March 18, 2025 • 30 mins
Wood Island, Maine | Wood Island is so haunted, even bestselling horror writer J.D. Barker won’t stay the night - and he’s here to share how its chilling history inspired his upcoming book, Something I Keep Upstairs. Just as the Stanley Hotel inspired Stephen King’s The Shining (and J.D. shares a terrifying story from his own stay there!), Wood Island’s dark past—plagued by disease, starvation, vanished bodies, and eerie paranormal activity—laid the foundation for his latest novel. Most chilling is J.D.'s revelation that while writing the novel, he repeatedly created fictional scenes only to later discover he had accurately described actual historical events—information he had no prior knowledge of.
You can preorder a signed copy of Something I Keep Upstairs at dbarker.com. If you are not entirely terrified of Wood Island by the end of this episode, you can enter the contest to stay overnight at https://woobox.com/vcevs2. If you win, you have to write to us at info@darkcitypodcast.com and share all of the details!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Thank you so much, and we hope.
(01:26):
By JD Barker, the internationalbestselling author of suspense
thrillers that blend horror,crime, mystery, science fiction
and the supernatural.
If his name sounds familiar, itshould.
His work has been compared toStephen King's and he's
collaborated with literarygiants such as James Patterson
and with Dacre Stoker, thegreat-grandnephew of Bram Stoker
, on the novel Dracul.
(01:47):
Before we dive into hisupcoming book, something I Keep
Upstairs and the real-lifelocation behind it, jd, can you
introduce yourself to ouraudience and share a little bit
about your journey as a writer?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Sure, well, thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
So I've been at this for a verylong time.
I basically did what everybodyelse expected of me.
I was told that I love to write, even as a kid.
But my parents alwaysencouraged the writing aspect
but added a caveat of you can'tmake a living as an author, you
have to get a real job.
So I did exactly what I wastold to do.
I finished up high school, Iwent off to college, got
(02:19):
multiple degrees, ended upworking in the finance world and
I would come home at night andI would write, you know, in
order to keep my head onstraight.
And I was working on a lot ofside projects.
I was basically working as aghostwriter and a book doctor.
I wrote a lot of memoirs forother people, but I did that for
23 years and over that timeframe I had six different books
that hit the New York Times list, all with other people's names
(02:40):
on the cover, which gets veryold after a while.
So that sixth one hit up.
My wife pulled me aside.
She said listen, I know youwant to become a full-time
author, let's find a way to makethis happen.
And we were kind of trapped atthat point because I had been
working in the corporate worldfor a while.
I had a strong salary, we had abig house, we had cars, we had
a boat.
So our lifestyle was expensive.
We couldn't just walk away fromthat.
So she came up with this crazyplan.
(03:01):
We sold everything that weowned.
We bought a tiny little duplexin Pittsburgh, rented out one
side to some tenants and movedinto the other side, basically
got our monthly expenses down tonothing.
We sat down at the kitchentable one day and she showed me
the bank statement and saidlooks like you have about 18
months to make it as an authorGo.
And that's when I sat down andwrote my first book.
That was called Forsaken, andthat was just a little over 10
years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That's so interesting how you.
You know like you had thatshort runway and it worked out
really well.
How do you decide to writeabout what you write before we
dive into your upcoming book?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, that's changed over time.
I mean, initially, like withthat first book, you literally
have nobody telling you what todo.
So I just sat down and wrotethe story that I wanted to tell.
My second one was about aserial killer in Chicago called
the Fourth Monkey.
Very much, you know, hardcorethriller and those took off, you
know, from a sales standpoint.
So that was basically what mypublishers wanted to see over
and over again.
But I love horror and so Irefuse to kind of get
(03:53):
pigeonholed.
So I try to go back and forth.
I'll write a thriller novel, Iwrite a horror novel and I go
back and I call Hollywood hell,they're in the works for TV
shows, for movies, that kind ofthing.
And I touch base with my filmagent Whenever I'm ready to
start a new book.
You know he tells me what thestudios are looking for and
whenever he leaves a meeting youknow with like Sony, they'll
(04:14):
tell him.
You know, like this is what wewant.
So he communicates that to me.
So I'm basically writing to thefilm market.
You know the studios arelooking for in hopes of getting
the option.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Now for your upcoming book, something I Keep Upstairs
, which is set to be released inI believe it's May of this year
, so it's inspired by a realhouse that you visited.
How did you stumble upon thisplace and what was it like being
there?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah.
So this one came togethertotally different from what I
just said.
So my wife and I, when thebooks took off, we were living
in Pittsburgh.
We realized we don't have tolive in Pittsburgh, so we
started looking at differentplaces around the country.
We were in a town calledPortsmouth just, and we stopped
for lunch.
We were on the way to Boston tovisit one of my publishers and
(05:07):
while we were there, one of thewaitresses told us listen,
before you leave, you need tocheck out this little island
called Newcastle.
It's about a mile away fromhere.
So we, you know, left therestaurant, we hopped in the car
and we went over the bridge toNewcastle and we literally fell
in love with this, this littleisland.
It's honestly like steppingback in time.
You know we've got a postoffice, but like they don't
deliver mail, you have to walkto the post office to get your
(05:31):
mail.
I know a big house, but wasliterally falling apart.
There were raccoons livinginside and we started a
renovation right before COVID,which I would not advise on
anybody.
It's tough to find contractorsin the middle of a pandemic, but
that's basically how we endedup here in Newcastle.
Yeah, I write full time, so Ibasically knock that out.
First thing in the morning, bythree o'clock, my quitting bell
(05:51):
rings and I go for a lap aroundthe island.
I like to run and at one pointI run across the beach.
And when I'm standing out onthe beach, if I look out over
the water, about a quarter mileout is Wood Island.
It's this tiny little island,about an acre or so.
There's one house on it.
It's a white house with a redroof, and you know it's just far
enough away where you know youcan see it.
It looks pretty, but you can'treally tell what's going on out
(06:12):
there.
You know, you occasionally seesomebody walking on the beach.
A light may come on, light maygo off, but like you don't
really know what's happening outthere.
And as an author, there's twowords that are always at
forefront for me what if youknow?
So when I see a house like that, my mind starts wondering well,
what if this happened?
What if that happened?
I got to know the people thatowned the house.
It's actually owned by the townof Kittery, but a friend of
(06:34):
ours is basically trying tobring it back to life.
It had been abandoned for along time.
It used to be a lifeguard coastor coast guard life-saving
station, and it was fallingapart, just like our house was
falling apart, and he's beenrenovating it and he brought me
out to the island one day so Icould see the progress.
And you know like I'm notsomebody who normally believes
in the paranormal I'm smartenough to understand there's a
lot I don't understand.
(06:54):
But while I was standing inthat house I wanted to get out,
like I felt like I needed toleave, like the hair on the back
of my neck was standing up,like it felt like just someplace
I shouldn't be.
And you know it's funny, I'vetalked to a lot of people about
this.
Since then.
You know, people have evolvedto the point where we, you know,
ignore a lot of that stuff.
You know, like if you'restanding in a room with a cat
and you know there's some noisein the corner, that cat is going
(07:21):
to bolt and be gone.
It're like, well, what madethat noise?
And we'll walk over the corner,we'll try to figure it out.
Like you know, we've kind oflost track of those instinctual
reactions that keep us safe.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Although I think I've seen enough true crime
documentaries and read enough.
Yeah, I don't wonder anymore, Idon't walk over and don't walk
over.
But no, I get what you'resaying.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
That's the thing.
You know.
Like I try to be rational whenit comes to that sort of stuff,
but like I have never stood in ahouse and wanted to leave as
bad as I did that one particularday.
So I started to research theproperty and I learned that you
know over time, like it had beenused as a quarantine zone
during the yellow fever.
A lot of people died out thereduring that, during the
(08:05):
Spanish-American War.
It was a prison.
They used to take ships.
So like there's an inlet there,there's a harbor.
So if they would capture a shipduring the Spanish-American War
, they would make them dockthere and they wouldn't feed the
people on the boat, they wouldliterally just starve them out
because they wanted the boat, sothey wouldn't give them food.
When people got sick, theydidn't give them medicine, they
just waited until there wasnobody to basically keep them
from taking the boat and thenthey would take the boat.
So like all this tragedyhappened out there on this
(08:27):
beautiful little picturesqueisland.
You know that looks like apostcard when you're looking at
it from the beach, but when youstart researching what actually
has taken place out there, it'skind of horrific.
I also stumbled into a story.
Back in the 70s they found twobodies on the beach that in
today's world they've stillnever been identified.
And it's a bit of a hot potato.
You know we were talking beforewe started recording.
Like the island is locatedright on the border between
(08:49):
Maine and New Hampshire, so it'snot really nobody really knows
who physically owns it.
You know.
So when something goes wrong,everybody kind of points fingers
at each other.
So when they found those twobodies, the local police came
out, the Coast Guard came out.
Ultimately the FBI took thecase because the locals didn't
want it, but it just it seems tohave vanished.
I've contacted all the localpolice departments.
Nobody's got a record of it.
(09:09):
The local FBI office has norecord of it.
But meanwhile there's newspaperarticles about these two bodies
found on the beach.
So nobody knows what happenedto them.
So, like all these things youknow, as a writer you know they
kind of tie together and thenthat what if you know, starts
popping out.
I mean, before you know ityou've got a book.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's crazy For the bodies that have been found.
I just have to ask this as anaside Is there any, is there
enough, dna evidence where theycould eventually try to identify
them, or is it just a cold casethat's probably going to sit
there?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
They don't even know where those bodies are.
So, like there's pictures youknow from like, the day they
found them.
You know somebody who laterbecame the DA DA is standing out
there in one of the photo shots.
You know there's people thatI've identified and actually
talked to.
But like the bodies wereremoved from the beach, the FBI
took the investigation and, like, the paper trail literally goes
dry, there's, there's nothingafter that.
So nobody knows where they wentor what happened.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
That's insane.
Okay, so basically, there's alot of tragedy.
For hundreds of years as far aswe know maybe probably farther
back than that that's happenedon this island.
As far as, like the light thatyou saw and the feeling that you
had when you were in the house,is there a dominant theory
about?
(10:20):
It's like one specific personor multiple people from the past
that might be haunting thisplace now?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
There is.
You know I started askingaround town, you know, when I
started researching this andthere is tons of local lore, you
know, and stories, you know.
If you go to the house now, ifyou stand on the second floor,
you know it used to be a CoastGuard life-saving station.
So there's a giant bunk room.
There's just a bunch of bunkbeds and there's walls with
lockers.
People have swore that they'veheard voices.
You know, like when they standin that particular spot, you
(10:50):
know they hear the voices of thepeople that used to demand the
station, because a lot of themperished at sea trying to save
other people.
The lights like nobody canexplain that.
Like lights would come on inthe windows, you know, at a time
when there was no electricityon the island.
So like there's nothing toexplain why there would be a
light.
Getting to the island, you knoweven somebody being seen
walking on the beach, likethat's tricky business because
(11:11):
the island is surrounded by,like all these giant granite,
you know, things that are kindof sticking out of the water.
So you have to know exactly howto navigate your boat in order
to get to it and if you don't,it's fairly dangerous.
So, like a lot of peopleactually avoid it and they don't
go out there.
So a lot of these things thathave been seen like nobody can
explain it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And it sounds like it's probably just far enough to
where it wouldn't be acomfortable swim if somebody
wanted to swim out there andsquat on the property.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Considering the water is filled with great whites, I
would not advise that.
So, being an inlet, you know,like we're in New England, it's
cold up here, but the water inthat little harbor is warmer, so
the fish tend to come in, sealscome in, and with that the
sharks follow, so there's alltypes of sharks, including great
whites.
So, yeah, I wouldn't go in thatwater at all.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, I think at a minimum.
That to me is much scarier thanwhatever is in that lighthouse.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yeah, but you know again, you know, like when you
look at, if you're standing onthe beach and you look at it, it
looks like a postcard, like youknow.
You can't imagine thatsomething horrific ever happened
on that island.
You can't imagine what'spossibly going on right below
the surface of that water.
You know, it's wild how MotherNature can hide something.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
When you were doing your research and you were
hearing the different stories orencounters people had, were
there any particular storiesthat really stood out as
particularly chilling orbelievable?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I think it was a lot of the, you know nobody's seen
like a ghost.
You know, like that kind ofthing, like yeah, I really think
that kind of stuff is reservedfor television, like I don't
know that it actually exists inreal life.
The people that I've talked tothat research this, believe in
this kind of thing.
They feel that, you know,everything is energy based.
You know, like the entireuniverse is based on energy.
So if something dies, like theenergy doesn't disappear, it
(12:54):
just goes somewhere else.
You know so, if you think ofthat, you know if a bunch of
people die in one particularplace, that energy is going to
be trapped there.
It's almost like the island hasbecome a battery and it's
stored a lot of that stuff.
And we've got a number ofplaces in this area that people
feel are haunted, and that sametheory tends to apply to them.
You know, a lot of tragicthings happen in one particular
(13:14):
spot and walls seem to have amemory.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, that's so interesting.
We've covered haunted locationslike that where that theory has
come up that there's certainlocations maybe because of, like
, the materials that the housewere made up, or just the
geography itself, the geologyitself.
Did you come across any whenyou're researching your book?
Did you come across any likeconvincing theories or anything
(13:39):
that was particularlyinteresting, that that seemed
like that.
You know, some places just seemto have souls that stick for
more so than others.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, I mean a lot of it.
The geography comes up quite abit.
You know, with granite, likethere's a lot of magnetic
activity and things like thathappening out there, like if you
actually take a boat out anduse like an old school compass,
like there's places in therewhere that compass doesn't point
north, you know, like it's justit's all over the place.
You know you're standing on theisland.
You know you can see Kittery,maine, which is a fairly decent
(14:11):
sized town.
You can see Portsmouth, you cansee Newcastle.
There's cell towers in allthree but your cell phone
doesn't work well out there, youknow, even though it should.
So things like that always giveme pause.
Some of the people that havebeen seen on the beach, you know
(14:32):
, like their clothing doesn'tnecessarily match what they
should be wearing.
You know, and that comes upquite a bit.
You know, especially here inPortsmouth, I've heard a lot of
stories about people in, youknow, period appropriate
clothing.
You know something from the1600s, 1700s, 1800s, something
that doesn't necessarily fittoday but you know wandering
around as if it does.
You know there's theories aboutmagnetic fields, about time
vortexes.
You know I've heard so manydifferent things all circling
around this.
Nobody can explain it.
(14:52):
But the thing is like you know,it's happened so much, you know
, like people have been talkingabout this for literally for
generations.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Well, so when you were at the location, you felt
just that compelling urge toleave.
You could tell something wasabsolutely not right there.
Have you ever felt that in anyother location that you visited?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
You know I should have.
Are you familiar with theStanley Hotel?
Oh yeah, okay.
So for anybody who's not,that's the hotel Stephen King
stayed at when he came up withthe idea for the Shining Right.
It's a gorgeous hotel.
It's a hike I mean you have todrive for a few miles from the
airport in order to get to it.
But once you get out there,it's a beautiful location.
My wife and I went out there forit was a horror retreat with a
(15:35):
couple other horror authors.
Josh Mallerman was out there, aguy named Dallas Mayer who
wrote under the name JackKetchum.
There was about four or five ofus and we were there for about
a week or so.
We tried to get some type ofactivity there, like we tried to
scare something up the wholetime we were there.
We went down in the basement atmidnight and told ghost stories
like literally couldn't getanything to happen.
You know we were just waitingto capture anything at all.
(15:57):
Then, the last day that we werethere, my wife and I woke up.
It was probably maybe nine inthe morning or something and
we're sitting in bed and the bedjust started to shake for like
no reason.
It just started to vibrate.
It felt like somebody hadgrabbed the rails and was just
shaking it with like all theirmight.
And the weird part about it isthis went on for about a minute.
It was totally quiet.
There was no mechanical noiseor anything like that going on
(16:18):
and neither of us were scared.
We were like looking around thebed, like scared.
We were like looking around thebed, like we got off the bed,
we looked under the bed, welooked behind the bed trying to
figure out what could possiblydo this, because we're standing
there watching it shake.
Then we caught you know alittle bit of it on video and we
went downstairs and we showedthe hotel manager.
He's like, yeah, the bed inthat room does that.
We don't know why.
So I think from a paranormalexperience like that's probably
(16:39):
the closest one I ever had itdidn't necessarily scare me Like
I just wanted to understandwhat was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
But maybe back to the cat story I said at the
beginning of this I probablyshould have ran.
Yeah, that's my reaction is.
I think that's.
I think that's so interestingto have that curious mind of
what exactly is happening.
My instinct is always I have noidea what's happening, but it's
very often I need to be out ofhere right now and we could just
figure that all out later.
Well, and you know, that's agood segue too, because, much
like the Stanley Hotel inspiredthe Shining, which,
(17:12):
coincidentally, I just finisheda month ago.
So this is all like very goodcoincidence.
This island inspiring yourupcoming book.
Yeah, it sounds like it's avery comparable sort of thing.
Well, you talked about, whenyou're thinking about what to
write, you'll analyze trends inpublishing and film and TV to
figure out what's upcoming.
What would people be interestedin reading?
(17:33):
What might publishers beinterested in publishing?
With Wood Island specifically,was there something about the
pull of that place that wouldsort of like override that
process for you because it wasso compelling, or did the story
kind of haunt you until theright moment arrived to write
the book?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This was a very weird story for me, because normally
I'm a fast writer, I'll write anovel in about three or four
months.
This particular one took mefour years from start to finish,
mainly because I would run intosomething that would just like
scare the bejesus out of me andI had to put the book aside for
a little while.
I had weird things thathappened during the writing
process, like I would write ascene, you know, thinking that
(18:11):
it's total fiction, you knowjust came out of my head, and
then I would talk to somebodyabout it and they would tell me
no, that actually happened outthere.
You need to look at this, thisand this.
And then I would research it,you know, like after the fact,
and realize that you know, thesethings actually did take place.
So that kind of freaked me outa little bit, because I didn't
know where this information wascoming from, and to this day I
still don't.
It almost felt like I waschanneling something which is,
(18:32):
you know, scary in and of itself.
Yeah, so that was going on and,like it's the only book that
that's ever happened with, for awhile I considered not even
putting it out at all because Iwasn't sure.
You know, do I want to be theguy who draws attention to this
place?
You know, maybe it's better toleave it alone, but ultimately I
decided that it's the rightthing to do.
You know this type of stuff.
(18:52):
I think we need to betterunderstand it.
If there is something out there.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I would like to know what it is Right.
Are you or will you ever revealwhich part, which scenes from
the novel were?
It turned out they wereactually mirrors of what
happened in real life?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
no-transcript.
So you can go down thatparticular rabbit hole all on
your own.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Is there one particular thing that you could
say is like this actually, thisis in the book and it actually
happened, or is it too much of aplot spoiler?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
That's the thing.
I don't want to give away.
The plot, like if I, if I tellyou any of these things, like
then we're going to go down thatand once you tug on the string
it's hard to unravel it.
If I'm being coy, that's,that's why.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Okay, got it.
Question how did you balancehistorical accuracy with
supernatural fiction in thenovel?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
ago she was able to, you know, not only tell me, but
you know, in some cases she hadold photographs, she had stories
that she could share with mefrom people back in the day, a
lot of that type of stuff.
You know, like when I writesomething like this, that part
is very important to me.
I want to make sure I getanything that is historical.
You know, I want to make sureI'm as accurate as I possibly
could be.
So between her and the personwho was renovating the island at
the time, you know, running theorganization that's basically
(20:34):
restoring it, I was able to factcheck a lot of the information
I have in the book and make surethat I got it right.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You are running an unusual contest on June 13th
2025.
You will be selecting a winnerto spend the night on Wood
Island with three guests oftheir choice.
So they'll get transported byboat from Kittery Point, maine,
and left there for 24 hours.
My question to you is have youever stayed overnight in the
(21:01):
house yourself?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I have never been able to stay on that island for
more than maybe 15 minuteswithout wanting to leave, and I
seriously doubt anybody is goingto be able to stay the full 24
hours.
We're going to give them asatellite phone so they can call
for help if they want to leavea little bit early.
But yeah, there's just bad jujuout there.
The thing is, I wrote the bookand when the people in my life
(21:26):
started reading it, then sharingit with friends, social media
started to pick up on it.
People were like I want to gothere, I want to go there, I
want to stay there, I want tocheck it out.
So I want to go there.
I want to go there, I want tostay there, I want to check it
out.
So I want to give them theopportunity to do that.
So that's where the contestcame into play.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And you said so.
There's an individual that isrestoring they're restoring the
house, right, so you couldtechnically go and visit it by
day when it's open.
Is that right or is thatupcoming?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
By the time the book comes out it's going to be
happening.
They finished up the bulk ofthe construction this last year.
They have to close the house upfor the winter.
The waters are just too roughto try and get in and out of
there.
But by the time the book comesout, in May, the island will be
open and as a functioning museum.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Very interesting.
Well, as a side note, myco-host April and I we have to
go to Boston for a true crimepodcast festival in July and
we're going to stay at theLizzie Borden house and that
sounds like that is muchpreferable to what you're
describing.
A horror novel writer can'teven stay in a location for a
(22:30):
very brief time, but of coursethat's me and, as I've clearly
indicated, if I sense anythingis off in my environment, I'm
immediately running away.
But I'm sure you're going toget lots of really curious
people.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
So if you think you're up for it, I'll put you
out there on Wood Island and youtwo can check it out on your
own.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, actually I totally do.
I will.
I'll take you up on that.
I don't know how long I canstay, but regardless of who wins
the contest, I'm so curious tosee if they do end up staying
the whole night.
So you'll have to keep meposted on it.
Have there been other hauntedlocations that inspired previous
books of yours, or is this moreof the first novel that's based
(23:07):
, you know, at least roughly onhistorical happenings?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Well, I grew up primarily in Florida, where none
of this stuff happens.
When we moved to New England Igot a crash course in all of it.
I've actually got a cemetery inmy backyard and the real estate
agent didn't show it to me thefirst two or three times we
looked at the house.
She kind of she steered us awayso that we wouldn't see it back
in the bushes there.
I researched everything inPortsmouth, portsmouth, new
Hampshire, and there is a ton oflore haunted places in this
(23:35):
area.
There's a couple of cemeterieswhere there are a lot of stories
.
There's a house right down thestreet from me where people
swear they see the same person.
He basically like repeats apattern on the second floor.
He comes out of a room, walksand goes into another room.
He's wearing clothing fromabout 200 years ago and, like a
lot of people have seen this,it's documented.
There's another house wherepeople can hear a woman
(23:57):
screaming but you only hear itfrom the outside.
Like people inside the housenever hear it, but like walking
down the sidewalk people hear itall the time.
We've got an old auditorium herethat the music theater that
people have, you know, have seen.
Like people just sitting out inthe audience, wearing, you know
, clothing that is not modernday clothing, when there
shouldn't be anybody in theaudience.
You know, like everythingaround here is just old, you
(24:18):
know, and I think that's a bigpart of it.
You know, like I can throw arock and hit three different
houses built in the 1600s rightout my window, like Paul Revere
wrote past.
Here there's a plaque down thestreet which you know I touched
on in the book.
You know, like all thathistorical stuff is true, it's
all real.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I came across something fascinating about you.
You have a unique superpowerthat shapes how you work and
that sets you apart from otherauthors.
Can you talk a little bit moreabout that?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
no-transcript a lot of issues that I was trying to
deal with.
You know I couldn't make eyecontact in conversations.
You know all these other.
You know different, differentthings.
So once I got that diagnosis,it was very helpful.
But one of the things that Ilearned is, you know, as an
autistic person, you know I tendto mimic people quite a bit.
(25:18):
So if I'm standing in a partyand, you know, and somebody
cracks a joke, there's two orthree people around me I'm going
to laugh because the otherpeople around me are laughing,
not necessarily because I foundit funny.
So I'm mimicking what I seeother people doing, what I
consider to be normal behavior.
And one of the things I learnedvery on as a writer is I can
mimic people's author voice, youknow.
So if I read something writtenby somebody else, I can
(25:39):
basically continue that story intheir voice.
I pick up on their vocabulary,their cadence, their writing
style, which came in very handyback when I was doing memoirs
and ghostwriting and basicallyhelping people finish their own
novels From a plottingstandpoint.
You know you can't really seemy desk in this video but, like
you know, there's nothing onthere really.
And then I'm working on eightdifferent books right now, like
it's all.
It's all in my head and I knowthat's all from the autism thing
(26:02):
.
It's you know cause I'm able to.
I see structure and patternsand just about everything, and
to me a book is a pattern.
You know like I can see theframework of that story as I'm
writing it, so I know whichbeats need to happen and when.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That's so amazing.
I am jealous.
It's because it takes so muchwork, I think, for me to sort of
actively think about you.
Know, how would you build acharacter?
Fortunately, with everythingthat we do on Dark City, because
it's all historically based, Idon't have to build them myself.
They're already built.
We just have to uncover theright information about them.
(26:37):
But I definitely can detectthat in your writing.
You bring these characters intoyour books and I feel like,
very quickly you know who thisperson is.
They're distinct and it justmakes it so.
It's so readable.
The characters being believablemakes such a big difference In
terms of something I keepupstairs.
(26:59):
Where can our listeners, ifthey want to pre-order it,
what's the best place to do it?
And we'll link it in our shownotes too.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
There's a couple spots.
You can go to my website,jdbarkercom.
It's available in everybookstore.
I've got my own imprint withSimon Schuster, so they're
pretty good about getting mybooks just about anywhere.
If you'd like a signed copythat those you can get through
through my website.
I've got a local bookstore herein Portsmouth that fulfills
those orders.
So if you just go to my website, click on the book cover,
there's a link for signed copies.
(27:27):
That'll take you directly tothat local bookstore.
They'll get your information.
I go in there every couple ofweeks and sign everything and
then they'll ship it out to you.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Very nice.
Okay, I'm definitely going toorder the signed copy one, even
though I have the one on mycomputer right now.
What other projects do you havecoming up that people can keep
an eye out for?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I've always got something weird going on.
Do you remember a movie in the90s called Flatliners?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh no, april's the one who's so good at trivia, and
she couldn't join us, but I'msure it's probably something
everyone else has heard of.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, this is one of those cult classics.
It had Kiefer Sutherland, juliaRoberts, kevin Bacon, billy
Baldwin, oliver Platt all at thebeginning of their careers.
It's about a bunch of medicalstudents who decide to kill each
other to see if there's anytype of life after death.
So they kill each other andthen bring each other back after
a certain amount of time.
I love that story.
It's one of my all-timefavorite movies and the guy who
(28:22):
wrote it his name is PeterFilardi and he's actually on one
of my other projects and wetalked about it a few years ago
and I told him I had an idea toreboot the franchise and at the
time he didn't have the rights.
The studio still owned it, soit didn't really go anywhere.
And then about a year ago, hecalled me up and said hey, I got
the rights back if you stillwant to do this thing.
So I'm in the middle of writinga book to basically reboot a
film franchise, which I don'tknow if it's ever been done that
(28:44):
way before.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Typically it goes the other route.
So I'm finish your book, I'mgoing to go back and watch that
movie and be prepared for it.
Then, JD, is there anything youcould read us from the book to
tease it in advance ofpublication?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Oh well, I don't want to give you any spoilers.
How about if I just read what'son the back?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Okay, what'll do All?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
right In the sleepy coastal town of Newcastle, new
Hampshire, 17-year-old BillyHassler's life is about to take
a terrifying turn when his bestfriend, david Spivey, inherits a
mysterious house on a nearbyisland.
It seems like the perfect placeto spend their final summer
before heading off to college.
No parents, no police, noresponsibilities.
As they dig deep into theisland's dark past, they awaken
(29:33):
an ancient evil that hasinfluenced generations.
What becomes an innocent summeradventure quickly descends into
a nightmare.
The tagline for the book is fora haunted house to be born,
somebody has to die.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I love that tagline and I've started it and it's
already grabbed me.
So for everyone out therelistening, we will link in the
show notes where you can orderthe book, and I'm looking
forward to finishing it andlooking forward to looking into
your other projects coming uptoo.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
JD, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Hi friends, this is Leah and this is April.
Today it's easier than ever tomake and publish a podcast, but
that also means it's never beenharder to stand out, especially
as an indie podcast.
We absolutely love creatingDark City episodes for you, so
to make sure the show is asuccess, we need your help.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
There are three easy ways to do it.
Number one rate and review theshow wherever you get your
podcasts.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Number two click that share button and send a link to
friends and family.
You think might also like theshow.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And number three, follow us on social media at
Dark City Pod.
That's Dark City Pod onInstagram, facebook Threads and
TikTok.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
So remember one rate and review.
Two, share with family andfriends.
And three, follow us on socialmedia.
Thank you so much, and we hope.
(01:26):
By JD Barker, the internationalbestselling author of suspense
thrillers that blend horror,crime, mystery, science fiction
and the supernatural.
If his name sounds familiar, itshould.
His work has been compared toStephen King's and he's
collaborated with literarygiants such as James Patterson
and with Dacre Stoker, thegreat-grandnephew of Bram Stoker
, on the novel Dracul.
(01:47):
Before we dive into hisupcoming book, something I Keep
Upstairs and the real-lifelocation behind it, jd, can you
introduce yourself to ouraudience and share a little bit
about your journey as a writer?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Sure, well, thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
So I've been at this for a verylong time.
I basically did what everybodyelse expected of me.
I was told that I love to write, even as a kid.
But my parents alwaysencouraged the writing aspect
but added a caveat of you can'tmake a living as an author, you
have to get a real job.
So I did exactly what I wastold to do.
I finished up high school, Iwent off to college, got
(02:19):
multiple degrees, ended upworking in the finance world and
I would come home at night andI would write, you know, in
order to keep my head onstraight.
And I was working on a lot ofside projects.
I was basically working as aghostwriter and a book doctor.
I wrote a lot of memoirs forother people, but I did that for
23 years and over that timeframe I had six different books
that hit the New York Times list, all with other people's names
(02:40):
on the cover, which gets veryold after a while.
So that sixth one hit up.
My wife pulled me aside.
She said listen, I know youwant to become a full-time
author, let's find a way to makethis happen.
And we were kind of trapped atthat point because I had been
working in the corporate worldfor a while.
I had a strong salary, we had abig house, we had cars, we had
a boat.
So our lifestyle was expensive.
We couldn't just walk away fromthat.
So she came up with this crazyplan.
(03:01):
We sold everything that weowned.
We bought a tiny little duplexin Pittsburgh, rented out one
side to some tenants and movedinto the other side, basically
got our monthly expenses down tonothing.
We sat down at the kitchentable one day and she showed me
the bank statement and saidlooks like you have about 18
months to make it as an authorGo.
And that's when I sat down andwrote my first book.
That was called Forsaken, andthat was just a little over 10
years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That's so interesting how you.
You know like you had thatshort runway and it worked out
really well.
How do you decide to writeabout what you write before we
dive into your upcoming book?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, that's changed over time.
I mean, initially, like withthat first book, you literally
have nobody telling you what todo.
So I just sat down and wrotethe story that I wanted to tell.
My second one was about aserial killer in Chicago called
the Fourth Monkey.
Very much, you know, hardcorethriller and those took off, you
know, from a sales standpoint.
So that was basically what mypublishers wanted to see over
and over again.
But I love horror and so Irefuse to kind of get
(03:53):
pigeonholed.
So I try to go back and forth.
I'll write a thriller novel, Iwrite a horror novel and I go
back and I call Hollywood hell,they're in the works for TV
shows, for movies, that kind ofthing.
And I touch base with my filmagent Whenever I'm ready to
start a new book.
You know he tells me what thestudios are looking for and
whenever he leaves a meeting youknow with like Sony, they'll
(04:14):
tell him.
You know, like this is what wewant.
So he communicates that to me.
So I'm basically writing to thefilm market.
You know the studios arelooking for in hopes of getting
the option.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Now for your upcoming book, something I Keep Upstairs
, which is set to be released inI believe it's May of this year
, so it's inspired by a realhouse that you visited.
How did you stumble upon thisplace and what was it like being
there?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah.
So this one came togethertotally different from what I
just said.
So my wife and I, when thebooks took off, we were living
in Pittsburgh.
We realized we don't have tolive in Pittsburgh, so we
started looking at differentplaces around the country.
We were in a town calledPortsmouth just, and we stopped
for lunch.
We were on the way to Boston tovisit one of my publishers and
(05:07):
while we were there, one of thewaitresses told us listen,
before you leave, you need tocheck out this little island
called Newcastle.
It's about a mile away fromhere.
So we, you know, left therestaurant, we hopped in the car
and we went over the bridge toNewcastle and we literally fell
in love with this, this littleisland.
It's honestly like steppingback in time.
You know we've got a postoffice, but like they don't
deliver mail, you have to walkto the post office to get your
(05:31):
mail.
I know a big house, but wasliterally falling apart.
There were raccoons livinginside and we started a
renovation right before COVID,which I would not advise on
anybody.
It's tough to find contractorsin the middle of a pandemic, but
that's basically how we endedup here in Newcastle.
Yeah, I write full time, so Ibasically knock that out.
First thing in the morning, bythree o'clock, my quitting bell
(05:51):
rings and I go for a lap aroundthe island.
I like to run and at one pointI run across the beach.
And when I'm standing out onthe beach, if I look out over
the water, about a quarter mileout is Wood Island.
It's this tiny little island,about an acre or so.
There's one house on it.
It's a white house with a redroof, and you know it's just far
enough away where you know youcan see it.
It looks pretty, but you can'treally tell what's going on out
(06:12):
there.
You know, you occasionally seesomebody walking on the beach.
A light may come on, light maygo off, but like you don't
really know what's happening outthere.
And as an author, there's twowords that are always at
forefront for me what if youknow?
So when I see a house like that, my mind starts wondering well,
what if this happened?
What if that happened?
I got to know the people thatowned the house.
It's actually owned by the townof Kittery, but a friend of
(06:34):
ours is basically trying tobring it back to life.
It had been abandoned for along time.
It used to be a lifeguard coastor coast guard life-saving
station, and it was fallingapart, just like our house was
falling apart, and he's beenrenovating it and he brought me
out to the island one day so Icould see the progress.
And you know like I'm notsomebody who normally believes
in the paranormal I'm smartenough to understand there's a
lot I don't understand.
(06:54):
But while I was standing inthat house I wanted to get out,
like I felt like I needed toleave, like the hair on the back
of my neck was standing up,like it felt like just someplace
I shouldn't be.
And you know it's funny, I'vetalked to a lot of people about
this.
Since then.
You know, people have evolvedto the point where we, you know,
ignore a lot of that stuff.
You know, like if you'restanding in a room with a cat
and you know there's some noisein the corner, that cat is going
(07:21):
to bolt and be gone.
It're like, well, what madethat noise?
And we'll walk over the corner,we'll try to figure it out.
Like you know, we've kind oflost track of those instinctual
reactions that keep us safe.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Although I think I've seen enough true crime
documentaries and read enough.
Yeah, I don't wonder anymore, Idon't walk over and don't walk
over.
But no, I get what you'resaying.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
That's the thing.
You know.
Like I try to be rational whenit comes to that sort of stuff,
but like I have never stood in ahouse and wanted to leave as
bad as I did that one particularday.
So I started to research theproperty and I learned that you
know over time, like it had beenused as a quarantine zone
during the yellow fever.
A lot of people died out thereduring that, during the
(08:05):
Spanish-American War.
It was a prison.
They used to take ships.
So like there's an inlet there,there's a harbor.
So if they would capture a shipduring the Spanish-American War
, they would make them dockthere and they wouldn't feed the
people on the boat, they wouldliterally just starve them out
because they wanted the boat, sothey wouldn't give them food.
When people got sick, theydidn't give them medicine, they
just waited until there wasnobody to basically keep them
from taking the boat and thenthey would take the boat.
So like all this tragedyhappened out there on this
(08:27):
beautiful little picturesqueisland.
You know that looks like apostcard when you're looking at
it from the beach, but when youstart researching what actually
has taken place out there, it'skind of horrific.
I also stumbled into a story.
Back in the 70s they found twobodies on the beach that in
today's world they've stillnever been identified.
And it's a bit of a hot potato.
You know we were talking beforewe started recording.
Like the island is locatedright on the border between
(08:49):
Maine and New Hampshire, so it'snot really nobody really knows
who physically owns it.
You know.
So when something goes wrong,everybody kind of points fingers
at each other.
So when they found those twobodies, the local police came
out, the Coast Guard came out.
Ultimately the FBI took thecase because the locals didn't
want it, but it just it seems tohave vanished.
I've contacted all the localpolice departments.
Nobody's got a record of it.
(09:09):
The local FBI office has norecord of it.
But meanwhile there's newspaperarticles about these two bodies
found on the beach.
So nobody knows what happenedto them.
So, like all these things youknow, as a writer you know they
kind of tie together and thenthat what if you know, starts
popping out.
I mean, before you know ityou've got a book.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's crazy For the bodies that have been found.
I just have to ask this as anaside Is there any, is there
enough, dna evidence where theycould eventually try to identify
them, or is it just a cold casethat's probably going to sit
there?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
They don't even know where those bodies are.
So, like there's pictures youknow from like, the day they
found them.
You know somebody who laterbecame the DA DA is standing out
there in one of the photo shots.
You know there's people thatI've identified and actually
talked to.
But like the bodies wereremoved from the beach, the FBI
took the investigation and, like, the paper trail literally goes
dry, there's, there's nothingafter that.
So nobody knows where they wentor what happened.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
That's insane.
Okay, so basically, there's alot of tragedy.
For hundreds of years as far aswe know maybe probably farther
back than that that's happenedon this island.
As far as, like the light thatyou saw and the feeling that you
had when you were in the house,is there a dominant theory
about?
(10:20):
It's like one specific personor multiple people from the past
that might be haunting thisplace now?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
There is.
You know I started askingaround town, you know, when I
started researching this andthere is tons of local lore, you
know, and stories, you know.
If you go to the house now, ifyou stand on the second floor,
you know it used to be a CoastGuard life-saving station.
So there's a giant bunk room.
There's just a bunch of bunkbeds and there's walls with
lockers.
People have swore that they'veheard voices.
You know, like when they standin that particular spot, you
(10:50):
know they hear the voices of thepeople that used to demand the
station, because a lot of themperished at sea trying to save
other people.
The lights like nobody canexplain that.
Like lights would come on inthe windows, you know, at a time
when there was no electricityon the island.
So like there's nothing toexplain why there would be a
light.
Getting to the island, you knoweven somebody being seen
walking on the beach, likethat's tricky business because
(11:11):
the island is surrounded by,like all these giant granite,
you know, things that are kindof sticking out of the water.
So you have to know exactly howto navigate your boat in order
to get to it and if you don't,it's fairly dangerous.
So, like a lot of peopleactually avoid it and they don't
go out there.
So a lot of these things thathave been seen like nobody can
explain it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And it sounds like it's probably just far enough to
where it wouldn't be acomfortable swim if somebody
wanted to swim out there andsquat on the property.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Considering the water is filled with great whites, I
would not advise that.
So, being an inlet, you know,like we're in New England, it's
cold up here, but the water inthat little harbor is warmer, so
the fish tend to come in, sealscome in, and with that the
sharks follow, so there's alltypes of sharks, including great
whites.
So, yeah, I wouldn't go in thatwater at all.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, I think at a minimum.
That to me is much scarier thanwhatever is in that lighthouse.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yeah, but you know again, you know, like when you
look at, if you're standing onthe beach and you look at it, it
looks like a postcard, like youknow.
You can't imagine thatsomething horrific ever happened
on that island.
You can't imagine what'spossibly going on right below
the surface of that water.
You know, it's wild how MotherNature can hide something.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
When you were doing your research and you were
hearing the different stories orencounters people had, were
there any particular storiesthat really stood out as
particularly chilling orbelievable?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I think it was a lot of the, you know nobody's seen
like a ghost.
You know, like that kind ofthing, like yeah, I really think
that kind of stuff is reservedfor television, like I don't
know that it actually exists inreal life.
The people that I've talked tothat research this, believe in
this kind of thing.
They feel that, you know,everything is energy based.
You know, like the entireuniverse is based on energy.
So if something dies, like theenergy doesn't disappear, it
(12:54):
just goes somewhere else.
You know so, if you think ofthat, you know if a bunch of
people die in one particularplace, that energy is going to
be trapped there.
It's almost like the island hasbecome a battery and it's
stored a lot of that stuff.
And we've got a number ofplaces in this area that people
feel are haunted, and that sametheory tends to apply to them.
You know, a lot of tragicthings happen in one particular
(13:14):
spot and walls seem to have amemory.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, that's so interesting.
We've covered haunted locationslike that where that theory has
come up that there's certainlocations maybe because of, like
, the materials that the housewere made up, or just the
geography itself, the geologyitself.
Did you come across any whenyou're researching your book?
Did you come across any likeconvincing theories or anything
(13:39):
that was particularlyinteresting, that that seemed
like that.
You know, some places just seemto have souls that stick for
more so than others.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, I mean a lot of it.
The geography comes up quite abit.
You know, with granite, likethere's a lot of magnetic
activity and things like thathappening out there, like if you
actually take a boat out anduse like an old school compass,
like there's places in therewhere that compass doesn't point
north, you know, like it's justit's all over the place.
You know you're standing on theisland.
You know you can see Kittery,maine, which is a fairly decent
(14:11):
sized town.
You can see Portsmouth, you cansee Newcastle.
There's cell towers in allthree but your cell phone
doesn't work well out there, youknow, even though it should.
So things like that always giveme pause.
Some of the people that havebeen seen on the beach, you know
(14:32):
, like their clothing doesn'tnecessarily match what they
should be wearing.
You know, and that comes upquite a bit.
You know, especially here inPortsmouth, I've heard a lot of
stories about people in, youknow, period appropriate
clothing.
You know something from the1600s, 1700s, 1800s, something
that doesn't necessarily fittoday but you know wandering
around as if it does.
You know there's theories aboutmagnetic fields, about time
vortexes.
You know I've heard so manydifferent things all circling
around this.
Nobody can explain it.
(14:52):
But the thing is like you know,it's happened so much, you know
, like people have been talkingabout this for literally for
generations.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Well, so when you were at the location, you felt
just that compelling urge toleave.
You could tell something wasabsolutely not right there.
Have you ever felt that in anyother location that you visited?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
You know I should have.
Are you familiar with theStanley Hotel?
Oh yeah, okay.
So for anybody who's not,that's the hotel Stephen King
stayed at when he came up withthe idea for the Shining Right.
It's a gorgeous hotel.
It's a hike I mean you have todrive for a few miles from the
airport in order to get to it.
But once you get out there,it's a beautiful location.
My wife and I went out there forit was a horror retreat with a
(15:35):
couple other horror authors.
Josh Mallerman was out there, aguy named Dallas Mayer who
wrote under the name JackKetchum.
There was about four or five ofus and we were there for about
a week or so.
We tried to get some type ofactivity there, like we tried to
scare something up the wholetime we were there.
We went down in the basement atmidnight and told ghost stories
like literally couldn't getanything to happen.
You know we were just waitingto capture anything at all.
(15:57):
Then, the last day that we werethere, my wife and I woke up.
It was probably maybe nine inthe morning or something and
we're sitting in bed and the bedjust started to shake for like
no reason.
It just started to vibrate.
It felt like somebody hadgrabbed the rails and was just
shaking it with like all theirmight.
And the weird part about it isthis went on for about a minute.
It was totally quiet.
There was no mechanical noiseor anything like that going on
(16:18):
and neither of us were scared.
We were like looking around thebed, like scared.
We were like looking around thebed, like we got off the bed,
we looked under the bed, welooked behind the bed trying to
figure out what could possiblydo this, because we're standing
there watching it shake.
Then we caught you know alittle bit of it on video and we
went downstairs and we showedthe hotel manager.
He's like, yeah, the bed inthat room does that.
We don't know why.
So I think from a paranormalexperience like that's probably
(16:39):
the closest one I ever had itdidn't necessarily scare me Like
I just wanted to understandwhat was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
But maybe back to the cat story I said at the
beginning of this I probablyshould have ran.
Yeah, that's my reaction is.
I think that's.
I think that's so interestingto have that curious mind of
what exactly is happening.
My instinct is always I have noidea what's happening, but it's
very often I need to be out ofhere right now and we could just
figure that all out later.
Well, and you know, that's agood segue too, because, much
like the Stanley Hotel inspiredthe Shining, which,
(17:12):
coincidentally, I just finisheda month ago.
So this is all like very goodcoincidence.
This island inspiring yourupcoming book.
Yeah, it sounds like it's avery comparable sort of thing.
Well, you talked about, whenyou're thinking about what to
write, you'll analyze trends inpublishing and film and TV to
figure out what's upcoming.
What would people be interestedin reading?
(17:33):
What might publishers beinterested in publishing?
With Wood Island specifically,was there something about the
pull of that place that wouldsort of like override that
process for you because it wasso compelling, or did the story
kind of haunt you until theright moment arrived to write
the book?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This was a very weird story for me, because normally
I'm a fast writer, I'll write anovel in about three or four
months.
This particular one took mefour years from start to finish,
mainly because I would run intosomething that would just like
scare the bejesus out of me andI had to put the book aside for
a little while.
I had weird things thathappened during the writing
process, like I would write ascene, you know, thinking that
(18:11):
it's total fiction, you knowjust came out of my head, and
then I would talk to somebodyabout it and they would tell me
no, that actually happened outthere.
You need to look at this, thisand this.
And then I would research it,you know, like after the fact,
and realize that you know, thesethings actually did take place.
So that kind of freaked me outa little bit, because I didn't
know where this information wascoming from, and to this day I
still don't.
It almost felt like I waschanneling something which is,
(18:32):
you know, scary in and of itself.
Yeah, so that was going on and,like it's the only book that
that's ever happened with, for awhile I considered not even
putting it out at all because Iwasn't sure.
You know, do I want to be theguy who draws attention to this
place?
You know, maybe it's better toleave it alone, but ultimately I
decided that it's the rightthing to do.
You know this type of stuff.
(18:52):
I think we need to betterunderstand it.
If there is something out there.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I would like to know what it is Right.
Are you or will you ever revealwhich part, which scenes from
the novel were?
It turned out they wereactually mirrors of what
happened in real life?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
no-transcript.
So you can go down thatparticular rabbit hole all on
your own.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Is there one particular thing that you could
say is like this actually, thisis in the book and it actually
happened, or is it too much of aplot spoiler?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
That's the thing.
I don't want to give away.
The plot, like if I, if I tellyou any of these things, like
then we're going to go down thatand once you tug on the string
it's hard to unravel it.
If I'm being coy, that's,that's why.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Okay, got it.
Question how did you balancehistorical accuracy with
supernatural fiction in thenovel?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
ago she was able to, you know, not only tell me, but
you know, in some cases she hadold photographs, she had stories
that she could share with mefrom people back in the day, a
lot of that type of stuff.
You know, like when I writesomething like this, that part
is very important to me.
I want to make sure I getanything that is historical.
You know, I want to make sureI'm as accurate as I possibly
could be.
So between her and the personwho was renovating the island at
the time, you know, running theorganization that's basically
(20:34):
restoring it, I was able to factcheck a lot of the information
I have in the book and make surethat I got it right.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You are running an unusual contest on June 13th
2025.
You will be selecting a winnerto spend the night on Wood
Island with three guests oftheir choice.
So they'll get transported byboat from Kittery Point, maine,
and left there for 24 hours.
My question to you is have youever stayed overnight in the
(21:01):
house yourself?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I have never been able to stay on that island for
more than maybe 15 minuteswithout wanting to leave, and I
seriously doubt anybody is goingto be able to stay the full 24
hours.
We're going to give them asatellite phone so they can call
for help if they want to leavea little bit early.
But yeah, there's just bad jujuout there.
The thing is, I wrote the bookand when the people in my life
(21:26):
started reading it, then sharingit with friends, social media
started to pick up on it.
People were like I want to gothere, I want to go there, I
want to stay there, I want tocheck it out.
So I want to go there.
I want to go there, I want tostay there, I want to check it
out.
So I want to give them theopportunity to do that.
So that's where the contestcame into play.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And you said so.
There's an individual that isrestoring they're restoring the
house, right, so you couldtechnically go and visit it by
day when it's open.
Is that right or is thatupcoming?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
By the time the book comes out it's going to be
happening.
They finished up the bulk ofthe construction this last year.
They have to close the house upfor the winter.
The waters are just too roughto try and get in and out of
there.
But by the time the book comesout, in May, the island will be
open and as a functioning museum.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Very interesting.
Well, as a side note, myco-host April and I we have to
go to Boston for a true crimepodcast festival in July and
we're going to stay at theLizzie Borden house and that
sounds like that is muchpreferable to what you're
describing.
A horror novel writer can'teven stay in a location for a
(22:30):
very brief time, but of coursethat's me and, as I've clearly
indicated, if I sense anythingis off in my environment, I'm
immediately running away.
But I'm sure you're going toget lots of really curious
people.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
So if you think you're up for it, I'll put you
out there on Wood Island and youtwo can check it out on your
own.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, actually I totally do.
I will.
I'll take you up on that.
I don't know how long I canstay, but regardless of who wins
the contest, I'm so curious tosee if they do end up staying
the whole night.
So you'll have to keep meposted on it.
Have there been other hauntedlocations that inspired previous
books of yours, or is this moreof the first novel that's based
(23:07):
, you know, at least roughly onhistorical happenings?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Well, I grew up primarily in Florida, where none
of this stuff happens.
When we moved to New England Igot a crash course in all of it.
I've actually got a cemetery inmy backyard and the real estate
agent didn't show it to me thefirst two or three times we
looked at the house.
She kind of she steered us awayso that we wouldn't see it back
in the bushes there.
I researched everything inPortsmouth, portsmouth, new
Hampshire, and there is a ton oflore haunted places in this
(23:35):
area.
There's a couple of cemeterieswhere there are a lot of stories
.
There's a house right down thestreet from me where people
swear they see the same person.
He basically like repeats apattern on the second floor.
He comes out of a room, walksand goes into another room.
He's wearing clothing fromabout 200 years ago and, like a
lot of people have seen this,it's documented.
There's another house wherepeople can hear a woman
(23:57):
screaming but you only hear itfrom the outside.
Like people inside the housenever hear it, but like walking
down the sidewalk people hear itall the time.
We've got an old auditorium herethat the music theater that
people have, you know, have seen.
Like people just sitting out inthe audience, wearing, you know
, clothing that is not modernday clothing, when there
shouldn't be anybody in theaudience.
You know, like everythingaround here is just old, you
(24:18):
know, and I think that's a bigpart of it.
You know, like I can throw arock and hit three different
houses built in the 1600s rightout my window, like Paul Revere
wrote past.
Here there's a plaque down thestreet which you know I touched
on in the book.
You know, like all thathistorical stuff is true, it's
all real.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I came across something fascinating about you.
You have a unique superpowerthat shapes how you work and
that sets you apart from otherauthors.
Can you talk a little bit moreabout that?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
no-transcript a lot of issues that I was trying to
deal with.
You know I couldn't make eyecontact in conversations.
You know all these other.
You know different, differentthings.
So once I got that diagnosis,it was very helpful.
But one of the things that Ilearned is, you know, as an
autistic person, you know I tendto mimic people quite a bit.
(25:18):
So if I'm standing in a partyand, you know, and somebody
cracks a joke, there's two orthree people around me I'm going
to laugh because the otherpeople around me are laughing,
not necessarily because I foundit funny.
So I'm mimicking what I seeother people doing, what I
consider to be normal behavior.
And one of the things I learnedvery on as a writer is I can
mimic people's author voice, youknow.
So if I read something writtenby somebody else, I can
(25:39):
basically continue that story intheir voice.
I pick up on their vocabulary,their cadence, their writing
style, which came in very handyback when I was doing memoirs
and ghostwriting and basicallyhelping people finish their own
novels From a plottingstandpoint.
You know you can't really seemy desk in this video but, like
you know, there's nothing onthere really.
And then I'm working on eightdifferent books right now, like
it's all.
It's all in my head and I knowthat's all from the autism thing
(26:02):
.
It's you know cause I'm able to.
I see structure and patternsand just about everything, and
to me a book is a pattern.
You know like I can see theframework of that story as I'm
writing it, so I know whichbeats need to happen and when.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That's so amazing.
I am jealous.
It's because it takes so muchwork, I think, for me to sort of
actively think about you.
Know, how would you build acharacter?
Fortunately, with everythingthat we do on Dark City, because
it's all historically based, Idon't have to build them myself.
They're already built.
We just have to uncover theright information about them.
(26:37):
But I definitely can detectthat in your writing.
You bring these characters intoyour books and I feel like,
very quickly you know who thisperson is.
They're distinct and it justmakes it so.
It's so readable.
The characters being believablemakes such a big difference In
terms of something I keepupstairs.
(26:59):
Where can our listeners, ifthey want to pre-order it,
what's the best place to do it?
And we'll link it in our shownotes too.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
There's a couple spots.
You can go to my website,jdbarkercom.
It's available in everybookstore.
I've got my own imprint withSimon Schuster, so they're
pretty good about getting mybooks just about anywhere.
If you'd like a signed copythat those you can get through
through my website.
I've got a local bookstore herein Portsmouth that fulfills
those orders.
So if you just go to my website, click on the book cover,
there's a link for signed copies.
(27:27):
That'll take you directly tothat local bookstore.
They'll get your information.
I go in there every couple ofweeks and sign everything and
then they'll ship it out to you.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Very nice.
Okay, I'm definitely going toorder the signed copy one, even
though I have the one on mycomputer right now.
What other projects do you havecoming up that people can keep
an eye out for?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I've always got something weird going on.
Do you remember a movie in the90s called Flatliners?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh no, april's the one who's so good at trivia, and
she couldn't join us, but I'msure it's probably something
everyone else has heard of.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, this is one of those cult classics.
It had Kiefer Sutherland, juliaRoberts, kevin Bacon, billy
Baldwin, oliver Platt all at thebeginning of their careers.
It's about a bunch of medicalstudents who decide to kill each
other to see if there's anytype of life after death.
So they kill each other andthen bring each other back after
a certain amount of time.
I love that story.
It's one of my all-timefavorite movies and the guy who
(28:22):
wrote it his name is PeterFilardi and he's actually on one
of my other projects and wetalked about it a few years ago
and I told him I had an idea toreboot the franchise and at the
time he didn't have the rights.
The studio still owned it, soit didn't really go anywhere.
And then about a year ago, hecalled me up and said hey, I got
the rights back if you stillwant to do this thing.
So I'm in the middle of writinga book to basically reboot a
film franchise, which I don'tknow if it's ever been done that
(28:44):
way before.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Typically it goes the other route.
So I'm finish your book, I'mgoing to go back and watch that
movie and be prepared for it.
Then, JD, is there anything youcould read us from the book to
tease it in advance ofpublication?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Oh well, I don't want to give you any spoilers.
How about if I just read what'son the back?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Okay, what'll do All?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
right In the sleepy coastal town of Newcastle, new
Hampshire, 17-year-old BillyHassler's life is about to take
a terrifying turn when his bestfriend, david Spivey, inherits a
mysterious house on a nearbyisland.
It seems like the perfect placeto spend their final summer
before heading off to college.
No parents, no police, noresponsibilities.
As they dig deep into theisland's dark past, they awaken
(29:33):
an ancient evil that hasinfluenced generations.
What becomes an innocent summeradventure quickly descends into
a nightmare.
The tagline for the book is fora haunted house to be born,
somebody has to die.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I love that tagline and I've started it and it's
already grabbed me.
So for everyone out therelistening, we will link in the
show notes where you can orderthe book, and I'm looking
forward to finishing it andlooking forward to looking into
your other projects coming uptoo.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
JD, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
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