:48:59.400
when you're bouncing ideas off each other. Yeah, you know,

775
00:48:59.599 --> 00:49:02.639
they send you an email about well what about trying this,

776
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:05.679
and you're like, oh, yeah, I haven't tried that. Even

777
00:49:05.719 --> 00:49:08.639
when you're going back and forth and you're just gonna

778
00:49:08.639 --> 00:49:09.199
get lazy.

779
00:49:09.639 --> 00:49:12.719
Yeah, And even when you're halfway through that email, other

780
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:13.760
ideas will come to you.

781
00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:17.719
Ye yeah, yeah I have Yeah, I'm watching a film

782
00:49:17.800 --> 00:49:20.559
or I'm reading a book and I'm like, oh, yeah,

783
00:49:20.679 --> 00:49:23.480
that that solves that problem I'm having with my scene,

784
00:49:23.639 --> 00:49:25.760
you know, doing something like that, you.

785
00:49:25.679 --> 00:49:30.239
Know, absolutely right. So you came to writing short stories

786
00:49:30.360 --> 00:49:34.840
and and and novels fairly late in life. And I'm

787
00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:37.519
glad you did because I have a similar sort of

788
00:49:37.559 --> 00:49:39.800
story and that I started out early, but then I

789
00:49:39.880 --> 00:49:42.719
stopped and then I had I started again, and then

790
00:49:42.760 --> 00:49:45.039
I had a kid and I had a complicated job,

791
00:49:45.480 --> 00:49:47.599
so I kind of stopped again for about eight years.

792
00:49:47.639 --> 00:49:50.119
And now I'm back into it and it's it. You know,

793
00:49:51.159 --> 00:49:53.400
the road ahead is quite a bit shorter than it

794
00:49:53.440 --> 00:49:58.440
was before. So do you have any advice to writers

795
00:49:58.480 --> 00:50:02.000
who are in their fifties and they've always wanted to

796
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:04.039
write a novel and now they kind of have the time.

797
00:50:04.840 --> 00:50:07.880
What would you say to them? Like, what would you

798
00:50:07.880 --> 00:50:08.559
be your advice?

799
00:50:09.159 --> 00:50:11.880
Boy? It's it's so hard because everyone is different, you know,

800
00:50:11.920 --> 00:50:16.079
everyone's story is different, is you know, depending on your

801
00:50:16.119 --> 00:50:20.719
writing background. If you don't have a lot of writing

802
00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:27.079
in your background, then start start taking some courses. And

803
00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:32.239
because I always found you know, I you know, it's

804
00:50:32.239 --> 00:50:34.440
not true that I didn't write short stories and some reason,

805
00:50:34.480 --> 00:50:37.639
because I remember when I took fiction courses in college,

806
00:50:38.559 --> 00:50:43.280
you know, it really motivated me from you know, week

807
00:50:43.280 --> 00:50:45.320
to week to come up with the little story because

808
00:50:45.360 --> 00:50:49.599
it was due and for those so I did write,

809
00:50:49.760 --> 00:50:51.840
you know, some short stories. And I think that's one

810
00:50:51.880 --> 00:50:55.199
good way to start is go someplace where you have

811
00:50:55.360 --> 00:51:00.360
deadlines and have feedback. And if you do have a

812
00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:05.239
writer a writerly background, just you know, decide what you

813
00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:07.960
want to do and sit down and do it. And

814
00:51:07.960 --> 00:51:10.280
and try not to do what I do, which is

815
00:51:10.559 --> 00:51:15.599
I'm always going in ten directions at once, and you know,

816
00:51:16.920 --> 00:51:19.519
it takes me forever to finish something because number one,

817
00:51:19.519 --> 00:51:22.039
I'm a perfectionist. Number Two, I'm doing eight, eight or

818
00:51:22.079 --> 00:51:26.079
nine other things. So yeah, just find a story that

819
00:51:26.119 --> 00:51:29.519
you really, you really bought into and just focus on

820
00:51:29.559 --> 00:51:34.159
that and and you know, join writers groups and yeah,

821
00:51:34.519 --> 00:51:36.800
you know, because I've you know, really found helpful. Is

822
00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:43.039
I'm a member of the Bless You, the Horror Writers Association,

823
00:51:43.239 --> 00:51:48.639
and and I've joined the local chapters. I'm in Wisconsin,

824
00:51:49.559 --> 00:51:54.360
halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago, so I've joined both chapters.

825
00:51:54.719 --> 00:51:57.440
And so you get to meet other writers who are

826
00:51:57.440 --> 00:52:01.400
doing what you're doing, and and you know, get some support,

827
00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:06.079
and uh, you know, I think, yeah, just being alone

828
00:52:06.119 --> 00:52:10.360
in your room it really makes it hard, really makes

829
00:52:10.360 --> 00:52:14.039
it difficult if you're feedback, you're not you don't have

830
00:52:14.079 --> 00:52:18.400
some sort of deadline, you know. I mean some people

831
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:20.639
can work with self and post deadlines.

832
00:52:20.119 --> 00:52:22.679
But I'm not very good at time.

833
00:52:22.800 --> 00:52:25.199
Yeah, and that's why those fiction courses were so good

834
00:52:25.199 --> 00:52:28.440
for me. I just I had to come up with something. Yeah,

835
00:52:28.519 --> 00:52:31.159
and then you know, over since then, I've had so

836
00:52:31.199 --> 00:52:34.400
many professional writing jobs where yeah, You've got to have

837
00:52:34.440 --> 00:52:37.239
this written in the next hour or by tomorrow or whatever.

838
00:52:37.400 --> 00:52:40.840
So yeah, you know, with that kind of experience, you

839
00:52:40.840 --> 00:52:44.079
you learn how to do self imposed deadlines and meet them.

840
00:52:44.599 --> 00:52:48.559
Mm hmm. Now what are you working on now, like

841
00:52:48.880 --> 00:52:51.639
novel wise or you mentioned a novella earlier.

842
00:52:51.880 --> 00:52:56.519
Yeah, I have a novella that was also edited by Gabino,

843
00:52:58.039 --> 00:53:02.239
which I'm shopping since I don't have an agent. You know,

844
00:53:02.320 --> 00:53:06.159
you're you're limited to the number of places you can

845
00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:09.440
put it out to. But it's it's also a difficult.

846
00:53:10.079 --> 00:53:13.400
I like it a lot, I'm really proud of it,

847
00:53:14.400 --> 00:53:18.000
but it's it's very much you know, Like I talked

848
00:53:18.039 --> 00:53:20.440
about my background growing up in Detroit, it's it's very

849
00:53:20.480 --> 00:53:25.599
much about that. It's very much about race. It's a

850
00:53:25.599 --> 00:53:34.119
a kind of very very nice white couple who have

851
00:53:34.199 --> 00:53:38.880
adopted a black infant and as a teenager, they're a

852
00:53:38.920 --> 00:53:43.360
teenage black daughter is killed by the police. And there

853
00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:46.239
are old house that they've always lived in with her,

854
00:53:46.719 --> 00:53:50.079
which was always haunted, but it was always kind of

855
00:53:50.119 --> 00:53:54.079
like their daughter would always just make them laugh about it.

856
00:53:54.079 --> 00:53:56.480
It's not a big deal. But now that their daughter

857
00:53:56.559 --> 00:54:02.559
is dead, the house is seriously coming after them, and

858
00:54:02.679 --> 00:54:06.639
so it's about so it's very much in your face

859
00:54:06.679 --> 00:54:11.920
about race. It's a horror movie. It's it's kind of

860
00:54:12.960 --> 00:54:16.760
I don't know, a little bit like get out in

861
00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:20.000
that they can't get out of the house. They don't

862
00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:23.440
know why it's trying to kill them. Is it is

863
00:54:23.480 --> 00:54:27.000
it seeking vengeance for what happened to their daughter, Is

864
00:54:27.039 --> 00:54:30.519
it seeking vengeance for what's happened for the last three

865
00:54:30.599 --> 00:54:34.719
hundred years, or is it something completely unrelated that's going on?

866
00:54:36.239 --> 00:54:38.400
And then the cops get involved, and of course what

867
00:54:38.440 --> 00:54:42.880
could possibly go wrong? You know. So it's it's a

868
00:54:42.960 --> 00:54:48.880
tight little horror story, haunted house, horror story, very urban,

869
00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:55.639
and it's actually so far be into a lot fewer

870
00:54:55.639 --> 00:54:59.000
places than kind Of with the Dead and gotten a

871
00:54:59.079 --> 00:55:04.079
lot better respect, but still no one's It's gotten a

872
00:55:04.119 --> 00:55:06.199
lot of Oh I really love this. This needs to

873
00:55:06.239 --> 00:55:08.840
be made, but it's not for us kind of thing

874
00:55:09.960 --> 00:55:12.039
which I didn't get very much from counter Of with

875
00:55:12.079 --> 00:55:15.400
the Dead, so that that makes me a little bit hopeful.

876
00:55:15.960 --> 00:55:19.280
Yeah, keep shopping. I'm sorry, go ahead, keep shopping it.

877
00:55:19.639 --> 00:55:22.480
Yep. That's all I can do is don't give up.

878
00:55:23.079 --> 00:55:25.800
And every option I see, and then I'm writing another

879
00:55:25.800 --> 00:55:29.199
horror novel because of more along the lines of kind

880
00:55:29.199 --> 00:55:30.519
Of with the Dead, kind of.

881
00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:36.000
You mentioned that you I want to ask this before

882
00:55:36.039 --> 00:55:39.519
we sign off, because I saw it. I forget where

883
00:55:39.519 --> 00:55:41.559
I saw it. It might be on your website. But

884
00:55:41.880 --> 00:55:47.400
you've worked with Gabino Iglesias. Uh, he's edited your your work.

885
00:55:47.400 --> 00:55:50.039
How did you get connected with him for editing? Did

886
00:55:50.079 --> 00:55:52.519
you just like it?

887
00:55:52.519 --> 00:55:57.920
It's kind of a funny story because I finally got

888
00:55:57.960 --> 00:56:03.639
onto Twitter actually when I started writing fiction and writing,

889
00:56:04.119 --> 00:56:07.159
and I was kind of like, you know, and my

890
00:56:07.239 --> 00:56:10.679
stuff is kind of a mix of horror crime mm hmm,

891
00:56:11.599 --> 00:56:13.480
and I just wasn't seeing a lot of that out

892
00:56:13.519 --> 00:56:17.480
in the world, like am I wasting my time. And

893
00:56:17.480 --> 00:56:21.599
and I started connecting with these are not so much

894
00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:25.559
connecting is following these horror writers. And then I discovered

895
00:56:25.559 --> 00:56:28.599
Gabino's work and I'm like, oh man, he's doing exactly

896
00:56:28.639 --> 00:56:31.480
a thing that I want to do that I'm trying

897
00:56:31.480 --> 00:56:34.519
to do with his novel and people like Lard Barn,

898
00:56:34.679 --> 00:56:37.320
you know, and I was just like, oh, okay, you

899
00:56:37.360 --> 00:56:42.320
can do horror crime. You know his Isaiah Colors.

900
00:56:42.440 --> 00:56:46.119
Yeah, I love those books. I haven't actually all.

901
00:56:45.639 --> 00:56:49.199
And so, I mean we were friends on on Twitter

902
00:56:49.280 --> 00:56:55.920
and you know, and I finished my my draft of

903
00:56:56.000 --> 00:56:59.639
kind Of with the Dead and and and it was

904
00:56:59.679 --> 00:57:03.480
like looking looking for someone to edit it. And I

905
00:57:03.719 --> 00:57:07.920
posted to a bunch of the people I followed, can

906
00:57:07.960 --> 00:57:12.280
you suggest an editor? I described the project and and

907
00:57:12.599 --> 00:57:15.280
you know, it's a paying gig, can't pay a lot,

908
00:57:15.360 --> 00:57:19.119
but you know, and Gabino messaged me back and said, hey,

909
00:57:19.320 --> 00:57:24.639
I'll edit it for you. Oh my god. Sure, you know,

910
00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:29.519
my literally my favorite writer, and he's just volunteered to

911
00:57:29.679 --> 00:57:33.599
edit my manuscript. So and then when I wrote the novella,

912
00:57:33.719 --> 00:57:36.920
he edited that. You know. Now, I think he's way

913
00:57:36.920 --> 00:57:38.400
too busy to do stuff like that.

914
00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:41.559
He might be But what's it like working with him?

915
00:57:41.880 --> 00:57:43.159
He seems like such a great guy.

916
00:57:43.760 --> 00:57:48.199
He is, you know, he's a he's a I think

917
00:57:48.239 --> 00:57:54.960
it's his sensibility. You know, he's very much, very much

918
00:57:55.039 --> 00:57:56.760
like a lot of the people I grew up with

919
00:57:56.840 --> 00:58:03.800
and knew in Detroit. He he's very progressive, you know,

920
00:58:04.159 --> 00:58:08.960
out there, but not a very weak need progressive. He's

921
00:58:09.199 --> 00:58:10.039
pretty hardcore.

922
00:58:10.559 --> 00:58:13.079
Yeah, you can get that dispremist fiction.

923
00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:16.119
And and pretty much you know, in terms of his writing.

924
00:58:16.280 --> 00:58:18.039
F you, f you if you don't like that I

925
00:58:18.079 --> 00:58:22.159
write stuff in Spanish sometimes, yeah, and and so that

926
00:58:22.400 --> 00:58:26.239
I really appreciate it. And and I like to think

927
00:58:26.280 --> 00:58:28.039
he kind of appreciated some of that in my work.

928
00:58:28.119 --> 00:58:31.280
You know. It's just I'm not writing something that I

929
00:58:31.320 --> 00:58:34.480
think is going to be popular. You know. I think

930
00:58:35.559 --> 00:58:37.360
while I was working on it, I thought, oh man,

931
00:58:37.440 --> 00:58:39.440
this is I already know this is going to be

932
00:58:39.440 --> 00:58:43.480
a tough sell. Yeah. So yeah, I mean he yeah,

933
00:58:43.679 --> 00:58:45.760
I mean, it's not like we're buddies or something. But

934
00:58:45.880 --> 00:58:49.760
I really, I really, you know, respected his opinions on

935
00:58:49.800 --> 00:58:52.639
my work, and he seemed to really like it. He

936
00:58:52.679 --> 00:58:55.599
had good things to say. Like I said, I you know,

937
00:58:55.599 --> 00:58:59.360
I ended up losing ten thousand words with his notes,

938
00:58:59.800 --> 00:59:03.760
and I think that made it a much better, better story.

939
00:59:04.159 --> 00:59:09.800
Yeah, awesome. All right, So final question before we we

940
00:59:09.840 --> 00:59:13.800
wrap things up here and ask this to all my guests, now,

941
00:59:14.280 --> 00:59:16.760
are there any authors out there for many genre? It

942
00:59:16.760 --> 00:59:22.920
doesn't matter that you feel not enough people are talking about.

943
00:59:23.079 --> 00:59:25.400
You know, three or four years ago, I would have

944
00:59:25.400 --> 00:59:28.760
said that about Cabino, but now he's taken off. And

945
00:59:28.840 --> 00:59:32.599
another person I would have said that about, very very

946
00:59:32.840 --> 00:59:39.239
is who a few months ago, Cynthia Paleo in Chicago

947
00:59:41.159 --> 00:59:44.559
Forgotten Sisters, and you know a number of you know,

948
00:59:44.679 --> 00:59:49.519
kind of folk hore very much where Chicago is very

949
00:59:49.599 --> 00:59:51.920
much a character. But now all of a sudden, she's

950
00:59:52.079 --> 00:59:54.480
she's in terms of the horror world, she's everywhere.

951
00:59:54.920 --> 00:59:56.960
Yeah, she's starting to blow up too.

952
00:59:57.320 --> 01:00:01.199
Yeah. And you know, there's another writer I like who

953
01:00:01.920 --> 01:00:10.360
is not really that visible yet is Kelso Hurtado, HS writer,

954
01:00:10.559 --> 01:00:13.880
and I think he's in San Antonio and he's written

955
01:00:13.920 --> 01:00:15.880
a couple of books I really like. I'm trying to

956
01:00:16.519 --> 01:00:22.199
The Devil's Promise is one of them. There's I Forget

957
01:00:22.199 --> 01:00:24.000
if that's the first of a second and in a

958
01:00:24.039 --> 01:00:31.320
sequence of two related stories, and I think I was

959
01:00:31.559 --> 01:00:37.000
turned on to him by Abino, and I hesitated at

960
01:00:37.000 --> 01:00:41.719
first because I thought his stuff would be young adult

961
01:00:42.079 --> 01:00:46.119
because his characters, his lead characters are teenagers. And but

962
01:00:46.239 --> 01:00:50.559
it's not. It's definitely not. And it's also, you know,

963
01:00:50.800 --> 01:00:55.880
in a good way, kind of densely written, and the

964
01:00:55.960 --> 01:01:00.320
characters are are very deeply written, nice the description. So

965
01:01:00.360 --> 01:01:03.039
it's the kind of writing I like to read and

966
01:01:03.079 --> 01:01:06.199
the writing I like to write. So I think he's

967
01:01:06.199 --> 01:01:11.199
someone that people need to pay more attention to. And

968
01:01:11.199 --> 01:01:13.840
and then there's people that I think really like Larred Barron.

969
01:01:14.000 --> 01:01:16.079
I wish people would pay more attention to him outside

970
01:01:16.079 --> 01:01:18.880
the horror world. You know, such a good writer.

971
01:01:18.760 --> 01:01:21.519
He's you know, he's one of the best.

972
01:01:22.679 --> 01:01:26.360
And you know, then there's I'm looking at my list here,

973
01:01:26.960 --> 01:01:32.199
you know, another one, Andy Davidson, outside of horror should

974
01:01:32.199 --> 01:01:32.840
get more attention.

975
01:01:33.039 --> 01:01:35.119
And have you read The Boatman's Daughter.

976
01:01:35.559 --> 01:01:40.400
Yes, I like that book a lot. It's got the

977
01:01:40.480 --> 01:01:46.360
density of I think, the urban stories that I like

978
01:01:46.440 --> 01:01:49.239
to write, but it takes place in the Bayou, but

979
01:01:49.280 --> 01:01:52.920
it's got that same density where you can just see,

980
01:01:53.320 --> 01:01:56.639
you know, every tree, and you know every bog and

981
01:01:56.719 --> 01:02:01.440
you know the characters are so deeply written. Yeah, so

982
01:02:01.920 --> 01:02:07.880
him definitely. And and then people like a. Laurel high

983
01:02:07.880 --> 01:02:12.199
Tower and Haley Piper are people whose books I really.

984
01:02:11.920 --> 01:02:14.920
Like a lot, and I love both those authors, and.

985
01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:17.960
I think they both should become more mainstream than they

986
01:02:17.960 --> 01:02:22.719
are and probably will, though probably following in the path

987
01:02:22.800 --> 01:02:24.239
of Cynthia Playo.

988
01:02:24.519 --> 01:02:27.119
You know. Yeah, well Haley Piper I think is on

989
01:02:27.199 --> 01:02:33.159
her way to that, and uh m hmm. Laurel high Tower,

990
01:02:33.280 --> 01:02:37.159
I think she's going to Yeah, like definitely, it's it's

991
01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:38.239
in her cards, I think.

992
01:02:38.400 --> 01:02:40.719
Yeah. I mean she's also got a lot of stuff

993
01:02:40.719 --> 01:02:46.760
out there, which yeah, I always always hate stuff. Yeah,

994
01:02:47.639 --> 01:02:48.519
it takes me forever.

995
01:02:49.039 --> 01:02:52.519
Yeah, I hear you. All right, So do you have

996
01:02:52.559 --> 01:02:55.119
anything coming out soon that people can look forward to,

997
01:02:55.239 --> 01:02:57.360
like short stories or anything like that.

998
01:02:57.960 --> 01:03:08.039
Nothing, unfortunately, Yeah, nothing until till next spring. I have

999
01:03:08.079 --> 01:03:12.760
a short story coming out and nice I can never

1000
01:03:13.079 --> 01:03:17.679
pronounce that word, that c h T, that creature, the

1001
01:03:17.760 --> 01:03:25.800
the whola, uh yeah, forget it. But I was short

1002
01:03:25.840 --> 01:03:30.840
story coming out next spring in a quarterly or quarterly Okay,

1003
01:03:30.960 --> 01:03:34.880
you had me at hello, a very Detroit urban story.

1004
01:03:35.400 --> 01:03:38.920
So if people want to check you out online, where

1005
01:03:38.920 --> 01:03:39.559
can they go.

1006
01:03:40.199 --> 01:03:44.960
They can go to Peter O'Keefe writer dot com.

1007
01:03:45.559 --> 01:03:46.719
Send you on Twitter too.

1008
01:03:47.679 --> 01:03:52.360
I'm slowly moving off Twitter. I'm mostly on Blue Sky now,

1009
01:03:53.159 --> 01:03:57.360
which I don't even know my handle, guy, but you know,

1010
01:03:57.480 --> 01:03:59.119
search Peter O'Keeffe and you'll find me.

1011
01:03:59.480 --> 01:04:03.320
Yeah. Uh so. Yeah, I've taken the plunge too, because

1012
01:04:03.519 --> 01:04:07.400
Twitter has become a bit of a ship storm, and

1013
01:04:08.280 --> 01:04:10.440
it seems like it's a sinking ship too. A lot

1014
01:04:10.559 --> 01:04:13.000
a lot of people are bailing, yeah, a lot of.

1015
01:04:12.960 --> 01:04:14.880
I've seen all these people on Blue Sky that were

1016
01:04:14.880 --> 01:04:18.199
on Twitter, and yeah, yeah, I don't want to get

1017
01:04:18.239 --> 01:04:20.519
into politics, but I just don't want to support it.

1018
01:04:20.880 --> 01:04:24.119
I want to support that site me too, in any way,

1019
01:04:24.159 --> 01:04:24.960
shape or form.

1020
01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:29.880
Yeah, so absolutely. Well, I want to thank you for

1021
01:04:30.119 --> 01:04:32.280
being a guest on my show. I had a great

1022
01:04:32.320 --> 01:04:33.480
time talking to you.

1023
01:04:33.840 --> 01:04:36.719
Yeah. Likewise, I'm so happy you invited me. This is Yeah,

1024
01:04:36.800 --> 01:04:40.159
I really enjoyed it and looking forward to I hate

1025
01:04:40.199 --> 01:04:44.320
watching myself, but looking forward to hate watching myself on video.

1026
01:04:44.719 --> 01:04:46.880
Within the next week or so, this will also become

1027
01:04:46.880 --> 01:04:50.440
a podcast episode, and I'll try to remember to to

1028
01:04:50.559 --> 01:04:53.519
let you know when that's up. So I want to

1029
01:04:53.559 --> 01:04:55.559
thank the people who came out to watch. There was

1030
01:04:56.079 --> 01:04:59.320
some some people who did mostly they come afterwards. So

1031
01:04:59.440 --> 01:05:01.960
if you're in in the future watching this or listening

1032
01:05:02.000 --> 01:05:04.119
to it on the podcast, thank you very much for

1033
01:05:04.159 --> 01:05:07.679
showing up, and you're invited to come back. Whenever you

1034
01:05:07.679 --> 01:05:09.519
have a project you want to talk about, just let

1035
01:05:09.559 --> 01:05:10.960
me know send me another email.

1036
01:05:11.000 --> 01:05:14.840
And although when Matt Novella gets picked up somewhere to

1037
01:05:14.920 --> 01:05:16.039
talk about, well.

1038
01:05:15.920 --> 01:05:19.239
We'll do it all right. Thank you, Peter, and we'll

1039
01:05:19.239 --> 01:05:20.159
talk to you again soon.

1040
01:05:20.400 --> 01:05:21.960
Okay, Thanks Jason, bye bye.

1041
01:05:22.920 --> 01:05:25.199
If you like what I'm doing here and want to

1042
01:05:25.239 --> 01:05:28.639
support the channel without involving any money on your part,

1043
01:05:29.000 --> 01:05:32.519
you can do so by sharing the podcast on social media.

1044
01:05:32.639 --> 01:05:35.760
You can also write a review on Apple Podcasts or

1045
01:05:35.840 --> 01:05:39.039
rate the show on Spotify. I can't stress enough to

1046
01:05:39.159 --> 01:05:43.199
you how much I would appreciate that alone. Please please

1047
01:05:43.320 --> 01:05:47.719
leave a review on Apple Podcasts or rate the show

1048
01:05:47.760 --> 01:05:50.920
on Spotify. As I just said, each and every way

1049
01:05:51.000 --> 01:05:54.440
you can help out the channel and podcast grow would

1050
01:05:54.480 --> 01:06:04.400
be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. Thank you so

1051
01:06:04.559 --> 01:06:08.960
much for listening to my conversation with Peter O'Keefe. I

1052
01:06:09.000 --> 01:06:11.920
highly recommend going and getting counted with the Dead and

1053
01:06:12.000 --> 01:06:17.159
giving it a read, especially if you like Frankenstein retellings.

1054
01:06:17.960 --> 01:06:20.000
I haven't read too many of them, to be quite honest,

1055
01:06:20.039 --> 01:06:22.800
but I have to say that I really enjoyed this one.

1056
01:06:23.320 --> 01:06:26.679
All right, So moving on, If you want to support

1057
01:06:26.719 --> 01:06:29.760
the show, there's quite a few ways you can do so,

1058
01:06:30.159 --> 01:06:33.320
I would really appreciate it if you wanted to go

1059
01:06:33.400 --> 01:06:38.159
to Apple Podcasts and leave the show a five star rating.

1060
01:06:38.639 --> 01:06:43.239
This helps Apple share the shows, share this show with

1061
01:06:43.400 --> 01:06:47.039
other people, and then the show can grow, and that

1062
01:06:47.079 --> 01:06:49.599
would be awesome. If you want to send me your

1063
01:06:49.639 --> 01:06:52.440
hard earned money, you can join the Patreon. Links for

1064
01:06:52.519 --> 01:06:57.039
that are in the description in the show notes there.

1065
01:06:57.599 --> 01:06:59.960
And as I said, I'd be I'd be more than

1066
01:07:00.119 --> 01:07:04.320
appreciative if you were willing to part with your money

1067
01:07:04.360 --> 01:07:09.239
and help this show keep going and help me maybe

1068
01:07:09.320 --> 01:07:12.800
even get some more or better equipment. All right, So

1069
01:07:12.880 --> 01:07:16.159
that's it for this week. Thank you for listening. If

1070
01:07:16.199 --> 01:07:21.159
you've been waiting for the final Dark Tower book from

1071
01:07:21.280 --> 01:07:24.559
Sin and Me, we decided to take a break from

1072
01:07:24.599 --> 01:07:28.880
that for a couple of months and we are back

1073
01:07:28.920 --> 01:07:32.400
on it now. So hopefully that episode no promises, but

1074
01:07:32.480 --> 01:07:35.920
hopefully our conversation will come out before the end of

1075
01:07:35.960 --> 01:07:39.840
the year. If not, you'll see it at the beginning

1076
01:07:39.880 --> 01:07:42.920
of twenty five. I have a lot of projects in

1077
01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:45.800
store that I will be announcing soon, so stay tuned

1078
01:07:46.400 --> 01:08:06.719
and we will catch you in the next podcast. Personally,

1079
01:08:07.519 --> 01:08:09.639
absolutely absolutely