How Weird is Weird? LIVE with Dan Scamell and Bradley Sides

In this LIVE episode, Alan and Diane talk to authors Dan Scamell and Bradley Sides about the weird, the bizarro sub-genre, aliens, monsters, haveing the confidence to publish, story structure, getting published, and much more. 

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:01):
If this goes on, don't panic, bringing hope To the
world through speculativefiction.

(00:22):
You and Hello everyone, andwelcome to If this goes on,

(00:45):
don't panic. I'm Diane Morrison
and I'm Alan Bailey. Today wehave authors, Dan Scannell and
Bradley sides, but before we getto our amazing guests, I have a
couple announcements. So forthose of you in the chat session

(01:05):
right now, we are going to bedoing a book giveaway, ask a
question to our guests, and I'llsend you a book. Basically,
that's what it comes down to.And for those of you who are
quiet and introverted, likemyself and don't always like to
speak up at these types ofthings, yes, I am quiet and
introverted, believe it or not,you can just email us it. Go,
don't [e-mail] that's IT, G, O, D, O, N, T, P, A, n, i,

(01:28):
[e-mail], and just tell uswhat your favorite episode of If
this goes on, don't panic is,and I will send you a book. It's
that simple. I got a whole pileof them over here. I've got
stuff from Sarah pinger. I gotTerry Pratchett, Ramsey
Campbell. I've got KurtVonnegut, Corey Doctorow, even
Robert Heinlein. I've got abunch of stuff over here. So

(01:51):
just let me know, and I'd behappy to send it to you. I have
to warn you, though, most ofthem are not new. Most of them
are lightly used, because that'sthe best way to buy cheap books,
right? Okay, so we have oneother announcement before we get
started. And we've been teasingthis for quite some time, but it
is actually done now, and we aregoing to be having a new logo
soon. I'm very

(02:11):
happy with it. It's really cool.I think it represents the
podcast very well. The artistsdid a great job.
Yeah, I was very worried atfirst that it wasn't gonna turn
out the way that we wanted itto. You know, I've worked with
artists in the past, and havesometimes been disappointed with
the results, but I think thiscame out fantastic our artist
brie, Brie kasi Nazi, she did afantastic job. I'm super
excited, and I can't wait to toreveal those to everybody. Yeah,

(02:34):
so what
do we do with that next episode?Next, uh, recorded episode? I
don't know. I
don't know. That's a goodquestion. We do need to figure
that out. Maybe we need to calla podcast meeting and chat it
out, yeah,
fair enough. Fair enough, yeah,yeah. Maybe we'll do like a, I
don't know, like a cover revealor whatever we'll do like a logo
reveal or something, yeah,

(02:56):
maybe I can, like, blur it out,yeah, yeah. Definitely. I have a
huge stack of them here. Soplease, please, please take some
free books. Please.
Is the wife telling you to getrid of some of the stuff and
make some space
that may possibly be where someof them came from, maybe
possibly Gotcha.
All right, cool. Well, who areour guests today? Alan, I can't

(03:19):
wait to get into this.
Yeah, yeah. And so if youhaven't been to a live episode
before, the way that this worksis we do the first half an hour
with one guest and then thesecond half an hour with the
second guest. Usually they'reboth here, and in the the first
one stays the second and thesecond one's here for the first
so sometimes there's some banterback and forth between the
guests and everything. But weare going to start with Dan

(03:41):
scammel. Dan scammel is a writerof weird and speculative fiction
which takes place in a slightlyless pleasant version of the
world in which we live. His cowritten weird novella stuck
together with you was releasedin 2023 and his short fiction
has appeared in anthologies likefrom the dead and ooze little

(04:01):
bursts of body horror andmagazines such as the Molotov
cocktail. His first novel,Walnut Ridge from dead star
press is available now, andthat's what we're going to be
talking about. Actually, Hecurrently lives in Pennsylvania,
where, in addition to writing,he creates artwork, plays drums
and watches too muchprofessional wrestling. So
welcome Dan, Hi, thanks forhaving me. Yeah, no problem, no

(04:23):
problem. And I'll introduce Bradreal quick, but Brad's probably
not gonna be talking too muchtill the second half. He's
Welcome
to but yeah, just to make itclear, you're welcome to jump in
if you got something tocontribute to the conversation.
We're pretty Yes, free flowinghere, right? So we are,
we are, we are. But just for myown sanity and organization, I'm
going to be asking Dan questionsmore directly first and then

(04:45):
Brad more on the side, more inthe second half. Okay, so
Bradley sides is the author oftwo short story collections.
Those fantastic lives andcrocodile tears didn't cause the
flood, which we will bediscussing today. His fiction
appears at bull. People, ghostparachute, necessary fiction,
psychopomp, superstition. Reviewand elsewhere, his stories have

(05:06):
been nominated for years bestweird fiction and featured on
LeVar Burton reads, Oh, that'sawesome, sweet. Congrats on
that. Additionally, he haswritten reviews, interviews and
essays for chapter 16, Chicago,Review of Books, electric
literature Los Angeles, Reviewof Books, the millions, the
rumpus and southern Review ofBooks in 2019, he was selected

(05:29):
to participate in lit hubs,Secret of the book critics.
Bradley holds an MFA fromQueen's University of Charlotte,
where he served as fictioneditor of Q. I'm guessing that's
how that's pronounced. Q. Isthat right? Q, U, Q, U, oh,
okay, Q, U. He is a previousboard member of the Alabama
writers cooperative, andcurrently he lives in

(05:49):
Huntsville, Alabama with hiswife. On most days he can be
found teaching writing atCalhoun Community College. So
welcome. Thank
you. Glad to be here, lookingforward to it,
yeah, yeah. Awesome. So as Imentioned, we're gonna kind of
start with Dan and then work ourway through here. Dan, your book
is quite something. It's quiteinteresting. It's so strange. So

(06:13):
just to give the audience anidea of what's going on, let me
give you all kind of a veryshort summary of what happens
these aliens come to earth, andthey basically tell everybody
they can take you to a heavenlike place, right? But you have
to be turned into sentient gooin order to go there. The aliens
also come down in this likeappearance of robots, but it's

(06:34):
kind of like badly done roboticmannequin robots. Would that be
a right, correct description?Description? Dan, yeah.
It sounds pretty on point, yeah.
And then the characters arelike, like, there's a bear
that's like, possessed by analien, and there's a human
that's been turned into sentientgoo, a regular human. There's,

(06:54):
of course, the robot alienangels, which, I mean, I don't
think I've ever thought I wouldsay that sentence in my life,
robot, alien, angels, butthere's a lot of cool stuff
going on in the main characters,basically, are like, I don't,
you know, I'm not into this, buteverybody else has already
joined up for the promise,right? And have been turned into
goo. So it's kind of like,almost like an apocalypse too,
right?
Yeah, kind of like, how Idescribe it is sort of like,

(07:17):
it's sort of like the mostboring end of the world story
you could imagine, but
it's not boring, though. Thankyou. Thank you. No, it's not,
no. I mean the characters and inthe way that you do, the aliens
and everything you know arereally what keep it interesting.
We
have a comment the audience,yes, CELTA. Celto says, who's a

(07:38):
first time chatter. Welcome tothe channel. Says, I get turned
into goo and I get to go toheaven. Win, win. We also have a
question from flub, when you'reready for
those, yeah, okay, okay, readthe end of the book first before
you say that. So I have aquestion about your aliens. What

(07:59):
did you think about when youwere designing your aliens?
Because there's, there'sactually three alien races
involved here, and you don'treally know that right away.
No, there's, I mean, the firstones that you're introduced to
are the ones that take the theform of the, you know, the
robotic angels. And they're, therobots are kind of poorly put
together. They don't really lookvery good, and they're, they're
way too large, and kind of thatjust speaks to, sort of the

(08:24):
overall theme of, like,presumption that kind of goes
through the novel that thesealiens were like, Oh, we're so
far advanced. Like, if we justtake a like, a guess at what
they'll respond to when we showup, it'll be good enough. And it
sort of ends up working despitethe shortcomings that they, that
they run into. But it was mostlyjust that one was pretty much

(08:47):
just because I find that sort ofthing to be sort of a funny gag.
And then you have the other, theother race, which is, they're
just, they're two dimensional.And I always like to play with,
you know, you know, a lot oflike, you know, like a lot of
Vonnegut work that he talksabout four dimensional aliens.
And so I was thinking, Well,what if, you know, like, we
think that because we're threedimensional, you know, we're

(09:09):
above other things. But like, ifyou really try to conceive of
like a two dimensional creature,it's a little harder to sort of
wrap your mind around. So Ithought that was kind of funny.
Yeah, the final ones are justsort of your basic, you know,
floating balls of light thatare, you know, ostensibly
benevolent and all knowing, youknow, the the easy way out,
yeah, the balls of light weren'tthose cocoon aliens, like, from

(09:31):
that, yeah,
that's sort of like what I whatI had in mind, actually, was
that sort of, can't quiteconceive of it, but, you know,
sort of comes Across pleasantlooking enough,
yeah, yeah. Well, I will say Ireally enjoyed how you made
basically everyone incompetent,except for the balls of life,
like all aliens, all the aliensare incompetent. Basically all

(09:54):
the humans are incompetent. Ilove that, because usually when
alien races are presented inscience fiction. They're like,
at least equal to humans orbetter, right? They're never
totally incompetent. Why makethat decision? I think
part of it, like I said, a lotof it, is intended to be kind of
humorous and to sort of buck thethe traditions that I, that I
was used to, and sort of turnthings on their head. I I just

(10:19):
think it's funny how, you know,we do have these assumptions
that, like, you know, spacetravelers would be so much more
advanced than us and so muchsmarter in all respects. But,
you know, judging just by what,like, what we see around here,
you know how, you know,technology continues and culture
continues, and we look back onthings even as close as you
know, 1020, years ago, and say,like, Well, that was, that was

(10:41):
kind of dumb, wasn't it? Now, inhindsight, and, you know, I
don't think that's exclusive to,you know, humanity, if there are
other races out there. And also,I just, I kind of, I like
stories where, like, all thecharacters are a little bit,
like, like, every character youmeet is a little more stupid, or

(11:02):
maybe not quite as competent asthe last one, but maybe in
different ways. So I don't know.I just feel like that kind of
makes it a little moreinteresting in lieu of a
villain, because I tend not to,I tend not to put like actual,
just straight on villains instories, because I don't find
them that interesting. I'drather have sort of bumbling,
kind of flawed characters, yeah,

(11:24):
yeah. James woodright points outthat Doctor Who season 16 also
did things with like the glowingballs of light. Yeah, he's a
movie. And so I figured I'd, youknow, throw that in there. I was
intrigued by the, the wholepremise of the presumption,

(11:44):
right? Like it's kind of a it'sa theme I've explored in well,
okay, so I don't often talkabout faith, right? But for
myself, I am a NEO pagan, right?I'm a Wiccan, right? And the
jury's out for me in terms ofwhether it's all psychological

(12:06):
projections, right, that we tapinto through the ideas of, you
know, semiotic ghosts, so tospeak, to use a term that
science fiction people will befamiliar with, right? Or whether
it's like, you know, thesebeings that we interact with
actually have some sort ofreality, but the thing about

(12:28):
them is they're not human,right? And as a result, they
don't get it sometimes, right,like some faiths talk about
following the will of God,right? A Neo pagan will not
follow willingly orautomatically anyway, follow the
will of whatever deity they'retalking to, because they get

(12:49):
that that deity may notunderstand that, you know, time
is finite. Physical bodies havelimits, you know, right? They
just might not get it. So theymight say, You do realize what
you're asking here, right? So Ireally kind of like this idea
of, you know, extra dimensionalsort of beings that may have

(13:12):
abilities that we don't, thatare kind of just as dumb as we
are. That's great.
Yeah, that's it's I, I kind ofif anything that I could relate
it to would be kind of likesometimes, if you see people in
management and you kind ofwonder, man, how did they get
there? So often, so often
relatable. You've obviouslyworked at some corporations I
can Yeah.

(13:35):
So obviously, you know, youenjoy satire. You brought up
Vonnegut already. This book isclearly a satire. You know. What
is it about satire that helpsyou kind of explore, explore the
world that you created, in theworld that we live in, you know,
what? What do you like about it?And how does that help you,
like, you know, deal withthings.
I think that for me, a lot of itis that I kind of, I look around

(13:59):
and a lot of, a lot of stuffjust kind of doesn't make sense
to me. And my brain is sort ofwired to try and make sense of
things and sort of problemsolve. And so it found, it finds
itself sort of confounded a lot.And yeah, I, I feel like,
finally, you know, you know,coming into, you know, my, my,

(14:20):
middle age, and sort ofrealizing that and coming around
to like, well, if I just acceptthat as the way that it is, then
I can sort of move forward fromthat. And by that I mean, like,
not figure things out, butrealize that maybe I don't need
to figure everything out, andmaybe I can sort of exist as I
am and sort of react to thingsas they happen. And I feel like

(14:43):
that's, that's something that Ikind of tried to put into the
into Walnut Ridge, when I waswriting, it was this sort of,
you know, I think it's, I thinkit's very important to, you
know, look into things and belearned, and to, you know,
philosophize. But it's notalways. Going to be the ultimate
answer, and sometimes not havingthe answer is, is part of what

(15:05):
can help me as a person. Anyway,I'll speak for myself, is it
will help me, you know, live myday to day life more
effectively, and, you know, asless of a burden to myself and
less of a harm to myself,potentially.
Alan and I have both talkedactively about our
neurodiversity as neurodiversepeople, sometimes we're
completely clueless. We're like,oh, I don't understand why

(15:27):
people are doing this at all.Yeah, I came to the same
conclusion. I think it was about30 when I finally came to that
conclusion and went trying.
It's funny. I'm not, you know,I'm not, I'm not diagnosed with
anything formally. But I knowthat when I have, you know, beta

(15:47):
readers read my stuff, they'llask me, like, oh, is this is
this character, you know, isthis character autistic or neuro
diversion? I'm like, no, they'rejust normal. They think like
everyone does, right? Andeventually I had to be realized
that like, oh, maybe, maybethere's something that I'm
missing here.
I have a question that, youknow, look what? Why was it

(16:08):
important for you to includeneurodivergent characters? But
maybe you didn't do that on
purpose. What do you mean?They're all, they're all just
normal people in there? Yeah,no, that's, yeah, that's not.
Obviously, you know, like when Iwas writing, I put a lot of
myself into a lot of thecharacters, but also I put a lot
of the stuff like I was talkingabout that that I that I didn't
understand, and that I wanted tounderstand about, you know,

(16:32):
people who I knew, and friendsthat I'd had in relationships
I'd been in. I wanted to try andsort of get through that by
writing about it and sort ofcharacterizing these things and
trying to do it without havingan outcome in mind and seeing
what the characters maybe couldteach me. If that doesn't sound
too pretentious,
sounds like fun to me, I don'tknow.
Oh no. I love that. I love that.Diane, did you say there were

(16:54):
some questions in the chat?
There was one. Anyway, flubwants to know what the
inspiration was for the settingof his world. This
the world. It's, it's prettymuch just like, you know, it's
modern world as we know it. Someof this was, some of this, you
know, could probably beexplained away as, you know,
plot convenience. But it alsosort of, I wanted to sort of

(17:17):
touch on general, sort of likemob mentality, but, but almost
more like a sort of collective,like on we or malaise, because
when the aliens come down in inWalnut Ridge, they pump a little
bit of like happy gas into theatmosphere, but not really
enough to, like, mind controlanyone. And most of the
population, within a coupleweeks is pretty much like, yeah,

(17:40):
this seems all right, you know,these, these people are, these
aliens are going to be good tous. We, we deserve to to, you
know, have an eternal paradise.We've, we've done our time here
there. Let's just go with theseguys. Which is something that I
think, you know, it's obviouslyexaggerated for the fiction of
the novel, but it is somethingthat I think is, is, you know,
like kind of fun to explore,considering
the principle of,

(18:01):
yeah, there. There is a lot of,I tried to weave a little bit
of, you know, mental health andaddiction narrative stuff into
into the story as well. So Ihope that some of that comes
through to people who, to whomthat might, you know, mean
something, would you
mind talking about those aspectsof your book a little bit? I
mean, the thing that jumps outto me the most, and I have had

(18:23):
substance abuse problems, butI've never gone to like, you
know, I've never had to go to anaddiction clinic or anything
like that. But the setting iskind of very addiction clinic,
like, Yes, right? The setting,the main setting, of Walnut
Ridge, which has been turnedinto the place where you go
before you get turned into gooto go off into space is
described as a formerrehabilitation Drug and Alcohol

(18:45):
Treatment Center. And that wasthat was good for me, because
that was just sort of writingthrough some stuff that that I
had been through, but also itgave me sort of a chance to sort
of discreetly work in some ofthe things that I was going
through, you know, years ago inin, you know, early recovery for
me. And some of the, again, someof the things that I was trying

(19:08):
to figure out and trying tofigure out, what I actually
needed to figure out and what Ididn't need to figure out and
had to just sort of go with andpart of that, I think that that
can be an interesting sort ofvenue to go through, you know,
in terms of any sort of, like,institutionalized living
facility that you can get,certain types of people can get
very acclimated to the point,like I do very well

(19:31):
institutionalized. I canacclimate very well to that. And
I can have my, you know, I canhave my fun in my little pockets
where I where I can get it. Andthen I'm back to, you know,
standing in line, you know,filling out my paperwork, stuff
like that, yeah,
and me, I fight that kind ofthing every step of the way. I
dread the possible future of meending up in a care home,

(19:55):
because I know that I will fightwith everybody i. I won't even
want to. I'll try to get along.I will, but it just won't work.
Yeah,
one more question for you, Dan,before we started this
conversation in the In the GreenRoom, if you will, we were
chatting about horror and and asub genre of horror called

(20:19):
bizarro. Do you feel like youknow enough about bizarro to
kind of describe that to theaudience. I
kind of have always kind ofdescribed the the work that I do
as weird, and I some otherpeople like I've written some
other things that I think otherpeople would describe as
bizarro, and I it almost feelslike they're they're sort of in
the same vein to me, althoughbizarro feels like it, has a few

(20:41):
less logical constraints to theworlds in which it takes place
in but it doesn't push it so farthat it's totally, you know,
surreality either. It's like avery it's like right at the
tipping point of wheresuspension of disbelief can
happen, and you can kind of slipinto that and then slip back out
of it without getting charredtoo much, but getting jarred,

(21:04):
definitely a little bit, Ithink,
yeah, yeah, I would definitelydescribe your work is at least,
at least on the border ofbizarro, just with the with the
robot alien models, right? Like
I feel like a lot of times, whatI see in bizarro is things that
are not normal presented asthough they are. And I feel like

(21:26):
if you do it, if you do it well,then the reader will kind of go
along with that. And that's kindof the sweet spot where I try
and go for, yeah,
I want it to remember thatcomment Diane, because that
reminds me of some of Brad'swork. Actually, I want to talk
about. Okay, so I guess, I guesswe should start transitioning a
little bit here. Let's bringBrad in,

(21:48):
though. Before we do, we have aquestion again from the
audience, celto. Celto says, Ihave a question for Dan. What
was the biggest lesson youpersonally learned from Walnut
Ridge and its story andcharacters, especially given all
the weird satirical elements, Iremember you saying you like to
learn from the characters. SoI'm just curious. And to be
fair, a lot of my regularaudience are writers, so this,

(22:12):
you know, feel free to answerfrom a craft perspective as
well. I
feel like probably the thing Ilearned most from writing. It
was just sort of the like Isaid, there is, there is a
through line of presumption andsort of arrogance, through in
perceived intelligence, I wouldsay. And what it sort of what

(22:36):
writing, this helped me do, wassort of get into a mind space to
remind myself to kind of deflatemy ego a little more, and kind
of not think either that I havethe answers, because, you know,
obviously I'm so intelligent, orto realize that, you know, I

(22:57):
don't need to feel like I haveto have all the answers, because
it's okay to not know things andto, you know, make mistakes and
stuff, and to learn from themand try and do better next time.
That was the main thing I got, Ithink, from from writing it, you
know, in terms of, like, whatthe characters may have taught
me. It's very
cool. I like that a lot. Yeah,that was a hard lesson for me in
my life, too.

(23:20):
Oh, totally understandable. Andthen you realize, yeah, it's
impossible. There's just toomuch to know.
More you know, the more yourealize you know nothing. Yes,
that's
exactly right. That's exactlyright. I'm pretty sure that's a
Zen Cohen somewhere. I
was quoting Bill and Ted.
Who's to say Bill and Ted isn'tlike some kind of cosmic Zen

(23:41):
Cohen. I mean, you know exactly.
There's more to that movie thanpeople think, to be fair, but
yeah, anyway, haven't watched
it in years. I really need to rewatch that. It keeps coming up
in my life, like over and overagain, over the years, and it's
been a while before, before wecontinue on Love in celto
celtos. Make sure you give Dianeor you send us your address. I

(24:01):
do have to warn everybody. Iforgot to mention this at the
top. I can't send outside of theUS. I can't send books outside
of the US, because, you know,the mail rates are just insane.
Ask me something. Well,
I'll tell you what you can dowith flub, because I know flub
is in the UK, right? I will giveyou the address of my one of my
friends, actually, you knowwhat? Nah, send the book to me.

(24:25):
Well, no, you can't, because Istill outside the US shit. We'll
figure it out. Okay, we'llfigure it out. Flub, I'll figure
out how to get it to you withsomething from Game of Thrones
or one of the prizes I alreadyowe you, or something.
Okay, awesome, awesome. That'dbe great. Great. Yeah, someday
asked me about trying to send abook to Brazil. That was that.

(24:46):
That
was interesting. Yeah, no, theUK isn't bad. It's just it can
be a bit pricey, but we'llfigure it out. Yeah,
all right, let's, let's bringBrad into this thing. Let's
bring Brad in so you both have.Of weird horror as a genre of
interest listed on yourwebsites. Like, you know, you
both write in it. You both enjoyit, right? How would you both

(25:08):
define new weird and what gotyou, both of you interested into
that sub genre? Let's start withBrad this time, and then we'll
go back
to Dan. You know, whenever myfirst collection came out, the
very first review came out at ahorror magazine, and I was like,
what, you know, I had neverthought of my work as horror in
any kind of way. And thenwhenever I read the review, I

(25:31):
was like, well, they're engagingwith it in, you know, horror
related ways in which I was, youknow, I kind of saw my work in a
different way what the work wasdoing. So I was just really
interested in kind of theconstraints of what I had
thought horror may have, andthen what the reality is. But
I've always thought my work wasmore weird, like Dan had

(25:52):
mentioned earlier, just likeweird fiction, you know, I don't
know. I think with weird, itjust has such an open kind of
definition to it of what isweird. Well, weird, you know,
it's one of those things whereit just has so much room to kind
of grow. And I'm interested inwhat the wiggle room kind of
does with the definition ofthat, of that genre. Yeah, yeah,
if I might say, before Dananswers, right? I often say to

(26:16):
my viewers that I think weengage with sub genre to some
extent, too much in the field,right? Sub genre is a marketing
label. It exists so that you canfind an audience that will
appreciate the kind of thingsthat you write. But the story is
the story, right? And sometimesit's not going to fit clear

(26:39):
definitions, or sometimes it'sgoing to overlap them, or
sometimes it's going totranscend them in a way that you
don't know. Or it's going tohave the markers of one when you
were thinking and in terms ofanother, right? Like the Beatles
thought they were a blues band,you know. Like, it's, yeah, I

(26:59):
don't think we should put, Ilike the idea of engaging with,
you know, what defines a genre.So I think this is a great
question. But I also think,yeah, not, not at all
surprising, after exposing it tothe World Fair enough. Okay,
sorry, no, no,
that's all this. This is, Imean, Dan and I had a

(27:20):
conversation even before Bradjumped on that covered a lot of
the same stuff, because we weretalking about bizarro. But it,
and I'm kind of curious thinkingtoo, like, Why does bizarro in
in weird get put into the horrorcategory? Necessarily? Because
weird fiction, you know,originally was fantasy, I
believe, right? I mean, ChinaMelville was, was the first big

(27:42):
weird horror, new, I should saynew weird horror guy, right? And
he was writing fantasy books, Idon't know, Dan, what do you
think?
I think, just to sort of echowhat Brad said about, you know,
genre constraints, and, youknow, kind of figuring that out
for oneself in terms of one'sown writing, in terms of, of,
like, why the there's crossoverwith, you know, bizarre, weird

(28:04):
and horror. I think, you know,part of it is, is probably, you
know, just comes down to thelogistical reason of, like, I
think a lot of, I think horroris very popular in general, you
know, a lot of people you know,have it as a genre that they
enjoy. You know, in addition toother things, I think even as
even as a writer, you know,sometimes you have these weird
ideas that you want to do, andit can almost be easier to be

(28:27):
like, All right, well, how, youknow, I want something, I want
something like, you know, whenyou want your conflict to
happen, you know, well, how badcan I make it? How, how crazy
can I make this? You know, whenthere are no constraints put on,
and I feel like that's why Isort of, you know, in terms of
horror, at least, that's why Ikind of veer to the weird
because, like, you know, theyalways say, like, right, write
what you know, and right, youknow, as a horror person, like,

(28:49):
write what you're afraid of. AndI don't really know if anyone
wants to read like, a 300 pagestory about, you know, putting
off calling the insurancecompany for like, six weeks
because you have so muchanxiety. But, you know, it's
just, it's just,
I don't know if I want to read.It's easier and
more marketable to make somekind of weird like fleshy tooth
monster or something. So

(29:13):
I don't know if anyone wants toread what I'm really afraid of,
crazy shit. Okay,
fair enough. That's reallyfunny, that was really funny,
Brad. One thing that you do inyour stories is you have a lot
of, like, really weird stuffhappening, but your characters
are kind of like, yeah, thisthing happened, whatever, which

(29:36):
I think kind of relates withwhat Brad with, what Dan was
saying about the bizarro, right?Like these really strange things
are kind of just like taken instep, like, just to give an
example to the audience, youhave a story called The Guide to
King George, right? And it'sabout like this, I guess, frog
monster, or some kind of, likeamphibious creature, right, that
they find. And it just keepsgrowing and growing and growing.

(29:59):
It becomes modern. Stress,right? But everyone's like,
Yeah, this is King George. He'slike, this weird giant monster,
and we're gonna kind of likebuild a zoo around him, right?
But it's not like a big deal tothe main characters. Now, when
the people will first come tothe zoo, they're like, Oh my
God, and they lose their shit,right? And that's how they kind
of get a draw to their littlezoo thing. Can you talk about

(30:21):
that a little bit like a lot,and that's not the only story
that's like that. Many of yourstories are like that. Yeah,
I think, you know, a large partof it, I think, is I just think
the world is a weird place, andwe encounter weird stuff every
day. So part of me is just like,Yeah, it's weird. And, you know,
kind of move on from it. But Igrew up on a farm, and just
observing the world that closelywith animals and the environment

(30:45):
and just the interactionsbetween the two, and then you
bring in humans, like it's justweird to observe. And I think I
was just trying to, honestly,kind of bring some of that
weirdness out by giving thesesituations, like you said, that
they're very strange, but thenthe people don't really process,
process them as being strangetheir reality. It seemed real

(31:06):
to me. You know, that's a reallygreat theme in science fiction,
I think, because, let's face it,technology is like this, yeah,
right, like I'm 49 and in mylife, I have gone from like no
internet to people are literallyhaving telepathic conversations
with their cell phones on aregular basis, and we all just

(31:27):
kind of go, oh, yeah, you know,right? Like, nobody's phased by
this at all, right. We're alllike, yeah, okay, it's your cell
phone. Why are we calling it aphone that's like, the least of
its functions, you know, it's,it's your personal magic
computer that science fictionwriters were writing about in

(31:48):
1970s and 1980s cyberpunk, youknow? And we're just like, oh,
yeah, it's, it's, you know, wedon't take any more notice of it
than we do, like, you know, thecolor of the sky, except for
kids, right? And I think thatthat's a really interesting fact
of human nature, that we kind ofjust accept these new things

(32:10):
into our environment. So I lovethat theme taken to an extreme
right with this frog monster.That's That's cool, because,
yeah, people like that man,right? They would just kind of
accept it. I use that. That'scool.
Do you believe in ghosts?
I don't not believe in them. I'm

(32:31):
kind of, I'm kind of being jokeyhere, but I was just wondering
what you would say to that,because I kind of feel like
you'd be like, a guy be like,oh, there's this horrific ghost
standing next to me. Hey, man,what's going on? High five, you
know, I'm gonna go back totouching my story now,
according to, according to astudy I read, 60% of all people
believe in ghosts. So you'reactually in the majority. If you

(32:53):
do, I'm kind of with you,though. I don't not believe in
them. Yeah,
I'm like the same too. I don't,I don't not believe in them, but
I don't actually also believe inI don't know, you know, my let's
just say this, my familyfolklore has a lot of weird
things in it, and no one canexplain some of them. And it's
just like, oh yeah, this weirdthing happened. Oh well, you

(33:14):
know. And then that's it.
Yeah, the world's a weird place.We can't explain that. So,
yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly.Celto.
Celto asked, was there aspecific reason for the frog
being the basis for the monster?I might have missed it. No, you
didn't. I didn't. Nobody's askedthat question. So that's a good
one.
No. So I, um, with thiscollection. I was, this was one

(33:35):
of the first stories that I hadactually written for the
collection, and I was interestedin just like I want to start
this collection by writing amonster story. And I just
thought, yeah, here's a frog.Let me turn this thing into a
monster and see what I can dowith it. A lot of my writing is
kind of just like this idea popsinto my head and I see if it
works or not. I abandon a lot ofstuff. But with this one, I was

(33:56):
like, Yeah, this frog monsterstuff is working pretty well. So
I stuck with it. That's cool.
I don't know. It was a stupidADHD idea that came out of the
back of my brain.
Sweet. That's interesting. Imean, you also tend to
sympathize with the monster alot in the stories you you tell

(34:17):
a lot of the stories from theirpoint of view, or or characters
who sympathize with thosemonsters. I'm very curious about
why you do that. We had a gueston, gosh, I don't know, probably
six months ago, and her opinionwas because she did a lot of the
same, that people who sympathizewith the monsters tend to feel
othered in some way. You know isthat your experience? What do

(34:39):
you think about that? That's
interesting. I've never heardanybody say that. But, I mean,
maybe, maybe that is true. Idon't really know. I think I'm
interested in kind of, we'reused to the monster being the
bad, you know, the big bad. AndI think I'm just interested in,
what if we flip that a littlebit and we look at monsters in
different ways, as you know,I'm, you know, a lot. Of the

(35:00):
stories, the humans are themonsters and and in many
situations, yeah, and I thinkprobably the time period in
which I had written a lot of thebook, and just, you know,
growing up and being an adult,you kind of see the world
differently about what humansare capable of. Maybe some
pessimism, I guess, kind ofworks in there, or cynicism, or

(35:20):
maybe truth, or mixture of allthree. But I'm just really
interested in, I think, what themonster actually is, and not
just what we project onto thatmonster, and how humans relate
to that in some kind of waycool, cool. It makes sense to
me. I
also, I mean, you do a lot ofreally cool structural stuff.

(35:40):
Oh, yeah, that's obviouslysomething that interests you. To
go back to the King George foran example for our audience, in
the Guide to King George, it'swritten as a guide book, right?
You have another story that'skind of like a choose your own
adventure, but it's not really achoose your own adventure. It's
more of like a choose your ownending type of a thing. What
inspires you to do this. And,you know, do you have any How

(36:05):
can I say, well, let's just gowith what inspires you to do
this first, then we'll get tothe rest later. I was having
a hard time writing this book atfirst, because it was written
during, well, it was largelywritten during the COVID period,
when COVID was so, you know,prevalent. And the world was,
you know, seemed like a reallydark place. We were all at home.

(36:27):
It was just, you know, not the,of course, not a great time for
many of us. And I felt like Ireally needed to be writing,
because I had so much time inwhich I just had is time to do.
So I was like, What can how canI write Bradley when all this
stuff was going on in the world?So I started working with
different kinds of forms to seeif that would kind of spark

(36:50):
something for me and makewriting fun. And you know, that
probably sounds ridiculous, Iguess, but I needed something to
kind of spark my imagination insome kind of way, and to make
that process fun and somethingthat I wanted to do, and by
creating those forms, like yousaid, there's a work manual,
there's a choose your ownadventure lot story, there's a

(37:12):
state test, there's anepistolary story, there's a
story in all questions, there'sa police transcript, all Those
things just kind of, I mean,really, they were fun for me to
do, and they what helped me tellthese stories. So in a way, I
had to have these forms for itto work.
You've written in so manydifferent structures. Do you

(37:33):
have any advice to the writersin the audience on how to, you
know, find a structure thatworks for you and your writing
style and maybe, like, you know,how to make, how to make a story
work in a strange format.
Yeah, for me, it's aboutexperimentation, and don't be,
you know, not being afraid tofail. I tried for the longest
time to write one of the storiesas a recipe. I was just

(37:56):
determined I was going to havethis recipe story, and I could
not do it. And I tried formonths and months and months,
and, you know, it failed, andI'm okay with that, because it
turned into something else. Oneof the stories to take to leave,
which is the choose your ownadventure story, or choose your
own ending story. It essentiallywas a work of flash. Well, not

(38:17):
even flash. It was a work oflike macro. It was about 100 ish
words, and then it expanded intoa flash, and then it expanded
into a short story, and then itfinally expanded into what it
became. And each time I wasgoing through these drafts of
this story, I was like, it'sjust the story is just not good,
until it found the structurethat that it has in the book.

(38:40):
And now I'm really proud of thatstory. I think it works really
well for what I wanted it to do,but I failed over and over and
over again with differentmethods to get it where it where
I think it needed to be in manyyears too. That's been a story I
think, since 2017 maybe, that Ifirst drafted, and now it's
finally, you know, finally outthat's

(39:01):
great. Good advice. Try newthings, experiment. Don't be
afraid to fail. Keep what youwrote. Maybe you could use it in
some other way. Makes sense tome. Good advice. Let's talk
about publishing a little bitfor both of you, what
do you have any advice foraudience on publishing, and what
was your publishing journeylike? Well, when

(39:22):
I had my first story collection,that was 2021
and I had a pretty goodexperience. I think I had no
idea what I was doing, and I wasjust like, here's a publisher
that's looking for work. I hadfound them listed on an article,
just to, you know, a websiteabout those kinds of things. I
sent letters out, like, youknow, one does, and there was

(39:46):
the response. So it was a it wasvery easy. I think I was lucky
in that kind of way with thesecond book I had known someone
who had published with the pressthat I wound up at. And, yeah,
just the collection. Hiscollection was very similar to
mine, and just kind of approachand what it was trying to do. So
I got lucky. I think, verylucky, awesome. What about

(40:07):
you Dan, I would say, also, likefor, you know, Walnut Ridge, I
would say, definitely luck. Ihappened to, you know, I was
producing more than I was, youknow, querying and submitting.
And I happened to come acrossdead star press, you know, an
advertisement, I think it was onFacebook or something, seemed
like a decent fit. I sent themanuscript out, and expected not

(40:31):
to hear anything, either for sixmonths or ever. And, you know,
got, they got back to me rightaway, and the timing had just
worked out. They were, they werereally looking for something,
and I happened to have somethingthat they wanted. But, yeah, it
really, uh, it really is, youknow, a matter of luck, like,
like Brad said, because, becauseit can be a, it can be a slog,

(40:52):
you know, going through allthat, you know, trying to query
and submit and and it's a littlebit soul draining sometimes, but
you got to do it.
How long did it take you then tohear back? To hear back? I
want to say it was within days.Yeah, they the timing had just
happened to work out perfectly.I don't even know how it all

(41:12):
came together like that.Honestly, that's great.
Yeah,
I like to tell people just don'tget discouraged, right? I mean,
what is a good story? It'sreally subjective, right? And
even having had an experiencewith having published an
anthology lower, you know, I wasthe publisher, right? Um, I

(41:33):
realized that sometimes evengood stories that you really
like don't get included, becauseit's just not what that
particular project is lookingfor, right? Or, you know, you
have two really good stories,and they're very similar, so you
have to choose between them,right? So it, you know, luck

(41:55):
does have a great deal to dowith it, but the fact is, I have
sold every serious short story Ihave ever written, and most of
that is persistence, right? Ijust kept submitting and kept
submitting until somebody tookit, right? So follow those the
rules of publishing. You know,keep submitting, keep you know,
when you get it back, submit itagain. Somewhere else, somebody

(42:17):
else eventually, awesome,
awesome. Diane, do we have anyquestions in the chat?
Not at the moment. People seemto have been intensely
listening. This is, this is kindof fun. What have you run out of
things to ask?
No, no, of course not.
Come on. This is you wait. No.Now we have one. Okay, celto.

(42:37):
Celto says this is a questionfor everyone. How do you
maintain confidence in yourstories, given that this field
is so subjective, that is a damngood question. Go ahead, guys.
Gosh, that is a great question.I don't know that I have a lot
of confidence, if I'm beinghonest. You know?

(42:59):
I don't know that. I have tothink about that. I really don't
know.
Yeah, no, I would. I was thesame thing popped into my mind.
I was like, confident. I just, Idon't really think about it. I
just kind of try and ignore it,and like, well, this is what I
decided to do, so this is whatI'm going to do, and what will
happen, will happen. And if Ikeep at it, I believe things

(43:22):
will happen.
I think too, like, I just don'ttake it personal. I guess it's
hard to do is to separate yourwork from kind of, you know, a
personal reaction. But I thinkover the years, I've learned
that I have to separate the two.Is it the same for you all?
Yes, definitely, right? Like, Idon't know, for me, I do go

(43:47):
through periods where I getdiscouraged and that I don't end
up doing submitting for a longperiod of time, and then I get
back into it when I have morespoons, right? Yeah, confidence,
I don't know. I guess, try totake the successes that you do
receive as what they are, assuccesses, because we're so

(44:08):
prone to thinking about all thebad stuff that happens to us,
and we don't actually giveenough weight to the good things
that happen to us. The fact is,if you you know, if you
submitted a story somewhere andthey took it right. Have
confidence, like it doesn'tmatter where that was right.
Somebody did it right. And ifyour friends are telling you,
this is a great story, I wouldreally like to read this in a

(44:30):
magazine, right, or in a book,and you submit it somewhere,
well, you have more people outthere, like your friends, you're
gonna find them eventually,right? Yeah, not taking it
personally. And, you know, keepreminding yourself to and I
guess writing for yourself,right? Like you never know if
other people are gonna like whatyou write. I don't have any

(44:51):
confidence that none at all. SoI write for me, right? If I like
it, well, maybe somebody elsewill too. And if I. Something to
say, maybe there'll be somethingof what I wrote that somebody
else will connect with, and Ijust gotta find them. It's It's
hard out there, because it is sothe industry is so big and so
opaque, right? It's almostimpossible for even the big

(45:14):
publishers to have any ideawhat's really gonna sell, right?
So do your best and hope for thebest. I
would add to that. Diane and Iboth know, like, authors that
publish with, like Tor or biggerpublishers, you know what I
mean. And they have expressed tous lack of confidence at times.

(45:35):
You know what I mean, like, andthese are people who've got
like, five book deals orwhatever, you know what I mean,
you know, yeah, and they'restill like, I don't know, just
trying my best here, man, I justgot and they all say that too. I
just got lucky. Yeah,
yeah. I will, I will say thatwas something that I a good
piece of advice that I got wasto how to deal with, you know,

(45:56):
the inner critic was, you know,not to try to silence it, but to
go to sort of just, you know,listen to it and say, thanks for
sharing, and then kind of try tomove past it, because I know
that it's I'll be readingsomething sometime that I would
consider to be, you know, like acontemporary of what I would
write. And, you know, my mindwill be bouncing back and forth
between like, oh, man, this isterrible. How did this get? I'm

(46:17):
so much better than this. Andthen, like, two sentences later,
I'll be like, fuck. I can neverwrite this. Well, these extremes
that neither of which, neitherof which are objectively true,
here's the thing that I've done,okay, and all right. So some
this is, this is a double edgedsword, because it can go either
way, right? Sometimes you goback and read stuff that you

(46:38):
wrote a while ago, you know. Andsometimes it's like, oh, God,
what was I thinking? You know?And sometimes it's like, Hey,
this is really good, you know?It's, did I write this? I don't
remember writing like this. Thisis great stuff. Yeah, that could
do you some good too. 100%

(46:59):
and as somebody who's beeninvolved in not writing, but
many other creative pursuits.You know, it's it's like that
with everything. It's like thatwith music. I think music is
actually more soul destroyingthan writing. Oh,
having done music industrystuff, yes, 100% agree
with you. Dan, I know you're amusician. Do you agree or No, I
feel like the music is a littlequicker, at least,

(47:30):
yeah, I mean, like, you know, Ican speak to the podcast at
least, like, we've had episodeswith, like, really famous people
that did not have a lot ofdownloads, and then We'll have
episodes with obscure peoplethat have tons of downloads. You
know what? I mean? You know, youjust can't. It's hard to, hard
to know. It's hard to know whatpeople are interested in

(47:51):
listening to or seeing orconsuming however you want to
phrase that. You know, it's justsure, just do what you want to
do and fuck it. Yeah. All right.Well, we're getting top of the
hour here. Diane, I think weneed to close it up, believe it
or not. Oh, started here. Okay,
yeah, fair enough.

(48:12):
Well, thanks for coming, guys.You, you're both amazing. We
have, well, no, we have a coupleof questions.
Yes, there we go. Okay, okay, Ithought you were gonna skip
those questions. No,
come on now.
Yeah, we have a couple questionswe always ask our guests before
we close out an episode. And thefirst question is, where can

(48:34):
What are you working on rightnow? Where can we find your
work? And the second is, what isgiving you hope right now I
can, you can find me at mywebsite, which is DVS
fiction.com DVS fiction.com youcan check out dead star press
comm. They published WalnutRidge, so you can get that
there. I'm on Instagram, at DVSfiction, YouTube, same thing. So

(48:59):
that's where, that's where youcan find me. I just finished
drafting for a call that'sopening up in August, and it was
a, it was a, like another weirdsort of bizarro horror erotica,
weird kind of story that I'mhoping to place. And if I don't,
I'm definitely gonna, you know,self publish it. So I'm feeling

(49:20):
pretty decent about it,
cool. So I can be found atBradley, hyphen sides.com, and I
am currently working on anovella. I never thought I would
write a longer kind of project,but I'm making good progress on
it, and I hope I'll be finished.I hope I'll be finished next
month. Actually, it's goingsurprisingly really well, so I

(49:41):
don't want to jinx it oranything, but hopefully that'll
be out next year. Awesome. Andmy students, I think, are giving
me hope, like I'm seeing a lotof great creative work from
them, and that always inspiresme. That's cool.
What about you there? Dan,what's giving you hope right
now? Well,
what's, what's kind of latelyhas been giving me hope, sort
of. Uh,
I actually, I recently learnedthat the term, you know, I'm not

(50:04):
a very well educated man, so Irecently learned the term
jeremiad, which is a longliterary piece about, kind of
lamenting how bad everything isand how we're at the end of the
it's the end times, and how canit get any worse? And just the
fact that this is a thing, aterm that has been around for
quite a long time, and yet we'restill kind of going, sort of in

(50:25):
conjunction with, you know, Ithink a lot of times about that,
that Genesis song, land ofconfusion. And you know how, you
know, even 40 years ago, Pete,we were talking about how awful
it is and how, how there's,there's no coming back from it.
But what really gives me hope isthe line in that song where, uh,
Phil Collins says that he andhis generation are going to put

(50:45):
it right. So Phil Collins hasgiven me hope. I'm just I'm just
waiting for him to put it allright. You know, I trust him.
They're gonna tag team it.That's cool. You have a good
point. We're
banking on Phil Collins. I don'tknow how I feel about that. I'm
worried now. I think that's agood hey,

(51:09):
he's right, though we stillsomehow manage, managed to limp
through even when it looks likethings are most dire, doesn't it
like, you know what I'm gonnathrow in something here, right?
So I finally got around toreading. Now, Damn, why don't I
remember the title flew rightout my head, but HG, wells did a

(51:31):
big, long meditation on, youknow, basically, the world is
coming to an end at about theturn of the century, right? And,
you know, the 20th century, ofcourse, for those who don't
actually know who HG Wells is,which might be possible, right?
But the thing is that, likehumanity believe, has believed

(51:52):
we are going to destroyourselves for more than 100
years, and we are still here.That gives me hope,
definitely, definitely. That'sawesome.
I like what CELTA. CELTA has tosay. Says, I can feel

(52:14):
it all right. Well, thankseverybody. We really appreciate
it? Don't forget if you are amore shy person and you want to
get a book and you live in theUS, send us an email that's I,
T, G, O, D, O, N, T, P, A, n, i,[e-mail], email me say what

(52:39):
your favorite If this goes on,episode is and we'll send you
something. It will be cool and
flub will work something out.Yeah, you bet. Thanks for Thanks
for everyone who submittedcomments and questions and
thanks for joining us today. Ithink I'm gonna go to our theme
music and pipe us out, so tospeak. So thank you, Dan and

(53:01):
Brad. I've had a great time. Ihope you have to and you guys
were a lot of fun. Thank you.Thank you.
If this goes on, don't panic. Isedited by Alan Bailey and
produced by Ken schter. Ourtheme music is by Father
flamethrower. Additional musicby Christopher snyderowski and

(53:24):
outro music by sable Aradia.Intro by Dave Robinson. A
special thanks to our guests,Dan scammel and Bradley. Sides,
thanks for supporting us, andwe'll see you again soon.
Me, I believe in unicorns.

(53:51):
Indeplanetary I believe inunicorns. Independence.
Calls it to parent love.