Jan. 4, 2026

070 - Joshua Ginsberg on Tales From The Dusty Tiger

070 - Joshua Ginsberg on Tales From The Dusty Tiger
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Joshua Ginsberg is a writer of hauntings, ghost stories, and histories of Florida. We discuss those a little in this episode, but focus on his collection of short stories, Tales From The Dusty Tiger. 

This episode was nearly lost. I thought I had posted it, but what really happened was that the audio file survived in the cloud after my now old computer took a nose dive off a table and died. The video did not survive for whatever reason. So, somewhere along the line, I forgot to post it, even though I thought I had. Jeez....

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WEBVTT

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Hello, and welcome to Weird Reads. I am your host,

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Jason White, and this episode is an episode that should

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have been aired about six months ago, and the fault

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is completely on me. But I do have a reason

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or an excuse, whatever way you want to put it.

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So I was supposed to have. I did talk to

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Joshua Ginsburg about his book Tales from the Dusty Tiger.

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We discussed that it's a short story collection, and we

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discussed it and we had a lot of fun. And

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soon after I talked to him, I was at work

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when my laptop flew. Was one of our pets. I

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was charging the laptop and so the wire was sticking

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out and it caught in one of our pets foot

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and it went flying off the table it was on

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and it broke the computer. It was dead. So I

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had to scramble and finance a new laptop. And so

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I did that, and somewhere along the line after that happened.

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I could have swore up and down that I had

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released Joshua Gensburg's episode, but I hadn't. I thought it

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was there, and he messaged me. We were talking the

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other day and I was inviting him to come on

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the show to talk about some Shirley Jackson and he

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was like, yeah, so is that other episode up, like

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you know that conversation we had earlier in the year,

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And I was like, yeah, totally is. And I went

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to look it up so I could give them the

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link and I couldn't find it. It's like, where is it?

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It was like stepping into the twilight zone or another

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dimension where something I could have swore I had done

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wasn't done. It wasn't there. I'm still shocked. I could

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have swore I went through the editing and all that

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stuff and put it up, but I didn't. That is

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so weird, and honestly, that's a horror story within itself.

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It makes me worry about my brain and the health

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of it. So I guess I got to start eating

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some more blueberries and some broccoli might help. So here

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is that conversation with Joshua Ginsburg. Now we talk about

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his book here, Tales from the Dusty Tiger. It's the

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Dusty Tiger itself is a real store in Ford. I

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forget the town, but it's probably mentioned in this conversation,

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and it's a fascinating little shop. It sells a lot

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of interesting things, and I believe they're the ones who

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put out this book. Now, this book is not easy

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to get. I don't think it was published very limited lee,

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and hopefully it'll be released again at some point. But

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it's a great conversation anyway. Joshua Ginsburg doesn't just write

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short stories. He also writes ghost stories in and around Florida.

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He has a bunch of real ghost story books that

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he's published, and I haven't read any of them yet,

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but I love reading that type of stuff, so I'm

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hoping to read some of that by him as well.

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So until how about we just get into the conversation

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with Joshua, and I hope you enjoy it. And my

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apologies to Joshua for taking so long in getting my

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ass in gear and getting this episode out. One more

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little note before we continue, I should mention that somehow

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I lost the video for this in the computer crash

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episode that I experienced. The video did not survive, but

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somehow the conversation, the audio version of the conversation survived

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and was backed up in the cloud. So I was

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very happy to have found that and bring it back

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down to earth. Here and so here is that conversation

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with Joshua Ginsburg. Hello and welcome to Weird Reads. I

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am your host, Jason, and this week I have a

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very special guest, Joshua Ginsburg, joins me all the way

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from Florida. How are you doing, Joshua.

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I'm doing great, and it's still a little steamy here.

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I think we're still in the high eighties, low nineties,

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so I'm ready for to simmer down a little bit.

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But beyond that, no, no complaints.

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Nice. Can you give yourself an introduction to your work

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and as a person.

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Uh? Sure, Well, you know I I moved here to

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Florida coming up on nine years ago. And uh, in

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my normal life, I am a business proposal writer. But

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my secret identity as an author, which I guess is

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not so secret. Uh, you know I have. I have

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now published seven books. Six are nonfiction on the topic

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of weird, offbeat travel, the latest of which is my

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first children's book called The Ghostly Tales of Orlando. And

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then I've also just released my first collection of short fiction,

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which is you know, it's all genre fiction and primarily horror,

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but also I kind of stray into sci fi and fantasy.

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You might have seen my work in a number of

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different anthologies and magazines, including this latest issue of Spooky Magazine.

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And I think I've also got a piece, Oh gosh,

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I have a bunch of them, but the Shallow Waters contest.

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I do a lot of monthly flash fiction contests and

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participate in those, and one of my pieces is running

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this month on Crystal Lakes Shallow Waters and it is

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on the theme of musical horror. So that piece, I

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am trying to remember the title of it. Ah, it

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is called Deep Cuts, and that's that's available online. Then

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you can find my stuff elsewhere as well.

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Yeah, now before we continue, you may need to help

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me out with some of the short story titles in

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your collection as we go along, because uh uh, I

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didn't write them down along with my notes, and I

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probably should have because the arc I had it, I

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couldn't flip back and forth with it, so that that's

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on me. That's my bad.

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Well, no worries, I've I've got a copy here and

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I'm ready to jump in, all right.

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So before we begin, I also want to thank my

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friend Daniel Bram for getting me in touch with you.

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I was wondering, are you friends with Dan at all?

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He's such a he's such a great dude.

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Yeah, and uh yeah I would. We We are friendly,

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we have, we've met a number of times. We're going

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to be on some panels together in October for Spooky Empire,

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and uh yeah, just an amazing guy. I read his

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recent collection called Creatures of Liminal Space, and you know,

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I've been very very impressed.

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By his.

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Sort of deep dive into the uncanny. So so a

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lot of respect for him as a writer and as

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a person. He just seems like a genuinely great human being.

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He is. I've had him on the show quite a

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few times, and he's always he's always great to talk to.

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I'd love to meet him in person one day. So

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I love origin stories and I think you might have

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an interesting one because of your writing habits. So what

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sparked your interest in horror and who were your childhood influences?

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Sure, well, you know, like a lot of teens who

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were not not what we'll call cool, me and my

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friends spent our Saturday nights going to Blockbuster Video and

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renting whatever you know, fascinating or terrible or ghoulish cover

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of a VHS or or then LaserDisc or whatever we

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were watching at the time, and so I really grew

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up on eighties horror and and you know, I mean

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a lot of the classics, uh old John Carpenter stuff.

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I think the thing was maybe Yeah, I mean it's

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I can't disagree with all those people who say it

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is as near perfect a horror movie as you can do.

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It was so good and uh you know, this was

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back before CGI, when like you'd look at things like

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an American Werewolf in London, the transformation scene, and that

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was like next level amazing at the time.

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Yeah, you know even today that that transformation scenes you know,

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stands out. Yeah.

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Yeah, And and a little I don't want to segue

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too much, but I watched a movie I think, I

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think it was just called The Void, and they did

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all old school effects and that that was really quite

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amazing and it's worth seeing if only for that reason.

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The rest of it was, you know, I didn't think

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it was bad, but but I felt like that was

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really a kind of kind of a callback to those

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eighties horror movies. And of course you had the original

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Nightmare on Elm Street, and you had Halloween and Texas

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Chainsaw Massacre was really late seventies when that came out,

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But I mean, you know, all those old staples.

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Oh, those are like all my favorite horror movies. I

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grew up during that time myself, and so I guess

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you know that that that plays a part, though, doesn't

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it nostalgia? But I think the eighties had such a

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certain style to those movies, right, Like, nobody's been able

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to capture it since, and and even though they try,

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I mean, they come close, but it's always modernized in

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a certain way, so it loses a lot of that

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Eighties sort of. I don't want to call it aesthetic,

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but there is an aesthetic to the cheapness, you know

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what I mean.

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Yeah, And look, you know, you can you can agree

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or disagree with me on this, but I thought the

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first and even the second seasons of Stranger Things did

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it pretty well.

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That's what I was thinking of when I was saying that.

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But I agree with you that that's like the closest

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we've gotten, I would say, But still it has that

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modern edge feel to it that that sort of takes

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away from the whole eighties field, but it's still there

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the eighties feel, right.

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Yeah, And then you know, once we get into the nineties,

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with things like scream horror starts to get very smart

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with itself and gets you know, you know, kind of

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self aware in a way that I feel like previously

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it hadn't been we certainly hadn't been as much.

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Yeah, for sure, How did you get interested in writing?

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So? I've been writing again since since I was a teen.

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I've always felt like I needed some form of creative

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expression over the course of the years. Sometimes that's been writing,

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sometimes it's been visual art. I think writing is what

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I always come back to and probably what I'm sort

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of best suited for. You know, I've done that as

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a day job for the last you know, give or

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take fifteen years, maybe more now, and and you know,

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it's how I make sense of the world because we

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live in a world that very often doesn't make sense

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where you know, we we want to try to create

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some embleance of order from things. And I guess in

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a lot of ways that was sort of what brought

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me back to it, because I had, you know, I

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went to school and studied English and university Michigan, moved

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out to Seattle for about a year and then ended

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up in Chicago, and by that time I was in

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working in sales and technology and drifting ever further from

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a lot of my creative pursuits. And you know, I

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did some writing on and off over the years. I

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wouldn't say that I had really made that the focus,

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but it wasn't until really a little over ten years

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ago when a close childhood friend of mine passed away unexpectedly,

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and he and I throughout high school had worked together

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on like literary magazines and gone to punk rock concerts

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and you know Nine Inch Nails shows. I just saw

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them this week for the first time in like thirty years. Yeah,

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which I mean talk about nostalgia. That was that was something.

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But you know, after he passed, I thought about all

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the things that he and I had wanted to do

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as far as pursuing writing and being creative, and you know,

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I decided two things at the time. I guess one

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was that I wanted to try to rekindle a sense

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of childhood wonder and fascination that he and I had shared.

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And you know that that we tend to lose throughout

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our lives for one reason or another. You know, wherever

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you live, whatever you do, you know, however wondrous your

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surroundings are. Over time, we sort of become desensitized to them.

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I mean, I imagine somebody living in a you know, a

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circus sideshow car traveling around after ten or fifteen years,

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doesn't even notice all the wonders and magic that surrounds

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them anymore. And I was in that place, so, you know,

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his death sort of I feel like it reawakened me

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or sensitized me too, you know, that forgotten childhood stuff,

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And so it set me on a path back to

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writing as well. And my wife and I decided we

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didn't want to continue living in Chicago. We fell in

227
00:15:29.480 --> 00:15:32.240
love with Tampa and we knew we were going to

228
00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:36.000
move there, and so last I spent my last six

229
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months there really trying to explore the city in a

230
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way that I never had and in a way that

231
00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:47.440
even people who lived there for generations maybe hadn't. I mean,

232
00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:51.159
there were all these doors and passageways that you know,

233
00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:54.159
I had never asked myself why I had never asked

234
00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:58.279
about them, and I started finding them and going through them,

235
00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.360
and here we are nine years later, and it has

236
00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:03.159
made me the weirdo I am today.

237
00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:07.039
Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to hear about your friends passing.

238
00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:12.919
That's always hard, but you fell in love with Florida.

239
00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:17.279
Is that like what made you decide to write about

240
00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:17.919
it so much?

241
00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:22.600
Well, you know, it was really a very organic thing

242
00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:26.039
for me because part of that that journey, when I

243
00:16:26.120 --> 00:16:30.279
was first learning how to see a place in a

244
00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:35.840
new way, I discovered all these resources like Roadside America

245
00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:40.679
and you know, weird New Jersey and in particular site

246
00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:46.600
called Atlas Obscura, which is sort of crowdsourced, you know,

247
00:16:46.679 --> 00:16:50.759
sort of wondrous, strange, unique places, and I became a

248
00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:53.639
bit of a super fan and really tried to see

249
00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:56.559
as many of those things as I could. And by

250
00:16:56.600 --> 00:16:59.639
the time I'd moved to Florida, I found I was

251
00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:04.039
actually starting to submit, you know, places that I had

252
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:09.359
found or places perhaps that had found me. And after

253
00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:12.599
I'd you know, done that maybe thirty or forty or

254
00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:16.200
fifty times, at one point I was in an airport

255
00:17:16.359 --> 00:17:20.119
and I picked from the bookstore rack a book I

256
00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:25.400
think it was called Secret Philadelphia, and I started thinking, well,

257
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.200
you know, I wonder if I could write a book

258
00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:30.160
about that. And then it occurred to me that really,

259
00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:34.720
between my blog and my other writing, I probably already

260
00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:39.640
had So I reached out to the publisher. You know,

261
00:17:39.960 --> 00:17:42.319
I read a few of their books and got a

262
00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:45.359
feel for how they were assembled. They all had sort

263
00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:50.839
of ninety chapters. There were a pretty broad mix of wonders,

264
00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:55.920
and you know, I assembled my own mock table of contents,

265
00:17:56.039 --> 00:17:58.279
and I just called the publisher to see if they

266
00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:01.640
had anyone or wanted any one to write one of

267
00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:06.160
those books for the Tampa Bay area. And this was

268
00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:11.240
Ready Press was based in Saint Louis, and you know,

269
00:18:11.319 --> 00:18:14.359
I expected them to say, oh, you know, we're not interested,

270
00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:18.240
but they were actually very interested. And I connected with

271
00:18:18.759 --> 00:18:23.839
the owner, a gentleman named Josh Stevens, and you know,

272
00:18:23.960 --> 00:18:27.359
he asked to see some samples of my writing and

273
00:18:27.799 --> 00:18:30.279
that that worked out, and then he asked me to

274
00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:33.759
put together, you know, sort of marketing plan, and that

275
00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:37.920
worked out, and before I knew it, I was assembling

276
00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:41.279
this book. And I think I started that in twenty

277
00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:46.200
nineteen and it came out in twenty twenty, which was

278
00:18:46.279 --> 00:18:48.640
kind of an auspicious time to put out a travel

279
00:18:48.680 --> 00:18:55.920
book because nobody could travel. But thankfully, I guess a

280
00:18:55.960 --> 00:18:58.880
lot of folks sat around reading about all the places

281
00:18:58.920 --> 00:19:02.720
we couldn't go to, and you know, I continued to

282
00:19:02.759 --> 00:19:07.200
do books for them, a giant collection of sort of

283
00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:11.440
rhyming riddles as this Scavenger Haunt that came out the

284
00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:14.720
following year in twenty one, and then in twenty two

285
00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:18.920
I put out really a more historical work called Oldest

286
00:19:19.039 --> 00:19:23.839
Tampa Bay. And in twenty two I sort of restarted

287
00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:29.559
the process co writing Secret Orlando, which is, you know,

288
00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:34.599
sort of adjacent and ever encroaching upon the Tampa Bay area.

289
00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:39.640
Yeah, you've written about some hauntings, and this is something

290
00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:43.880
that sparks my curiosity because I love reading those books

291
00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:49.559
about real life hauntings, and I was wondering, how do

292
00:19:49.559 --> 00:19:54.599
you approach writing about haunted locations within your area.

293
00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:59.480
Yeah, so I've done now two books which in a

294
00:19:59.480 --> 00:20:01.960
lot of ways are sort of different versions of the

295
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:06.960
same material, you know, Haunted Orlando, which came out in

296
00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:11.440
twenty twenty four, and The Ghostly Tales of Orlando, which

297
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:14.599
just came out like a month or two back, And

298
00:20:14.920 --> 00:20:18.279
those are both for Arcadia the History Press. But in

299
00:20:18.359 --> 00:20:24.240
terms of process, so I tend to be skeptical, which

300
00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:27.519
is not to say that there haven't been things that

301
00:20:27.599 --> 00:20:31.759
I cannot explain. I am open to that, and I

302
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:33.720
think a lot of me, you know, in a very

303
00:20:33.759 --> 00:20:36.880
fox molder sort of way, you know, wants to believe.

304
00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:39.880
I want to see those things that I can explain.

305
00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:41.559
I'm exactly the same.

306
00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:46.839
Right but by nature I tend to be a skeptic.

307
00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:49.920
And so I realized I wanted to see if I

308
00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:53.559
could write two different books. I wanted to write a

309
00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:57.440
book about the history of the area through ghost stories,

310
00:20:57.799 --> 00:21:02.519
and a book of ghost stories that illuminated the history

311
00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:06.200
so that regardless of whether you're a believer or not

312
00:21:06.519 --> 00:21:12.400
in ghosts, you could appreciate the content. And you know,

313
00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:15.400
I'm happy with the way that came together, and I

314
00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:18.480
think it can be read both ways.

315
00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:21.119
Nice. So what kind of research goes into writing a

316
00:21:21.160 --> 00:21:22.000
book like that.

317
00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:26.839
Well, you know, I start off with a lot of

318
00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:31.839
the ghost tour operators and a lot of paranormal investigators,

319
00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:37.359
and Central Florida has a ton of them. I mean, Florida,

320
00:21:37.519 --> 00:21:41.640
I imagine, like all states, has just a tremendous amount

321
00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:44.759
of hauntings, especially the closer you get to places like

322
00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:50.920
Saint Augustine, which is, you know, the oldest continually operating

323
00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:57.680
sort of European founded city in the US. So wherever

324
00:21:57.839 --> 00:22:02.400
you have old, strange buildings, Wherever you have weathered tombstones,

325
00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:07.559
wherever you have unfortunate and tragic things that have happened,

326
00:22:08.039 --> 00:22:11.480
you will have ghost stories. And so I looked for

327
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:16.880
those places that were allegedly haunted, and I tried to

328
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:20.240
verify it, and I visited, you know, every one of them,

329
00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:25.079
and I also did a lot of reading. I mean

330
00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:28.759
a lot has been published about this. I talked to

331
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:32.240
a lot of investigators and got a lot of feedback

332
00:22:32.279 --> 00:22:36.480
from places they felt were maybe underrated or ignored or

333
00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:41.680
even not not known about. And between all of that research,

334
00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:44.759
you know, I feel like I got a very a

335
00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:48.119
very good book that casts a pretty wide range.

336
00:22:48.839 --> 00:22:54.839
Awesome. Before we continue on to the Dusty Tiger, are

337
00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:59.200
there any ghost stories that you've well writing these books?

338
00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:02.960
Did you have any creepy experiences you're willing to share

339
00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:06.279
with us that made you maybe second guests or confront

340
00:23:06.279 --> 00:23:09.519
your own skepticism.

341
00:23:10.599 --> 00:23:14.359
Yeah, I would say I didn't. I didn't visit any

342
00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:19.599
place that that straight up changed my mind. But I

343
00:23:19.799 --> 00:23:23.119
visited some places I would be reluctant to go back to,

344
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:29.680
and I think one of them was the old Sunland Institute,

345
00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:36.960
which was you know, mental facility for for youngsters. It

346
00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:42.559
had been it had started as a tuberculosis sanitarium, and

347
00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:45.880
then tuberculosis was cured, so they used it to house

348
00:23:46.680 --> 00:23:51.799
mentally ill And unfortunately, like a lot of these places,

349
00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:56.160
that began with great intentions, you know, as budgets were

350
00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:01.400
slashed year year after year, and and you know, it

351
00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:05.279
became a place of true horror and tragedy as far

352
00:24:05.319 --> 00:24:08.559
as the treatment of those patients and.

353
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:10.160
All.

354
00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:12.759
That's just about all that's left. When I was there,

355
00:24:12.839 --> 00:24:16.240
there was still a portion of the old administrative building it,

356
00:24:16.440 --> 00:24:20.880
but there's now a playground there, which is really weirdly incongruous.

357
00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:28.319
But the whole place just felt very saturated with a

358
00:24:28.400 --> 00:24:32.880
sense of heaviness and sorrow. And I don't know if

359
00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:36.599
that's because there's something there that exuded that, or if

360
00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:40.119
I brought that with me by knowing what had happened there.

361
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:43.480
And then you step back and you kind of ask yourself,

362
00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:47.200
what really is a haunting and is there in the

363
00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:53.279
end a significant difference whether you know it's haunted by

364
00:24:53.720 --> 00:24:57.839
something that is sentient that still resides there, or by

365
00:24:57.839 --> 00:25:01.480
the echoes of what happened, or by what we know happened.

366
00:25:01.799 --> 00:25:05.079
They're all uh sort of under that umbrella of what

367
00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:07.480
a haunting is or can be, right.

368
00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:10.200
Yeah, do you have any theories as to what a

369
00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:13.319
lot of these are? You know?

370
00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:19.519
I don't. I know a lot of people have speculated

371
00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:26.279
about everything from geological makeup, uh, to proximity to water

372
00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:31.880
to you know, just just the general rules that impact energy. Uh.

373
00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:35.279
If that's what you know a spirit or a ghost is,

374
00:25:37.079 --> 00:25:40.960
you know, I I take I guess a more. Uh.

375
00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:44.519
You know, my my view as a skeptic is that

376
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:50.160
the ghosts are are cut tend to be what we

377
00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:53.599
bring to a place, that we are the ones that

378
00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:56.680
do the haunting the living as opposed to the dead.

379
00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:03.000
I like that. Yeah. Now throughout you're writing up these

380
00:26:03.400 --> 00:26:06.519
stories for these novels, you you were also writing short

381
00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:10.079
stories and poetry. You have like a collection of poetry

382
00:26:10.119 --> 00:26:12.119
out I believe, don't you. I do.

383
00:26:12.319 --> 00:26:15.960
It's actually quite old. I think that's uh, you know,

384
00:26:16.039 --> 00:26:20.640
it's just available online, and uh, it is radically different

385
00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:24.799
than the poetry that I've returned to. You know, it's

386
00:26:24.799 --> 00:26:26.920
all it's all part of a continuum and part of

387
00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:29.920
a journey, and I don't you know, cast off and

388
00:26:30.160 --> 00:26:36.279
disown any of my my prior brain children, but you know,

389
00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:38.599
I do. I have a piece that will be coming

390
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:43.599
out in star Line. So so I've actually returned and

391
00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:47.279
and I've been writing kind of speculative sci fi and

392
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:50.960
horror poetry, which is I didn't even know that was

393
00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:55.759
really a thing until I discovered that there's a whole

394
00:26:55.799 --> 00:27:00.359
association for that, and which presumably means there's no other

395
00:27:00.440 --> 00:27:04.599
people doing it to sustain it. And I read a

396
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:08.759
book called Mexicans on the Moon by Pedro Anigaz, which

397
00:27:08.839 --> 00:27:13.160
really that I think, more than others, really just kind

398
00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:15.640
of cracked my head open and messed around with my

399
00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:18.039
gray matter in a very very good way.

400
00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:22.440
Yeah, are there any plans for longer works such as

401
00:27:23.319 --> 00:27:28.480
like I mean, of course fiction as in novellas or novels.

402
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:33.920
I have been kind of moving in that direction. So

403
00:27:34.119 --> 00:27:37.839
right now, my next work will be another Florida book,

404
00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:40.920
and it'll be the Whole State. And so I'm under

405
00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:46.119
contract and working on Amazing Florida for release sometime next year.

406
00:27:46.880 --> 00:27:50.799
And simultaneous to that, I do have a second collection

407
00:27:51.599 --> 00:27:56.480
of short fiction which is kind of making the rounds.

408
00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:00.759
So we'll see if that finds a place to call home,

409
00:28:01.319 --> 00:28:05.200
and along the way, I am starting to work on larger,

410
00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:09.640
larger and longer pieces. I don't know what will be

411
00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:12.519
the first to make it to the finish line, because

412
00:28:12.519 --> 00:28:15.359
I do sort of jump from project to project and

413
00:28:15.400 --> 00:28:17.720
then come back to ones that I had kind of

414
00:28:17.759 --> 00:28:21.559
put on hold. So it might be Novella's, it might

415
00:28:21.640 --> 00:28:24.359
be a novel, but I think that is very much

416
00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:28.680
somewhere in my not too distant horizon.

417
00:28:29.400 --> 00:28:34.079
Excellent. Now, Tails from the Dusty Tiger is your recent release,

418
00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:38.359
your collection of short stories, and it's it's a limited

419
00:28:38.440 --> 00:28:39.880
release right now, is that correct?

420
00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:43.480
That's correct, so I don't know if people can maybe

421
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:48.920
see it, but it's yeah, it's my first full collection

422
00:28:49.079 --> 00:28:54.119
of short stories, and they're all sort of unified by

423
00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:59.359
the idea of this fictional curiosity shop called the Dusty Tiger.

424
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:02.920
Some of the stories more directly are sort of set

425
00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:07.880
there or involved the proprietors. Others are are really more

426
00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:10.640
tangentially related.

427
00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:13.200
Like something they bought from there exactly.

428
00:29:13.319 --> 00:29:16.960
There's something that is waiting to be bought and Wekavic

429
00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:19.640
like a cursed vacuum cleaner.

430
00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:26.119
Now, the Dusty Tiger is a real place, right, So.

431
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:29.720
It's based on a place called Tiger Dust. I just

432
00:29:29.799 --> 00:29:33.680
sort of transposed the name, but it is inspired by that.

433
00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:37.079
But I'm always I always want to remind people that

434
00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:39.680
no one I know has ever come away with anything

435
00:29:39.799 --> 00:29:45.440
cursed or you know, dangerous. It's safe and fun to visit.

436
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:51.000
Speaking of you know, you kind of brushed upon what

437
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:53.160
the stories are like there? Can you tell us what

438
00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:55.599
the stories are about? Like, you don't have to go

439
00:29:55.640 --> 00:29:58.400
through each and everyone, but just the basic premise of

440
00:29:58.440 --> 00:29:59.599
what this collection is like.

441
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:03.880
Yeah, I mean I remember when I was a kid,

442
00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:10.079
Friday the thirteenth, this series about this this sort of

443
00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:13.960
family business right where they're trying to go and find

444
00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:18.000
all these cursed objects that were sold by by Uh.

445
00:30:18.119 --> 00:30:23.720
I think the character's name was Lewis Vendretti. And there's

446
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:26.640
a little easter egg and that the proprietors in here

447
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:30.160
their last name is is Vendretti, which is not by

448
00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:35.680
not by chance. So things like that, you know, curio

449
00:30:35.799 --> 00:30:39.400
shops have always appealed to me because every object in

450
00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:45.279
there seems so weird and improbable, and uh, you know,

451
00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:49.000
there's there's of course, there's needful things, and there's an

452
00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:53.640
anthology called Behold the Oddities, and uh, you know, oddity

453
00:30:53.759 --> 00:30:59.000
shops are such wonderful places for strange things to happen,

454
00:30:59.240 --> 00:31:04.680
strange things to exist. It just seemed like a natural fit.

455
00:31:04.920 --> 00:31:08.799
And and I didn't initially set out to create a

456
00:31:08.839 --> 00:31:13.880
whole collection. Uh. The very first story, which is called Collected,

457
00:31:15.799 --> 00:31:20.319
was very much uh me having read Shirley Jackson at

458
00:31:20.319 --> 00:31:25.319
the time and thinking about what makes something uncanny or weird.

459
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:28.559
And uh. The piece that came out of that was

460
00:31:28.599 --> 00:31:32.480
called Collected, and it was actually performed on the No

461
00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:36.559
Sleep podcast. And I thought, well that that seemed pretty

462
00:31:36.920 --> 00:31:39.559
that seemed to go pretty well, and I really liked

463
00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:44.400
this environment that I imagined. So I did a second piece

464
00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:50.720
for an anthology called The Vessel. And you know, by

465
00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:53.920
this point, I'm thinking, well, you know, this, this dusty

466
00:31:54.039 --> 00:31:58.759
tiger place seems like it just has a lot more

467
00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:02.920
to tell. And so I started assembling a whole collection

468
00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:07.559
of stories with the blessing of the folks at Tiger Dust.

469
00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:11.640
And it was there they kind of opened a publishing

470
00:32:11.759 --> 00:32:16.119
arm initially to release this, and then they will be

471
00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:21.519
releasing other books and music in the future. But so

472
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:25.960
it was really kind of a hyperlocal collaboration. And then

473
00:32:26.440 --> 00:32:31.240
we also got involved a local illustrator whose work can

474
00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:34.319
be procured in the real store. So it was this

475
00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:38.680
weird fun place that I had come across and actually

476
00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:43.920
written about in my weird travel books that spawned its

477
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:45.720
own sort of fiction book.

478
00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:49.200
That's interesting. And what's the name of the illustrator.

479
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.839
The name of the illustrator. His name is Joseph Weed,

480
00:32:53.640 --> 00:32:57.880
but he goes by mister Willow. And I think of

481
00:32:57.960 --> 00:33:01.880
him very much as sort of like a Tampa Bay

482
00:33:02.039 --> 00:33:06.960
area Edward Gory type character. And his work is all

483
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:11.039
very sort of horror and sci fi and fantasy. And

484
00:33:11.079 --> 00:33:15.519
he's done some comics, so really talented guy.

485
00:33:16.200 --> 00:33:21.079
Awesome. And you mentioned books like Stephen King's Needful Things

486
00:33:21.400 --> 00:33:24.400
and also the Crystal Lake Publishing. I believe it was

487
00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:30.200
that anthology of curiosities. Were those influences behind this? Was

488
00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:32.079
that like sort of like I got to do one

489
00:33:32.079 --> 00:33:35.279
of these or did it just kind of come naturally,

490
00:33:35.480 --> 00:33:38.480
like as like a fluent thing from what you're already

491
00:33:38.480 --> 00:33:41.039
working on, like you suggested in your nonfiction.

492
00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:47.640
Yeah, I didn't go out intentionally seeking things like that,

493
00:33:47.839 --> 00:33:50.680
although you know, many many years ago I had read

494
00:33:50.680 --> 00:33:55.960
this Stephen King book, and you know, a lot of ways,

495
00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:59.119
I actually tried to hold off, Like I have a

496
00:33:59.160 --> 00:34:03.599
TBR pie that is mountainous, but uh, and there's a

497
00:34:03.599 --> 00:34:07.279
lot of oddities and curio related stories in there that

498
00:34:07.359 --> 00:34:10.360
I'm really excited to dig into. But I wanted to

499
00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:16.320
finish the collection without that influence before because you know,

500
00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:19.719
so much of what I've been reading just really worms

501
00:34:19.760 --> 00:34:24.559
its way into my head, and you know, I want

502
00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:28.280
to try to maintain sort of, you know, my own

503
00:34:28.360 --> 00:34:31.599
thoughts going in. And then now that I'm done with

504
00:34:31.800 --> 00:34:36.199
the first volume of The Dusty Tiger, you know, now

505
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:38.559
I'm just reading all that stuff that I've been putting

506
00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:39.079
on hold.

507
00:34:39.639 --> 00:34:43.199
Yeah, I want to thank you again for the e arc.

508
00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:45.679
It was it was a lot of fun reading these stories,

509
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:50.280
and the main reason for that because I found them similar,

510
00:34:50.320 --> 00:34:53.079
but not like copies or anything. I'm not saying that,

511
00:34:53.639 --> 00:34:56.840
you know that they aren't their own. These stories are

512
00:34:56.920 --> 00:34:58.719
very much their own, but they felt like they could

513
00:34:58.760 --> 00:35:02.719
have been influenced from the Twilight Zone or Tales from

514
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:06.519
the Dark Side or Tales from the Crypt. Uh.

515
00:35:06.559 --> 00:35:09.599
And that's I.

516
00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:11.719
Love those types of shows, and I love it when

517
00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:14.559
I come across a collection that that gives me that reminder.

518
00:35:15.320 --> 00:35:19.559
Well, and in fact, you know, the Twilight Zone has

519
00:35:19.639 --> 00:35:22.280
been a big impact. My wife and I have been

520
00:35:22.280 --> 00:35:26.280
going back and watching all of the original episodes and

521
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:32.159
after that, you know, I've been reading Beaumont and Matheson

522
00:35:32.639 --> 00:35:39.320
and gosh, all all the other writers from from the

523
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:43.280
original series. And there's a story in there that is

524
00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:48.360
sort of ann an homage to uh, you know, those

525
00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:53.239
those early writers in that most people maybe don't realize,

526
00:35:53.320 --> 00:36:00.519
but Beaumont, uh, you know, is it really tragic, absolutely genius,

527
00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:06.880
but he died young of old age, and uh, you know,

528
00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:10.440
I started thinking about, well, what if maybe he didn't.

529
00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:13.840
What if he really lived an entire life but not

530
00:36:14.039 --> 00:36:18.719
sequentially so it looked like he was rapidly aging, but

531
00:36:18.840 --> 00:36:24.079
he was actually visiting other times and gathering inspiration for stories.

532
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:27.920
So there's a story in there that sort of, you know,

533
00:36:28.079 --> 00:36:31.119
is my my intended to be my my tribute to

534
00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:32.800
those early pioneers.

535
00:36:33.239 --> 00:36:35.440
Yeah, that was an interesting story. Was the title of

536
00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:35.920
that story?

537
00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:44.920
Oh gosh, that one zeitgeist. Yeah, usually time travel makes

538
00:36:45.119 --> 00:36:48.639
time travel stories tend to make my head hurt, so

539
00:36:48.719 --> 00:36:51.239
I usually kind of steer clear of them. But in

540
00:36:51.239 --> 00:36:53.800
this case, I thought, you know, it's all sort of

541
00:36:53.880 --> 00:36:56.119
connected to this typewriter.

542
00:36:56.880 --> 00:37:01.119
Yeah, I'm just going to go through my notes here,

543
00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:04.199
because you have some really interesting story ideas here, like

544
00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:07.880
somebody waking up and bleeding the creatures that you dreamed

545
00:37:07.920 --> 00:37:11.440
into reality, and those creatures also die in the daylight.

546
00:37:12.760 --> 00:37:15.360
A gift of dice that, when rolled on a clear

547
00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:18.199
glass table, will show a reflection of their father at

548
00:37:18.199 --> 00:37:22.360
different stages of their life. A story of a weird

549
00:37:22.440 --> 00:37:25.920
box that the main character picks up at the Dusty

550
00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:28.679
Tiger and the box has like some weird liquid inside,

551
00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:31.559
but there's a hole in there and he sticks his

552
00:37:31.599 --> 00:37:34.760
finger in there and he gets his finger pricked and

553
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:36.920
then he I mean, this story was just bonkers, and

554
00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:39.960
I loved it because then he remembers the car radio

555
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:42.679
that once told him he was listening to no radio station,

556
00:37:43.199 --> 00:37:45.960
just the void, and that the void would return him,

557
00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:50.800
would turn to him. Something similar happened later on with

558
00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:53.679
the mixed CD, and it was just like it was

559
00:37:53.719 --> 00:37:55.599
just like, oh my god, this is so crazy weird.

560
00:37:56.079 --> 00:38:00.679
And the woman who smelled the scented candle that smells

561
00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:07.920
like flower flower. Yeah, and you know, it's just some crazy,

562
00:38:07.960 --> 00:38:11.360
crazy ideas going on there. Uh, I'm kind of going

563
00:38:11.400 --> 00:38:14.039
in a certain direction here. I've heard people talk about

564
00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:16.679
when they release a collection of short stories, or they

565
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:20.719
do or edit an anthology, they would prefer that the

566
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:25.199
readers read the stories in order. I felt that Tales

567
00:38:25.239 --> 00:38:29.239
from the Dusty Tiger, Uh, it kind of demands that

568
00:38:29.320 --> 00:38:32.679
you do that. Is there is there any thoughts on that?

569
00:38:33.519 --> 00:38:38.159
Yeah. I was very intentional about the order that I

570
00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:41.639
put them in. And there's a story sort of midway

571
00:38:41.679 --> 00:38:45.400
through which is almost kind of like a like an interlude,

572
00:38:45.440 --> 00:38:50.960
which is just online comments, and uh, you know, you

573
00:38:51.079 --> 00:38:54.360
realize as you read the story that the people commenting

574
00:38:54.519 --> 00:39:00.079
are from some of the different stories within. So so

575
00:39:00.119 --> 00:39:03.679
I did want the book to have kind of a

576
00:39:03.800 --> 00:39:06.320
bit of a sort of tongue in cheek, you know,

577
00:39:06.519 --> 00:39:11.239
sort of self awareness. But I did try to put

578
00:39:11.239 --> 00:39:15.000
it in an order that made sense, and really I

579
00:39:15.079 --> 00:39:17.800
tried to begin and end with what I thought were

580
00:39:18.079 --> 00:39:24.119
probably the strongest, tightest pieces, and in between, you know,

581
00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:29.760
Property of the King, for example, is very much you know,

582
00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:33.599
I had read The King in Yellow, and it's the

583
00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:37.880
idea that maybe he's making an appearance to gather something

584
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:41.679
that belonged to him, but every story I wanted to

585
00:39:41.920 --> 00:39:47.599
feel like it was kind of a continuous narrative, you know,

586
00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:54.920
very much like the Martian Chronicles or which is very episodic, right,

587
00:39:55.519 --> 00:40:02.760
or the Illustrated Man. I mean, Ray Bradberry is a big,

588
00:40:03.239 --> 00:40:06.960
big influence. I actually I have his little uh, his

589
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:12.039
little trading card here from the Sweeney's Deck. But yeah,

590
00:40:12.039 --> 00:40:15.320
I mean he also you could probably see some of

591
00:40:15.320 --> 00:40:20.400
his fingerprint in some of these. But as much, yeah,

592
00:40:20.679 --> 00:40:23.800
as much as I wanted it to be a continual narrative,

593
00:40:24.280 --> 00:40:30.320
I also really wanted to push myself and explore different

594
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:36.480
types of narration, different types of stories, even some cross

595
00:40:36.519 --> 00:40:38.880
genre stuff. I mean there's some stories in there that

596
00:40:38.960 --> 00:40:42.639
I would probably not even consider really horror so much

597
00:40:42.679 --> 00:40:48.159
as fantasy or sci fi or just strange, yeah, or

598
00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:51.559
just weird. The one, the one where the guy becomes

599
00:40:51.679 --> 00:40:55.840
the story you're reading, Yeah, I mean that was very

600
00:40:55.920 --> 00:41:01.400
much you know, Kafka and Jorge Lewis v. Hayes inspired,

601
00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:05.800
you know, where that one is just that that I

602
00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:08.440
think was about as weird as I got. And the

603
00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:13.480
one about the box you mentioned, I'd had this idea

604
00:41:13.639 --> 00:41:17.800
kicking around my head sort of an auditory horror, you know,

605
00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:21.320
like what if you tuned into a radio station. There

606
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:24.360
wasn't even a radio station. It was just the voice

607
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:28.599
of the void, the voice of cosmic nothingness, sort of

608
00:41:28.679 --> 00:41:32.760
speaking to you. And it wasn't until I married that

609
00:41:33.079 --> 00:41:37.199
to the idea of an object or some sort of

610
00:41:37.679 --> 00:41:43.519
weirdly constructed radio that the various pieces came together. But

611
00:41:43.840 --> 00:41:49.480
I wanted each story to flow, but also each one

612
00:41:49.519 --> 00:41:53.039
to be different enough in terms of narration or style

613
00:41:53.440 --> 00:41:58.039
or you know, so that it continues to be interesting.

614
00:41:58.280 --> 00:42:01.559
Right, Yeah, for sure. You know your writing is pretty

615
00:42:01.559 --> 00:42:04.360
interesting as well, especially when it gets the weird stuff

616
00:42:04.960 --> 00:42:08.440
I have. You know, the short story involving the mannequin.

617
00:42:11.639 --> 00:42:18.480
Oh, the one in here? Um, let me see which

618
00:42:18.719 --> 00:42:22.039
one that is? These curious notions.

619
00:42:24.840 --> 00:42:27.719
Oh, it's just mentioned as a mannequin. I don't think

620
00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:29.800
there's an actual mannequin. But I have a quote here.

621
00:42:29.800 --> 00:42:32.159
Do you mind if I read it? Please just think

622
00:42:32.199 --> 00:42:37.119
of an example of what you're writing, the weirdness, and

623
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:41.079
how you're able to describe it. She did not pause

624
00:42:41.199 --> 00:42:44.000
to look inside the hood of its tattered, stained gray

625
00:42:44.039 --> 00:42:47.480
sweater for a face, and would not would not have

626
00:42:47.559 --> 00:42:51.000
found one if she had. What she would have discovered

627
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:55.159
was a surface as flat and featureless as a mannequin,

628
00:42:55.559 --> 00:42:58.239
save for the open pit in the center of its head,

629
00:42:59.079 --> 00:43:01.960
A gaping mouth very much like that of a lamprey,

630
00:43:02.480 --> 00:43:06.239
rained with sharp teeth all the way down, a gullet

631
00:43:06.280 --> 00:43:10.559
that seemed to stretch on without end. But as previously stated,

632
00:43:10.719 --> 00:43:14.400
Kendra did not pause to consider or examine the thing

633
00:43:14.440 --> 00:43:17.559
that shuffled past her towards where she had deposited her

634
00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:22.159
free thoughts. Now, that's just that's awesome.

635
00:43:22.679 --> 00:43:27.119
Oh, thank you so much. It's uh, you know who

636
00:43:27.159 --> 00:43:31.199
I look to a lot for writing about just completely batchet,

637
00:43:31.239 --> 00:43:33.880
crazy stuff. I mean, there's there's a lot of great

638
00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:37.280
authors who do it, but for me, it's always Clive.

639
00:43:36.960 --> 00:43:38.519
Barker, Cliveburger's.

640
00:43:38.639 --> 00:43:42.840
Yeah, I mean one of the books that I feel

641
00:43:42.840 --> 00:43:45.679
like reawakened me to writing fiction. I went back and

642
00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:49.119
I read those first three volumes of the Books of Blood,

643
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:53.039
and some of the stories in there just just blew

644
00:43:53.119 --> 00:43:56.480
my little brain apart. Like in the Hills the Cities,

645
00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:02.880
trying to envision these two towns all in which everyone

646
00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:05.679
is bound together into sort of this one too giant.

647
00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:08.599
Yeah, that was a crazy story.

648
00:44:09.159 --> 00:44:13.199
Yeah, but you know, and then one of my favorites

649
00:44:13.199 --> 00:44:17.079
from the there was also uh, the Yattering and Jack,

650
00:44:17.239 --> 00:44:20.480
which is I mean, you can just tell that he was.

651
00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:23.079
Having so much fun when he wrote that, because it's

652
00:44:23.159 --> 00:44:29.119
such a I mean, it's really a funny, bizarre, absurd story.

653
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:34.280
But in his hands, you know, if the way he

654
00:44:34.400 --> 00:44:39.239
writes about impossibilities, and and I think the best example

655
00:44:39.280 --> 00:44:43.000
of this that I can think of is maybe The

656
00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:47.800
Inhuman Condition, which starts with a with a story about

657
00:44:47.840 --> 00:44:52.440
these these lengths of string that are nodded and as

658
00:44:52.440 --> 00:44:55.679
this as each of them are not, they unleash sort

659
00:44:55.679 --> 00:45:01.239
of a different, you know, evolutionary monstrosity. But he writes

660
00:45:01.320 --> 00:45:06.159
about the impossible with such fluidity and conviction that you're like,

661
00:45:06.199 --> 00:45:08.920
all right, you know what I'm in I'm going along with.

662
00:45:10.320 --> 00:45:13.159
Yeah. I love Clive Barker. I haven't read those stories

663
00:45:13.199 --> 00:45:15.559
in a long time, though, I really should revisit them.

664
00:45:15.840 --> 00:45:19.280
Yeah, they have held up, I think, Yeah.

665
00:45:19.119 --> 00:45:21.880
I'm sure they have. It's it's long overdue for me.

666
00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:25.519
I remember falling in love with both the language and

667
00:45:25.679 --> 00:45:28.440
just the crazy concepts that he was coming up with

668
00:45:29.239 --> 00:45:32.679
in those stories, like the one that you mentioned, earlier.

669
00:45:33.519 --> 00:45:36.199
But you know, I remember a story. Oh what was

670
00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:40.719
the story? They did an adaptation of it and called

671
00:45:40.719 --> 00:45:43.199
it Dread. Is that the same name as the I think?

672
00:45:43.280 --> 00:45:44.880
So it is that about the guy who's doing sort

673
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:47.199
of the psychological tortures too?

674
00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:53.559
Yeah? Yeah, that story is insane. Yeah. I actually reread

675
00:45:53.559 --> 00:45:56.639
that one, I think just about five six years ago,

676
00:45:56.840 --> 00:46:01.760
but I need to redive into the whole thing. You know.

677
00:46:01.880 --> 00:46:04.679
I was actually just thinking about that very story because

678
00:46:04.760 --> 00:46:11.960
I'm currently reading a collection by R. J. Rowles called

679
00:46:12.280 --> 00:46:16.800
Fuck Around find Out, and there was this an axe

680
00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:21.280
murderer story, the legend of Ho Ho Howard, which you know,

681
00:46:21.639 --> 00:46:23.559
kind of maybe a bit of a shout out to

682
00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:28.920
uh like Silent Night, Deadly Night, but it also you know,

683
00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:33.320
whenever I think of an axe murderer, my mind immediately

684
00:46:33.360 --> 00:46:34.960
goes to that story Dread.

685
00:46:36.360 --> 00:46:39.159
Yeah. Is that Is that like a released yet that book?

686
00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:40.440
Or is it?

687
00:46:40.159 --> 00:46:43.280
Uh? It's out yep, yep. I ordered a copy and

688
00:46:44.159 --> 00:46:46.360
I'm about halfway through a little more.

689
00:46:46.480 --> 00:46:51.760
Nice all right? So, uh, I wanted to also talk

690
00:46:51.800 --> 00:46:55.280
about flash fiction because your collection has quite a few

691
00:46:55.400 --> 00:46:57.639
well maybe not a lot, but there's a few sprinkled

692
00:46:57.639 --> 00:47:01.639
throughout the story and researching you. I checked out your

693
00:47:01.639 --> 00:47:04.199
website and all that, and I noticed that you seem

694
00:47:04.280 --> 00:47:08.599
to have a thing for flash fiction. What is it

695
00:47:08.679 --> 00:47:10.840
about the form that you like? Is it the brevity,

696
00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:15.440
the intensity, or limitations of the flash fiction that draws

697
00:47:15.480 --> 00:47:16.159
you to writing it.

698
00:47:16.920 --> 00:47:20.880
I think it's all of the above. You know. It

699
00:47:21.079 --> 00:47:24.639
was a great place for me to kind of start

700
00:47:24.679 --> 00:47:29.199
with a lot of my writing because it gives me

701
00:47:29.239 --> 00:47:32.480
a framework. Right, it has to be less than fifteen

702
00:47:32.559 --> 00:47:35.760
hundred or less than a thousand words, which is enough

703
00:47:36.280 --> 00:47:43.199
I think for one very good, extremely tight concept, maybe

704
00:47:43.239 --> 00:47:48.760
one or even two twists, but two, you know, knowing

705
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:51.920
that I can do that in one sitting. If I

706
00:47:51.960 --> 00:47:55.440
have the idea, I have enough trust that I can

707
00:47:55.519 --> 00:48:00.480
sit down and you know, just go with it. You

708
00:48:00.519 --> 00:48:04.679
know if with my longer work, I'm definitely more of

709
00:48:04.719 --> 00:48:09.280
a plotter than a passer, as they say, so you know,

710
00:48:09.320 --> 00:48:11.800
I need to think about sort of what happens and

711
00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:16.239
maybe maybe drafted out. But with flash fiction, it's it's

712
00:48:16.280 --> 00:48:19.519
small enough that I can just sit down write the

713
00:48:19.679 --> 00:48:23.719
story and sometimes, you know, I get to the end

714
00:48:23.719 --> 00:48:26.400
of it and think, you know what, there's even less

715
00:48:26.440 --> 00:48:29.920
than I you know, I can make do with even less,

716
00:48:29.960 --> 00:48:33.000
and it becomes maybe micro fiction, maybe two hundred or

717
00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:36.320
three hundred or five hundred words. And then sometimes you

718
00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:38.760
get to the end of it and think there's just

719
00:48:38.840 --> 00:48:41.039
too much story here and it needs to be bigger,

720
00:48:41.480 --> 00:48:44.760
so I will expand it from there. But in terms

721
00:48:44.800 --> 00:48:48.800
of sort of the workshop of my weird brain, things

722
00:48:48.880 --> 00:48:54.400
usually begins as kind of flash fiction, and from there,

723
00:48:54.719 --> 00:48:58.079
you know, maybe it expands or contracts.

724
00:48:58.119 --> 00:49:02.719
Awesome. In one of the stories earlier on in the collection,

725
00:49:03.159 --> 00:49:05.719
there's an activity I used to take part in all

726
00:49:05.719 --> 00:49:07.159
the time, and I kind of still do it in

727
00:49:07.199 --> 00:49:10.760
my head now. So I was wondering, do you people

728
00:49:10.840 --> 00:49:13.880
watch when you're out in the public and then make

729
00:49:13.960 --> 00:49:18.280
stories to fit the people that you're watching constantly?

730
00:49:20.039 --> 00:49:24.159
You know, I think it's probably not a quality I

731
00:49:24.159 --> 00:49:28.920
should admit to, But I mean, as writers we do that. Yeah,

732
00:49:29.599 --> 00:49:34.039
we're observers, right, I mean, what's going on between that

733
00:49:34.320 --> 00:49:37.679
couple in the park or that child and that you know,

734
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:42.119
scary looking clown with the red balloon. You know, we're

735
00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:45.280
drawn to these things. And in fact, my wife and

736
00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:48.239
I even had a little game where sometimes in a

737
00:49:48.280 --> 00:49:51.880
crowded restaurant she would ask me to come up with

738
00:49:52.159 --> 00:49:57.440
stories about the different tables and how why they're all there,

739
00:49:57.920 --> 00:50:00.800
how they know each other, what the story is, and

740
00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:04.320
I came up with some pretty pretty crazy stories. But

741
00:50:04.440 --> 00:50:09.199
it was really fun, you know, and hopefully, you know,

742
00:50:09.320 --> 00:50:12.159
probably hopefully most of those that I came up with

743
00:50:12.760 --> 00:50:21.039
are completely wrong, but you know, it was everything with

744
00:50:21.480 --> 00:50:24.960
you know, like a parole officer who had fallen in

745
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:30.920
love with you know, an inmate, or you know, a

746
00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:36.199
couple that's been married forever, where she's researching the decline

747
00:50:36.280 --> 00:50:40.800
of fossil fuels and he was first assigned to her

748
00:50:41.400 --> 00:50:45.159
as a sort of undercover agent to keep tabs on

749
00:50:45.199 --> 00:50:49.360
her research, and they both at some point realized what

750
00:50:49.519 --> 00:50:52.679
the other was doing, but they'd fallen in love anyway.

751
00:50:53.800 --> 00:50:56.480
So you know, I mean, the stories of how any

752
00:50:56.760 --> 00:51:00.960
two people or four or ten people meet is often

753
00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:03.039
surprisingly improbable.

754
00:51:03.559 --> 00:51:06.599
Yeah, I love that idea. I mean, I do it

755
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:10.000
all the time, and I don't know if it's wrong necessarily,

756
00:51:10.039 --> 00:51:12.760
but because you kind of do it with the idea

757
00:51:12.840 --> 00:51:15.480
that you know that that what you're coming up with

758
00:51:15.639 --> 00:51:19.119
is is not real, right, but but it's you're just

759
00:51:19.119 --> 00:51:22.679
sort of practicing I think your creativity when you do

760
00:51:22.760 --> 00:51:23.920
that maybe.

761
00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:29.800
Yeah, absolutely, it's uh. I think it is a skill

762
00:51:29.840 --> 00:51:34.119
and if you observe and and like I said, being uh,

763
00:51:34.159 --> 00:51:37.239
being a writer to me entails a lot of watching

764
00:51:37.519 --> 00:51:41.239
and listening. How do people speak? What do they talk about?

765
00:51:41.880 --> 00:51:45.400
You know? I mean it's there's an element that is

766
00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:52.559
kind of researcher, maybe borderline sort of voyeuristic, but you know,

767
00:51:52.639 --> 00:51:57.679
it's it all comes together and flows through us into

768
00:51:57.920 --> 00:51:58.559
our writing.

769
00:52:00.440 --> 00:52:03.320
Are there any stories and tells from the Dusty Tiger

770
00:52:03.360 --> 00:52:07.199
that you're particularly proud of? You know?

771
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:11.119
I mean when people ask you that about your stories

772
00:52:11.239 --> 00:52:16.159
or your books, you know, I love all my kids, right, Yeah,

773
00:52:17.199 --> 00:52:20.000
But but there are a few, and I think a

774
00:52:20.039 --> 00:52:25.360
few of the longer ones collected. I thought was what

775
00:52:26.239 --> 00:52:30.360
was very good and very tight A Secret Santa I

776
00:52:30.440 --> 00:52:31.320
really liked.

777
00:52:31.960 --> 00:52:32.079
Uh.

778
00:52:33.239 --> 00:52:36.280
I thought it was a fun twist on sort of

779
00:52:36.320 --> 00:52:40.760
the Gothic trope of of the divided self. And Uh,

780
00:52:41.159 --> 00:52:44.639
the challenge I'd said for myself was, can you tell

781
00:52:44.760 --> 00:52:52.039
a really weird, you know, unhinged, uncanny story through objects

782
00:52:52.159 --> 00:52:55.000
being given to someone at a secret Santa?

783
00:52:55.519 --> 00:52:58.840
Yeah? Uh, that was one of the last stories in

784
00:52:58.880 --> 00:52:59.719
the collection, I believe.

785
00:52:59.800 --> 00:53:01.360
Yeah, I think that closes it out.

786
00:53:01.719 --> 00:53:04.480
Yeah, And it was an interesting story. It was it's

787
00:53:04.480 --> 00:53:07.519
told in the second person, and it got me thinking.

788
00:53:08.559 --> 00:53:12.920
A lot of collections author collections tend to have a

789
00:53:12.960 --> 00:53:16.280
second a second person story in there, and I was

790
00:53:16.320 --> 00:53:18.719
I was wondering, like, why why is that? Is it

791
00:53:18.960 --> 00:53:25.440
just playing around with with different forms or or or is.

792
00:53:25.360 --> 00:53:30.960
It I feel like it's kind of fitting together puzzle pieces, right,

793
00:53:31.119 --> 00:53:35.079
Like every story is its own puzzle, and and one

794
00:53:35.159 --> 00:53:38.639
piece or one part of that is, you know, the

795
00:53:38.639 --> 00:53:42.159
the story itself, the idea, the concept. One part of

796
00:53:42.199 --> 00:53:45.760
it is sort of the characters and the background and

797
00:53:45.800 --> 00:53:49.880
the narrative and the the the dialogue, and one part

798
00:53:49.920 --> 00:53:52.440
of it, a big part of it is the narration.

799
00:53:53.119 --> 00:53:56.960
And if all of those pieces come together right, you know,

800
00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:00.559
I feel like for every story, so that when I think,

801
00:54:00.599 --> 00:54:03.639
I had actually started out writing in the third person,

802
00:54:04.320 --> 00:54:07.320
and I just didn't like the way it was coming together,

803
00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:11.719
so I switched over and tried second person and thought, Okay,

804
00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:15.960
now this one's kind of cooking for me. So I

805
00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:20.079
feel like, you know, you play around with marrying the

806
00:54:20.639 --> 00:54:25.519
type of narrative to what you're narrating, and you find

807
00:54:25.559 --> 00:54:27.280
the right fit that works for you.

808
00:54:27.920 --> 00:54:32.000
Yeah, I have some. They're not funny, but I think

809
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:36.079
this could be like the elevator pitch for the Secret Sanna.

810
00:54:37.159 --> 00:54:41.519
I wrote down the Secret Santa, the Affair the Elevator

811
00:54:41.559 --> 00:54:43.159
Shaft second person.

812
00:54:45.039 --> 00:54:50.880
I love it. I'm intrigued and I would read that.

813
00:54:49.880 --> 00:54:55.239
But it reminds me so there. Well, before we go,

814
00:54:55.719 --> 00:55:00.320
you mentioned that you're shopping around another collection. Can you

815
00:55:00.360 --> 00:55:02.679
tell us a little bit about that? Is? What what's

816
00:55:02.719 --> 00:55:05.000
it going to be like? Should it? Should you? Should

817
00:55:05.039 --> 00:55:05.599
it find a home?

818
00:55:06.320 --> 00:55:09.239
Uh? Well, that is a great question, and you know

819
00:55:09.280 --> 00:55:11.599
what it looks like looking for a home and what

820
00:55:11.639 --> 00:55:14.079
it will look like once it has found one. Made

821
00:55:14.719 --> 00:55:20.400
different things, But it's currently under the title after after Lands,

822
00:55:21.079 --> 00:55:25.440
So there is again kind of a loose thematic connection

823
00:55:25.679 --> 00:55:28.119
between the works of the idea of some sort of

824
00:55:28.360 --> 00:55:33.800
after after an infoc ellipse or an apocalypse or long

825
00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:40.719
after you know, uh, mankind has become a interstellar species,

826
00:55:41.119 --> 00:55:45.360
or you know, after someone has died or done something

827
00:55:45.400 --> 00:55:48.280
they shouldn't have done. But the idea of after so

828
00:55:48.880 --> 00:55:53.599
again uh sort of cross genre of fantasy, horror, sci fi,

829
00:55:55.039 --> 00:55:59.199
with with probably the most generous helping I think being horror.

830
00:55:59.800 --> 00:56:05.039
Uh and yeah again, I've I've tried to do all

831
00:56:05.079 --> 00:56:10.000
sort of different stories, everything from a few poems in

832
00:56:10.039 --> 00:56:15.400
that one to some flash pieces and some longer pieces.

833
00:56:15.880 --> 00:56:20.760
But yeah, I've had some interest, but no official takers.

834
00:56:20.840 --> 00:56:26.440
Some nibbles on the line, but nothing nobody's fully you know,

835
00:56:26.639 --> 00:56:30.000
devoured debate yet, so we'll cross our fingers.

836
00:56:30.880 --> 00:56:33.599
It can be along road. Have you ever thought about

837
00:56:33.639 --> 00:56:35.960
self publishing at all? Is that ever an idea?

838
00:56:36.599 --> 00:56:40.519
Well, and you know that first collection of poetry you

839
00:56:40.599 --> 00:56:44.760
mentioned that was something I put out myself just because

840
00:56:44.800 --> 00:56:47.800
I didn't think there was, you know, much of a

841
00:56:47.880 --> 00:56:51.480
market for that at the time. So I guess technically

842
00:56:51.559 --> 00:56:55.280
I'm probably what they call a hybrid author. I've some

843
00:56:55.480 --> 00:57:01.320
traditionally published and some you know Indie and I have

844
00:57:01.559 --> 00:57:04.920
considered it, and uh uh, you know, it's not something

845
00:57:04.960 --> 00:57:08.280
I'm closing the door on. I'd like to find a

846
00:57:08.320 --> 00:57:13.639
bigger just you know, just for the practicality of distribution

847
00:57:13.840 --> 00:57:17.360
and yeah, you know, the printing costs and all that stuff,

848
00:57:17.639 --> 00:57:20.920
if you can find somebody who's willing to assume some

849
00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:25.079
of that burden for you. But uh, yeah, not out

850
00:57:25.079 --> 00:57:27.760
of the question that I would do that all right,

851
00:57:27.880 --> 00:57:30.000
So we made it to the final question.

852
00:57:30.320 --> 00:57:32.920
This is the question I ask all my guests, and

853
00:57:33.079 --> 00:57:36.920
which authors do you feel are neglected and you wish

854
00:57:37.119 --> 00:57:40.840
more people were discussing on social media?

855
00:57:41.679 --> 00:57:44.239
So so this is a big question. I started out,

856
00:57:44.320 --> 00:57:46.719
I think, with like a list of twenty that just

857
00:57:46.719 --> 00:57:50.880
just rattled. I've narrowed it down to the top five,

858
00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:55.440
I think, and one of them, for sure, somebody who's

859
00:57:55.519 --> 00:57:59.679
work I've been reading and and it's just amazing, is

860
00:58:00.079 --> 00:58:05.199
Cody Goodfellow. Yeah. I read a book of his called

861
00:58:05.679 --> 00:58:09.559
The Man Who Escaped from This Story and other Stories,

862
00:58:10.199 --> 00:58:14.519
and it's it's just awesome. And one of the things

863
00:58:14.559 --> 00:58:17.559
I love is that in that collection he has a

864
00:58:17.599 --> 00:58:24.039
lot of really unlikable protagonists and characters, and yeah, it's

865
00:58:24.159 --> 00:58:27.519
really hard to write characters you don't like, but he

866
00:58:27.599 --> 00:58:33.039
does it so well. Another actually the next two are

867
00:58:33.119 --> 00:58:38.119
located here in Orlando, Florida. Owl Going Back is one

868
00:58:38.159 --> 00:58:43.559
of them I've read. So I have a little virtual

869
00:58:43.559 --> 00:58:47.320
book group that I'm part of and we read Croda,

870
00:58:47.719 --> 00:58:53.119
which was awesome, And I've also read his collection Tribal Screams,

871
00:58:53.679 --> 00:58:59.400
which you know, just just fantastic, and especially with what

872
00:58:59.480 --> 00:59:05.079
I feel like a real focus on indigenous authors in horror.

873
00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:09.159
I really really hope that I'll see more of his

874
00:59:09.280 --> 00:59:11.639
work out there in the future too.

875
00:59:12.039 --> 00:59:14.840
Absolutely. I read Quota a few years ago and I

876
00:59:14.840 --> 00:59:17.480
absolutely loved it. Man, it's a great book.

877
00:59:18.079 --> 00:59:21.360
Yeah, and and not one that like where where there

878
00:59:21.440 --> 00:59:25.760
is there's a lot of empathy for the for the monster, right.

879
00:59:25.840 --> 00:59:29.079
That's that's kind of a you know, that's become very

880
00:59:29.159 --> 00:59:31.760
much a common thing that you know, getting the monster's

881
00:59:31.800 --> 00:59:36.199
perspective or is the monster even really the monster Quota,

882
00:59:36.400 --> 00:59:41.039
the monster is the monster monster, you know, strong shades

883
00:59:41.079 --> 00:59:44.320
of like Predator. I mean, it's just a killing machine.

884
00:59:45.320 --> 00:59:50.159
Another in Orlando is Robbie Dorman and he he has been,

885
00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:55.039
you know, kind of Indian self published. I think he's

886
00:59:55.039 --> 00:59:59.800
written like seventeen or eighteen books I've heard, yeah, and

887
01:00:00.039 --> 01:00:03.400
and I've just read two of them. The last one

888
01:00:03.400 --> 01:00:07.400
I read was The Words of Christ and read and

889
01:00:07.519 --> 01:00:12.199
it was really always my first religious horror and uh wow,

890
01:00:13.079 --> 01:00:16.920
that was intense and fantastic. Yeah.

891
01:00:17.280 --> 01:00:19.760
I'm going to have Robbie dormanon later this year, so

892
01:00:19.880 --> 01:00:23.000
long everything works out, awesome. Yeah, And he's been on

893
01:00:23.039 --> 01:00:24.119
the show before too.

894
01:00:24.519 --> 01:00:27.239
And he is actually doing a podcast now and I

895
01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:31.239
think next month I might be making an appearance on that.

896
01:00:31.360 --> 01:00:31.920
So nice.

897
01:00:32.079 --> 01:00:37.880
Nice, Yeah, But he's great. And then Kurt Fover is

898
01:00:37.920 --> 01:00:40.400
another one that I like. And if you like weird,

899
01:00:41.000 --> 01:00:44.920
I mean like like a glitch in the cosmos kind

900
01:00:44.960 --> 01:00:49.119
of weird. Boy. His work just speaks to me. It's

901
01:00:49.239 --> 01:00:53.119
it's very kind of there's maybe a little bit of

902
01:00:53.599 --> 01:00:57.559
Lovecraft and Legatti and some of those folks in his work,

903
01:00:57.679 --> 01:01:02.840
but I mean it is entirely his zone and extremely original.

904
01:01:02.880 --> 01:01:07.000
I've not read anything else right now today that I'd

905
01:01:07.039 --> 01:01:11.920
say is comparable. And rounding out my top five, I

906
01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:13.440
put Daniel Brahm in there.

907
01:01:14.039 --> 01:01:15.840
Daniel brom Yeah.

908
01:01:15.920 --> 01:01:18.960
I mean I went back and read The night Marchers

909
01:01:20.719 --> 01:01:23.760
and wow, that was amazing. And then, like I said,

910
01:01:23.800 --> 01:01:26.599
creatures of liminal space. And I know he's got some

911
01:01:26.679 --> 01:01:30.639
others I've got a track down too, but his sense

912
01:01:30.719 --> 01:01:34.679
of the liminal and and sort of you know here

913
01:01:34.760 --> 01:01:40.599
and not here and places between worlds, that speaks to

914
01:01:40.639 --> 01:01:41.280
me deeply.

915
01:01:41.880 --> 01:01:44.719
Daniel is one of my favorite writers because when you're

916
01:01:44.719 --> 01:01:48.280
reading him, you can just sort of it almost creates

917
01:01:48.280 --> 01:01:51.519
a liminal space for you and you just fall into

918
01:01:51.559 --> 01:01:54.880
it and you're there with, Like, they're not always horrifying.

919
01:01:55.079 --> 01:01:58.440
They're often sort of i'd say, more fantasy in a sense,

920
01:01:58.480 --> 01:02:01.280
but they do have their scare too, But you kind

921
01:02:01.280 --> 01:02:04.760
of fall into this dream world along with the story

922
01:02:04.880 --> 01:02:08.119
and some of the things he creates is just incredible.

923
01:02:09.599 --> 01:02:13.079
Yeah, I I fully concur and I'm looking forward to

924
01:02:13.119 --> 01:02:18.800
seeing him in October. And it was I'm so happy

925
01:02:18.840 --> 01:02:20.639
that he connected the two of us.

926
01:02:21.000 --> 01:02:24.800
Yeah, absolutely, So what are you What are you working

927
01:02:24.840 --> 01:02:26.280
on right now that you can tell us can be

928
01:02:26.320 --> 01:02:27.599
both fiction or nonfiction.

929
01:02:29.239 --> 01:02:32.440
Well, like I said, I am working my way through

930
01:02:33.800 --> 01:02:38.639
in Florida. Yeah, and this is a big state to

931
01:02:38.760 --> 01:02:44.320
try to swallow in eighty chapters, but but I'm making headway.

932
01:02:45.159 --> 01:02:48.800
That's sort of my next imminent project. And then after that,

933
01:02:49.440 --> 01:02:53.519
like I said, you know, I do have some longer

934
01:02:53.559 --> 01:02:56.920
pieces I've been working on and some that I'm refining.

935
01:02:59.079 --> 01:03:03.880
You know, this, this whole speculative poetry has been an

936
01:03:03.920 --> 01:03:07.920
interesting tangent. Maybe a play. I just want to keep,

937
01:03:08.079 --> 01:03:10.519
you know, having fun with it and seeing where things go.

938
01:03:10.599 --> 01:03:14.920
And I think, you know, maybe novellas or novels might

939
01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:19.159
be something in the mid range. So we'll see.

940
01:03:19.599 --> 01:03:21.800
Awesome now before we go, I just want to mention

941
01:03:21.920 --> 01:03:23.480
that I don't think we mentioned it at all. The

942
01:03:23.800 --> 01:03:28.679
scenery behind you there is actual from a Tiger Dust right.

943
01:03:29.079 --> 01:03:33.440
Right, So speaking of liminal space, right, both in the

944
01:03:33.559 --> 01:03:35.880
store and not in the stores. I was going to

945
01:03:35.960 --> 01:03:41.320
try to have this broadcast live from Tiger Dust, but

946
01:03:42.159 --> 01:03:44.039
you know, they were still open and I didn't want

947
01:03:44.079 --> 01:03:48.760
to get underfoot. So so this background is actually from

948
01:03:48.760 --> 01:03:52.280
a photo that I took inside the store.

949
01:03:52.880 --> 01:03:57.679
That's really cool. So where can listeners find you and

950
01:03:57.760 --> 01:03:59.400
your work online?

951
01:04:00.239 --> 01:04:05.719
Yeah? Most of my books are carried by Ingram, so

952
01:04:05.719 --> 01:04:09.840
so hopefully you find them in your local bookstore or chain.

953
01:04:11.480 --> 01:04:14.440
If you can't, you can always get copies and signed

954
01:04:14.480 --> 01:04:19.920
copies from my website, which is Secret Tampa Bay dot com.

955
01:04:20.599 --> 01:04:24.960
And I also, like yourself, I'm on Patreon now, so

956
01:04:25.880 --> 01:04:30.280
people can find me there too, and I you know,

957
01:04:30.480 --> 01:04:33.559
put up a lot of unreleased works there, and that

958
01:04:33.719 --> 01:04:39.079
is patreon dot com. Slash author Joshua Ginsburg.

959
01:04:39.840 --> 01:04:42.760
Do you find that helps putting out fiction in your Patreon?

960
01:04:42.800 --> 01:04:43.639
Does that help it grow?

961
01:04:43.679 --> 01:04:47.400
It? On? Uh? You know, it has been growing pretty steadily.

962
01:04:47.679 --> 01:04:50.800
I you know, I don't really have a comparator I've

963
01:04:50.880 --> 01:04:53.880
been on you know, I'm on all the interwebs and

964
01:04:54.119 --> 01:04:57.119
Instagram and Facebook and that stuff, and it seems like,

965
01:04:57.760 --> 01:05:01.039
I mean, I have a pretty good interactive follow I'm

966
01:05:01.039 --> 01:05:07.199
certainly profoundly thankful for them. But you know, I don't

967
01:05:07.199 --> 01:05:09.599
think it hurts. And and maybe it's all kind of

968
01:05:09.639 --> 01:05:12.920
like a snowball effect. And you know, the more places

969
01:05:13.400 --> 01:05:18.199
I kind of have a presence, hopefully that that gets

970
01:05:18.199 --> 01:05:21.000
you noticed a little bit more. But in the end,

971
01:05:21.119 --> 01:05:23.880
you know, I mean, I figure I'm just going to

972
01:05:23.960 --> 01:05:29.639
focus on craft and doing appearances and and you know,

973
01:05:30.400 --> 01:05:33.519
selling books and writing books, and we'll see where it goes.

974
01:05:34.719 --> 01:05:36.599
Awesome. Well, I want to thank you so much for

975
01:05:36.679 --> 01:05:39.880
coming on to the Weird Reads podcast and chatting with

976
01:05:39.880 --> 01:05:42.960
me about some pretty strange stories, and.

977
01:05:43.760 --> 01:05:45.079
Thank you so much for having me.

978
01:05:45.800 --> 01:05:48.760
Anytime you want to come back, just hit me up,

979
01:05:49.000 --> 01:05:51.239
and or if I see that you've got to release

980
01:05:51.320 --> 01:05:54.320
coming up, I'll maybe hit you up and if you're interested,

981
01:05:54.360 --> 01:05:55.400
we'll have you back on.

982
01:05:56.239 --> 01:05:58.480
Well, thank you, it would be a pleasure.

983
01:05:59.360 --> 01:06:00.519
All right, Thank you so much.

984
01:06:01.119 --> 01:07:01.679
Alright, please ple