September 26, 2024 • 42 mins
Life is a scary story! In this episode, Ayden interviews author of Ghostly Ghastly Tales, Anastasia Garcia.
Want to share your own creepy story, picture, or recording? Leave a 5 star review with your story attached, email Ayden at sustopodcast@gmail.com, DM on social media, or visit SustoPodcast.com to be shared on the show!
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Want to share your own creepy story, picture, or recording? Leave a 5 star review with your story attached, email Ayden at sustopodcast@gmail.com, DM on social media, or visit SustoPodcast.com to be shared on the show!
Sign up for Patreon here!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hey, girlfriends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I
am still your host and you are still listening to Soustal,
the podcast of ouky spooky scary stories centered on folklore
from Latin American Hispanic cultures. Welcome back. Thank you so
much for returning, and if this is your first time, welcome,
thank you so much for joining us, Gulfriends. I have
(00:45):
a very special treat for you this episode. As you
may have seen in the title or on the social
media posts, in this episode, I am interviewing Anastasia Garcia.
It was a true pleasure, a true honor. Anastasia. If
you don't know, and you will hear about more in
a bit, is the author of Ghostly Ghastly tells a
new young reader's illustrated book. This book is amazing, and
(01:08):
Anastasia is amazing herself. We get into some really cool conversations,
we have really cool moments, and I'm so excited for
you to be listening to this. And if you are
a best golfriend on Patreon, then we're looking at each
other right now.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
This is a video episode and there is also bonus
content at the end of the episode for best Goalfriends
on Patreon. We also have a very special announcement at
the end of the interview, so make sure to listen
all the way through to that something really cool that
Anastasia and I are working on together. So yeah, keep
your eye on it. You may have seen it in the.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Social media post. It might be spoiled then, so if.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You're impatient like me and you want to spoil the surprise,
go ahead and go there first if you haven't seen
it yet, but either way, you want to listen to
this interview. It's such a good time. As far as
updates go, all of my upcoming events are in that
one graphic I said in the last episod I was
going to make, so if you haven't seen it yet,
it is on every social media platform at Soustal podcast
(02:06):
has all my events listed, and if there are any
updates to that list, I will.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Be making them.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So you can keep an eye out for annual updates
on the show and on live events. There some really
cool stuff coming up in the month of October, so
make sure to check those out and I hope I
can see you there. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Without further Ado. Here's my conversation with Anastasia Garcia. Welcome back, girlfriends,
(02:42):
please join me in giving a spooky chilling, a ghostly
ghastly welcome, if you will, to our guest today, Anastasia Garcia. Anastasia,
thank you so much for being here today. Rietus applause,
airhorns everything. I'm so excited to chat with you and
(03:03):
to introduce you to anybody who may have not heard
about you. Could you do us the honor and just
kind of tell us who you are, what you do,
and a little bit about your background.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So, my name's Anastasia Garcia. I am a Mexican American
horror writer. I also write speculative fiction. So this is
my first time publishing a book. So I have lots
of short fiction that features in podcasts, in anthologies out
there in the world, but I just published my first book,
Ghostly Ghastly Tales. And where I'm from and a little
(03:38):
bit of my background. I'm from Texas, originally from South Texas.
I grew up around the area of Goalie At, Texas
if you're familiar, and that area is very much steeped
in Texas history, battles, conflicts of the wild, West and
that significantly influenced my writing.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
My love of horror.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
And now I'm based in New York City where I
work at for a day job and write books in
the dark.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It's always people say, it's always the.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Thing that you do from the five to nine, right,
Like that is like where the real passion lies. Not
to say anything about day jobs, you know, because I
know I like my day job too, but you know
the thing you go home to after working a full
day and saying, all right, let me get to it.
That's amazing already, such an inspiration someone who does something similar.
You know, I work full time and susto's what I do,
(04:29):
you know once I clock out, So thank you for
doing that work. And I have here for anybody who
is watching on Patreon best school friends. I have the
book right here with me.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
This is the book.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And a little fun fact, I'm going to put a
picture up as well. The book Actually these parts glow
in the dark and it looks so cool.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
The first thing I.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Did when I got my copy was I of course
took it out, flip through the pages, and I have
a little like.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Black light flashlights.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, yeah, I just show it all over and it
looked so so cool like that.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, definitely, here's the book.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
If you all are wondering about it, could you tell
us about Ghostly Ghastly tells.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
So this book is a collection of twenty two short
horror stories specifically for young readers, so that's the age
range of like eight to twelve years old. All of
the stories in the book are based in folklore and
mythology from around the world. Included in the book are
little notes of horror history, and in the back there's
like a note section for those like dark academia, people
(05:30):
like me who love to find out.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
More about where the stories came from.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And I also include little fear meters in the book,
so I know when kids approach a scary story book,
they're like, is it scary?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
How scary is this?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I mean the cover is pretty scary, so maybe kids
when they first open it aren't sure. But in the
book there's also little fear meters that show you each
story from one to three how scary it might be.
I will say some people have already like it's it's
controversial my my rating system, because apparently what's scary to
me is not what's scared everybody else.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, no, I totally get that.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Some people ask me about the show and the stories
that I tell, and I'm like, yeah, this story is
it's kind of spooky, you know, it got me a
little bit. And then someone replies and they're like, I
couldn't finish listening to it. So I mean, I love
that those little details in your book were so fun
to see. Again, that scare meter, those little three triangles.
Of course, I was flipping through and looking at all
(06:24):
the three yeah, the scariest ones and going through those,
and then those little tidbits of you know, attention to
history and folkalore at the end of those. I think,
you know, anybody who listens to Susto knows that. I
just mmmm, that's my favorite thing. I love diving into that.
So it feels like.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Such a such an appropriate relationship.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I will say, is this book and Susto so again,
I'm going to keep saying it over and over. This
book is so cool and I encourage everybody, not only
young readers, but again adults to look at this book
exactly exactly. So, speaking of young readers, how do you
balance writing horror for them, like making it spooky but
(07:06):
still kind of age appropriate?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
If you will.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
So when I was a kid reading scary stuff, which
I loved every book I could get my hands on,
I was trying to read so at that meant I
read Stephen King and Anne Rice like when I was
a little, tiny child. So when I was a kid,
I kind of disliked two things. One was being talked
down to or treated like a baby. I kept thinking,
I'm a big kid, I'm older, I can take things.
And I also really didn't like happy endings treating like
(07:33):
a baby. Like I feel like what scares kids also
scares adults, but what scares adults is kind of wrapped
up in like adult drama, relationships, life, financial struggle, et cetera.
Like there's a lot of like drama and stresses that
adults take on that kind of colors fear and scary things.
So for kids, you kind of strip out some of
those things the big adult dramas. You obviously exclude things
(07:57):
that are too sensational and too titillating, but you anchor
it in real fears. We're all still scared of the
same things. Plus, I think that kids have dealt with
some pretty heavy things and they you don't have to
tiptoe around some things, some things kids want to confront
head on. So as much as I like tried, you
simplify things and you make things a little easier one, two, three.
(08:20):
For kids in a book, it's still really like beaty,
scary things and then happy endings. For me, like most kids,
book end and happy endings. Cartoons end and happy endings,
you kind of just restart. But for me, what was
kind of important when I wrote this book is some
stories end and happy endings, but not all of them.
I really never liked when books are scary things pulled
(08:40):
their punches and like made things wrap up in a
happy ending. It didn't feel real to me. The steaks
were a little too light. So even if someone survives
a scary story, you know for sure that they're fully
changed as individuals and people. So I wanted to make
sure that that was captured in here. So some stories
end on a happy note and some don't. Own that's
kind of life to me. That's why I always thought
(09:03):
Goosebumps was for babies.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I really I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I mean as someone again who is also at the
public library reading books about the Zodiac Killer when I
should not have been holding those books.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
At all.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I appreciate that and kind of allowing again with that
scare meter system, allowing young readers to kind of choose
their own adventure, which also I think is great because
then you know, if you're concerned about your young reader,
you can get this book and start them off with
maybe something that's on the one scale, and this book
will then last you a long time as they get
braver and more willing to confront certain things. So, speaking
(09:39):
of that, like sort of confronting you know, real life
realities and real life horrors, if you will, do you
think that horror can be a tool for young readers
or readers in general to explore our fears and to
learn about bravery and resilience.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Definitely, definitely. I think that's why some people gravitate towards horror.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
It's a safe to kind of enjoy something that's kind
of scary and oh my god, the stakes are so
high life or death, and then you get to just
kind of like close the book and move on. I
think books especially help us become more empathetic people in general.
You have to as a reader, you have to fully
immerse yourself in someone else's life.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Their experiences.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You have to feel what they feel so that the
book at the end you know you've got resolution. And
so to do that, you have to be empathetic, you
have to be able to sit in someone else's shoes.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So horror books, books.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Especially for kids, help you tackle really scary things in
a safe space. If at any point you feel like
the emotions are too high or I can't deal with this,
you can close the book physically, put it down, walk away,
enjoy something else in the rest of life, and then
like slowly approach when you want to again. And it
allows you to kind of see the scary parts, talk
(10:50):
about the scary parts. I think books too, because you
get to share the stories with others. Everybody gets to
read the same book and experience the same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
You can then talk about it.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
With other people, and it allows you to like unpack
feelings that maybe you didn't know you have. So I
think it's a great a great safe space to enjoy
scary things, try out what you would or wouldn't do
in a life or death situation and think it through
in a lot of different ways, in a safe way.
So definitely building that resilience, that bravery, that confidence in yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, absolutely, I think it's a really useful tool. I remember,
and I mentioned this book a lot of the time,
and you may have seen it too growing up that
I have it on my shelf over here. But that
Orange book of the Stories that Must Not Die. Yeah,
so I read that book, or it was read to
us in elementary I love that and you know, it
has those stories Laodona Dancing with the Devil litusas like
(11:44):
ghost stories and other not spooky folklore stories. But they
were kind of using these stories to teach us reading
comprehension because the book was in English and Spanish, and
at the end of each story there was a set
of questions, so it was teaching us, you know, of
course reading apprehension, to think critically or to start thinking
critically at a very young age. So I think, why
(12:08):
not make it entertaining, why not make it as engaging
as possible. I've said this too many times. I feel
like connecting on a level of fear is a very
strong way to connect with people.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It's a very strong thing to feel.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, and it can be fun. I love being scared,
you know. I love going a haunted house, an amusement park,
haunted house. Don't get me in a real one, because
I don't know how I'll do there, But yeah, definitely,
I think I think it's a very useful tool.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Yeah, and I also think that like kids want to
be a little older, they want to test their metal
a little bit more. They want to be big kids,
they want to be adults. They want to say I
could totally do that, And scary stuff is the edge
of that, right, Like they get to go ooh, that
was too scary, I'm gonna take a step back, or
I want more of that.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I feel I want to try more.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
So I do think like horror is on the edge
over here where everything else kind of plays in the middle,
safe space, fun space, and horror is like are you
ready for something new? And kids like want to prove
it that they can't. I can read that book, I
can take that, I can do that, I can go
to a haunted house.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
So yeah, kids love that.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I mean I've already showed the book, but also looking
inside the book, and there's some of these illustrations on
your website as well. These are amazing beautiful illustrations, so
huge shout out to Tao Scafa. So Tao Scafa is
the illustrator of this book, who did an amazing job.
There are over twenty two full color illustrations. How did
(13:33):
you collaborate with him to bring, you know, the horror
of these stories to life visually? And do you think
it's important for artwork to kind of enhance the atmosphere
or the experience.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah, well, partnering with Teo was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Taos from Europe, so he's lived kind of all over
the world, and he's just kind of like this mysterious
enigma to me.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I'm like, what comes out of your brain?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
GiB Smith, the publisher of the book, is actually small publisher,
and therefore they allowed me to be part of the colla.
They allowed me to collaborate a lot more closely with
Tao as the illustrator than most publishers allow you to do.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So this was a very huge opportunity for me.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I thought. They allowed me to submit some illustrators that
I like to start, so I wrote the book and
then they were like, give us some illustrators. You like.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
The illustrators I picked here a little too adult.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
They were like, we kind of want this book to
be a little bit for kids, so we had to
like scale it back a bit, and I was like,
that's cool.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I respect that. So they gave me a list of like.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Illustrators that that are skilled in the art of like
children's and picture and art and illustration, digital illustrations specifically,
so that I could kind of peruse. And while I
was going through the illustrators, they allowed you to go
through their portfolios, and so when I.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Found Tao, I was like, he's different.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Deep in his portfolio like kids stuff, cool, cute, adorable,
high color, high profile kid stuff. And then in the
back of his portfolio were monsters with teeth, red eyed,
floating creatures, found footage, monsters in the woods. And I
was like, oh, this guy likes to draw horror, but
he does his day job is kid's books. So I
(15:05):
shared with him for each story, a mood board for
each story, a one line synopsis of each like kind
of where it was going, and like a one line
double click on the main character and the location because
they're kind of specific to each story. And then he
shared his initial sketches, which were basically fully flushed out
amazing things.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I got to go in and comment.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
A little bit and push a little bit, but like
instantly there was a full book and all these illustrations
were there, and then he made the cover, which is
truly fantastic, beyond what I imagine.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
For a cover of a book, So it was really amazing.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
And then having tail like he has a more modern
eye for what kids like to look at, color, spatial play,
digital artwork.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
That's different. It's very contemporary.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
It doesn't look like anything that I was familiar with
as a kid, and I feel like it hopefully will
resonate with like kids nowadays and what they see, and
it'll book and feel hopefully like some kids can find
some illustration that really speaks to them in the story.
There's really scary ones and then I think there's some
like softer ones.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Absolutely, If if anybody wants to, you can find to
on Instagram at at Tao Scoffa, and I'll throw that
up here for the video as well, because yeah, that's
I went, of course immediately went to his Instagram as.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Well, and I was like, whoa this is? I honestly
might honestly hit him up.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
For some new Oh my goodness, I have something to
share as well, he drew. So I commissioned a piece
of artwork of me. He drew me in his style.
I'll post that on Instagram so you can see. But
that was to me a true collectible and I'm gonna
love that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Wow, what an honor. That is so so cool.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, his art style is it's amazing. And again it
just it truly added to the overall kind of experience
that you're writing offers. So it's such like a great
partnership there again, moving back to kind of like the
experience of reading the book and self and reading horror.
Horror off teaches important life lessons through cautionary tales and
the like, what are some life lessons or maybe moral
(17:07):
themes that you hope readers take away from ghostly ghastly tales?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
So I think there are two big ones, two ones
that like really really speak to me and I hope
speak to kids as well. One of them is like,
you have to be smart, skilled, and like a little
lucky to survive to the end of a story. I
did mention that, like, not all stories have happy endings,
and so some not all.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Kids in the stories.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Are smart, are listening, are thinking it through, are skilled,
have the skills necessary or even the little bit of
luck that helps them survive all the way to the end.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So if you want to survive in life.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Or in your scary story, like make sure you're smart,
make sure you build up those skills, and then make
sure you're like a little tiny bit lucky to make
it to the end. So I think that surviving to
the end of the story is key. And then I
think the second one, which really probably speaks to a
lot of what your podcast is is listen to your
elders so much we can learn from both our grandparents,
our theos or theas, our cousins, our older friends, like
(18:04):
people who have life experience as a kid, you think
I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I don't need to listen to anybody else.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
But you'll notice that in the book, like sprinkled throughout
there were like older people who are like handing down
life lessons or skills or stories that if you just
listen and are willing to learn, might help you through
life different difficult passages and choices.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, through the scary story of yea life, I love that.
I feel like that's gonna have to be a short
or something like life is a scary story. Yeah, were
there any stories from the book that or maybe your
favorites or kind of stood out to you, and could
you talk about the folklore or the myth behind that story.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Yeah, there are so many of my favorites in here.
Sweet Treats, which is based on this one's very easy.
Sweet Treats is essentially a sweet shot pops up in
a small, little European town and the kids are excited
about all the sweets, but there's a mysterious dark ingredient
to where these treets are coming from.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
That's obviously based on Hansel and Gretel, the story of
the witch who makes a bunch of a candy house
that invites all the children in that one's very simple.
That's a very familiar folklore that I think people have
read and know and understand. And in this I was
also watching a lot of Great British baking show at
the same time I was writing, so all mixed in together.
(19:24):
So that's one that I really love in the collection.
But I will double click on another one called Little Playthings.
So this one is about a child who sneaks into
a toy shop to meet the mysterious toy maker who
makes all of these great kind of like clockwork toys.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
So this story, it's.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Not necessarily folcal or, but it's based on a point
in history that was kind of eerie and kind of
creepy as I was reading through it.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I should say the most sophisticated technology of the time
was actually clockwork, so very much like we have AI today.
Clockwork was their version of that. They didn't know how
it works. There was very skilled craftsmen who made it.
Carved clocks, tiny pocket watches were all moved by tiny
gears and cogs and complex inner workings, and the world's
(20:13):
best clockmakers.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
The way they would.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Show off their skill was that they would build these
elaborate mechanisms based on clockwork. So in Switzerland specifically, there
was this family called the Jacques Dreuse family, which were
a family of clockmakers that created these like lifelike.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Human esque creations out of clockwork.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Something about that is like Uncanny Valley, right, Like there's
something about like oh, so they actually made children sized.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Creations.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
One could play the organ with fingers, so they could
actually play songs with their fingers, terrifying. One could draw
like they would put a pencil in its hand, and
put a piece of paper and it would draw different artwork.
You just set play and it would so. And then
there was another one that could actually.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Write full letters.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
If you gave it like a goose feather and ink,
it would essentially write a full letter from start to finish.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And these are these are real things that were made real.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
They exist, they're out there, they're out there.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
So like the idea of that was terrifying, like what
they can make things do that? What else could you
make kids like little lifel like creatures do? So that
inspired this short story. It's very small, very tight about
a toy shop. Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Wow, truly God, Yeah, and I love that also, I
just I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but
these stories they're based on folklore and events and history
from around the world. So again, that's one of my
favorite things to do on the show, is to find
something from another part of the world and kind of
relate it to maybe my own experience or to a
story that I've covered on the show before, or a
(22:00):
potential story to cover. So yeah, this is this is
a really also fun way to learn about culture, not
only learning about you know, ourselves and horror and how
we process that, but also you know, other cultures in
the world.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So another.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Another reason to give this book, you know five five
out of five booze or something.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Yes, five out of five boos I hope and that
that was also to me too as a kid. I
was also a library kid that spent a lot of
time in libraries, reading and trying to learn about everything
outside of my small town Texas. And I hope this
book gives you if you never travel to these parts
of the world, the Philippines, Switzerland, the the Alps, like
you know, any of these monsters, you know, cool interesting places,
(22:44):
you can always open a book and find it, whether
it's this book or any book in the library. That
that was something that was very important to me was
the access that books give you as a kid.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
That's so like that tugs at my heart strings, you know,
making the world accessible, you know, with just you know,
a pile of paper, right, It's like the doors that
that can open and the kind of the ripples that
it can create. You know, I read books like this
when I was a kid. So I'm so excited for
another little weirdo out there to grab your book and
(23:18):
to be inspired and to see what they come up with.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's all very, very exciting.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And so, you know, speaking of our background and our upbringing,
we're both Texas ghoulies, and Texas has such a rich
history and folklore.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Are there any.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Texas specific ghosts or cryptids or any legends that particularly
stand out to you and that maybe you think are
underappreciated in a sense.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
So I in the book, I touch on Laidona. She's
in here, so there's a whole story on that. But
she obviously is kind of like the star of Texas folklore.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
She gets her own movie.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
She's the Beyonce Ye ghost if you will, if you.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Will, So she gets her own movies, she gets everything.
But I think my favorite short, like like like urban
legend I should say, from Texas was actually, have you
covered this the San Antonio school bus massacre?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, yeah, I've heard. Is that the one with the
railroad truck?
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yes, I haven't covered it yet, Okay, in future, Yeah,
definitely in the future, possibly a visit to the site itself.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Well, we shall see, Yes, just.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
To quickly touch on it, that was one of my
favorites San Antonio. There's a school bus, there's a railroad track,
apparently where a school bus of children was crossing and
was hit by a trained and brutally murdered in a
dark and dangerous way. And now everyone says that if
you dry your car a night and you approach that
railroad station, you park on the train tracks, that something
(25:06):
will push you to safety off the train. I've also
heard it told that if you sprinkle a little baby
powder on the back of the car, you will find
tiny little handprints that helped push your car to safety.
So that to me was always terrifying one because you're
a kid who rides a school bus and goes, wait
a minute, I can.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Die whoa hold on pause?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, terrifying.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
And then obviously like the the the way I heard
it was very urban legendie so and So's cousin went
to go there and saw it the other night, just
two weeks ago, you know, and so that.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
If I was there and they pissed her car.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Exactly and so fell very close to homes that one
I love. And I just never haven't seen that around yet.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Have you visited those tracks? Before I smell a trip,
I start a road trip. Yeah, I definitely remember hearing
that story growing up, growing up as well, I had
never been so thankful to be a pick up drop off,
yeah kid in that moment.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, such a good one, for sure.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
There was also there was a similar one that happened
somewhere in the Rio Grande Valley where the bus was
it allegedly drove off into this kind of like water reservoir.
And so now that whole areas is said to be haunted.
All I need to I can't remember what city it
happened in, but anyone from the Organda Valley, if you're
hearing this and you know where it's at, please let
(26:29):
us know because similar story with you know, a bus
full of children. You know what is more sad and
traumatic than that, right, losing so many young innocent lives
and then the stories that kind of come from that.
But yeah, definitely those those tracks in San Antonio is
a very popular one that I will cover in the
future for sure. So on the other side of this,
(26:52):
you know, horror is often kind of dismissed as just
purely just for entertainment purposes, there's nothing deeper behind it.
Do you think that horror does play a role in
reflecting on I mean, we're already talking about it on
societal fears and cultural illnesses or issues rather, especially within
the Latina community.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah, definitely, I think the Latin community, for me, is
very steeped into supernatural.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I don't know how.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I mean, obviously it's in your podcast, so I know,
But so much of just the stories we tell with
each other, the myth, the legends, the history is all
steeped in something kind of slightly supernatural. There's healing, there's prayer,
there's all kinds of like power that we find in
the spaces that we live and kind of like the
communities that we build around us. So to me, the
(27:43):
supernatural very prevalent in just our culture, in our community,
And so the idea that like horror, which is one
step beyond now we've got vampires and monsters and ghulis
and spooks, is very close. And so't it wasn't that
far of a departure to like make horror such a
big part of our community. And I do agree that
like horror is usually treated as kind of like a
(28:05):
like a funny, silly, la ha like genre and it's
not that serious, it's never literary, et cetera. But to me,
horror is on the bleeding edge of culture. Here it
writers of horror tackling new fears that plague us like
every day, and that can include old fears that are
very familiar to us, you know, man versus nature, man
versus man, man versus monster, but then it also plagues
(28:28):
like new fears all the time. That can include things
like like climate change, like watching our communities change. It
can include toxic love, changing roles within a home. It
can talk about war, It can talk about disease. It
can talk about technology. It can talk about human brutality
against each other. Or it could even just like the fear,
(28:49):
can just be a place unknown. It can be flesh
and blood like someone you know. It can be an
unfathomable cosmic entity.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It can be a thing, a feeling, a.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Place like Horror lives in all of these places. So
to me, yes, it's entertainment, but it really is dredging
up some of these things that we carry with us
from generation to generation.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
And I love that.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Horror allows us a space to kind of play with it,
deal with it, approach it, uncover it, and kind of
tackle it together as like readers and as a community.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Also I like that you mentioned that it's not like
the love or the appreciation of horror is not a
far card from the way that many of us were raised.
My kind of working theory around that is because a lot,
if not the majority, of Latina people are raised in
the church, are raised Catholic. And so I've always said
(29:47):
that Catholicism is it's inherently spooky. You're telling me that
we gather as a as a group, as a coven
once a week and we chant and we sing and
we praise a deity who is who came back to
life and is also by the way, hanging on the
wall above us with blood dripping down like that, is
(30:10):
that is horror? Like of course we're like.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Oh, yeah, no, I love this too, exactly so.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And then but but don't go into hot topic because aos.
But you better believe believe that we're going to be
lighting our candles, yes, and maybe even going to get
our cards read, depending on what kind of Catholic you are.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yes, I think Catholicism and just like Christianity and religion
is one way of approaching kind of like the fears
and the unknown of the world, and yes, many of
us did and the like there's so many and like
everything it's just like a general appreciation that there's other
worldly effects taking place every day, that our prayers have
power and meaning, whether it's praying to a religion specific
(30:49):
god or just praying for the safety of our family,
like that has power. And yeah, just like somehow that's
all just built into how we were raised. Very all
of that was very real to us.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, and I'm sure it applies to
many other religions, but it's just again, that's.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
That was my experience. That's what I know.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So I'm like, yeah, I remember, it's like I'm eating it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, you have blood? What this is heavy metal? So true.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
I remember being a kid being like, can you explain
the Seven Deadly Sins one more time? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Please, I need to run down.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
So, Anastosia, have you had.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Your own encounters with the paranormal?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yes, I think I think everyone.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I don't know, maybe it's just everyone. My whole family.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
We spent so much time sitting around a bonfire when
the sun was setting, and that she chatted their humming
in the distance like that was very familiar to me,
and everyone in my family somehow had a.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Brush with the paranormal. In some regards.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
So these were just stories we shared after dinner, just
like casual. And I'll share one story. I've had so many,
like you know, footstep, myospheries, footsteps, haunted houses that I've
lived in, doors opening sounds in the distance. But there's
one that's very Texas that I'll share with this group
and let me see if I can, let me see
if I can find Okay, I just had some notes
(32:09):
on like trying to remember setting my stage. Yeah, this,
this story actually inspired one of the stories in here.
This one of the stories called the Drums of War
is about a girl who visits a haunted battle site
and like slips into the time, slip back in time.
And so when I was younger, I don't know if you,
or maybe lots of little Texas kids visited a battlefield.
(32:31):
There were many of them in Texas. A battlefield and
the field that we visited when I was a kid.
I'm not going to say which one because I kind
of want every Texas kid to feel like it's the
one right next to them. Most of the battlefields are
just generally open fields. The one I went to had
like little pavilions and picnic tables and like a visitor
center and it had like a giant circle driveway that
(32:52):
had a bunch of trees, and we went we saw everything,
and everybody was getting ready to load up to go
back on the buses. And for a minute, cousin and
I kind of like wandered off, which is obviously the
first step in a horror movie, right, We wandered off,
and we were kind of playing and we were talking,
we're laughing, we're just joking around, totally not looking for
anything scary. And for a minute, it uh, it got
(33:16):
supper quiet. We couldn't see the busses anymore, and everything
came way down. It's like all the sounds that the
kids were gone. There were no there was no wind
in the trees, there were no leaves, there was nothing.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
And it felt weird.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
It feel for that moment like, wait, something's wrong, something's
a little off.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
And I had.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
This feeling like somebody was watching us. And obviously we
were in a group full of kids, but somehow we
were on our own, and all of a sudden, it
felt like someone was watching us. And I was looking
around for a minute, like is something weird? Am I
just feeling something strange? And in the trees. All the
trees that lined the driveway of this thing was filled
(33:56):
with blackbirds, hundreds of them, but not making any sound,
no cawing, no birds, no feathers, nothing.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
And I was like, oh, no, something's happening.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
It's like there was a there was a feeling, a
palpable feeling of like something is wrong. And I was like,
am I going nuts? But then I looked over to
my cousin and she's looking at me too, and the
both of us are like, something is happening, something weird
is going on. All of a sudden, sound came back
in the sound of footsteps in the grass, and we
(34:26):
were looking around like where is that coming from? And
then another set of footsteps and then crunch, crunch, crunch,
Cuntry County country, country, crunch, hundreds of footsteps all around us,
and we booked it. I was like, I don't know
what it was, where it was. We went flying back
to the school of us. We were like, do not
separate us.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
We're going home.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
But something about like the dead silence, the fear that
there was no sound happening, and then the first thing
we hear is footsteps lots terrifying.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Oh my god, that sent a chill up my spot
and just yeah, I think something that I think is
very clear to anyone who listens to Sustore or maybe
who even also just loves I'll say ghost Stories is
the tie between history.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And the paranormal is very real.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
The tie between trauma and the paranormal is very very real.
I'd say that almost every episode. But yeah, because of
history and major events in history, and so I think
that's why when you if you've ever done any of
those like haunted bar crawls in major cities, it's always
somewhere historic, and so it ends up being like a
history tour. But I'm like, yeah, that makes perfect sense,
(35:42):
of course, Like you know, these long standing places or
places where big events happen, it makes total sense that
there would be activity there.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
I think places have memory and they carry the trauma
of let's say an event or just the weight of
the mini live that have affected it. If energy is
something that we give off in something that when we
die just dissipates into the universe like there, I think
places can hold.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
On to that like a sponge.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
And in that moment I really felt it like this
place has a memory and this is what I'm feeling.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I love that. Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Thank you well, thank you so so so much for
being here today, for sharing with us, and before you
let people know where they can follow you and find
your book, we do have a very special announcement. I
guess you could say this is actually a second copy
(36:37):
that you sent me, because we are giving it away
to one very lucky winner, and this is a signed
copy and they will also be getting a pack of
stickers that you sent with this. So make sure that
you follow both myself and Anastasia on social media to
learn how to enter the giveaway.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
That will have all the rules.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And a and also the deadline for when this will
be happening. So thank you so much for sending this
over and for.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Doing this giveaway with me.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Can you please let people know where they can find
you online and where they can find Ghostly Ghastly Tales.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yes, Ghostly Ghastly Tails.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
You can find it anywhere Amazon, Barnesmoble dot com, your
local bookstore if you'd like to support, Just search Ghostly
Ghastly Tails and you'll find us. You can find me
at Anastasia Rights dot com. That's my website, but I
also am on Instagram, That's where I'm most lively, Anastasia writes,
and then also on Twitter a Garcia underscore rights if
you so choose. But I can also share something special
(37:39):
with you as well, a new announcement. So this is
you might notice it says frights to tell at Night. Well,
this is actually book one in a series and book two.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Is coming soon.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Oh my god, get breaking. You heard it here first
on sustill k S s t O Breaking the spooking news.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
That is so exciting. Do you have a rough timeline
of when the second one will be?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Yeah, and the second one should be coming out? Is
the second one is going to be all about monsters
and the outdoors and it's campfire story themed.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
So you can expect it in time for summer camp
next year. So get ready for summer season. It'll be
coming out next year.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Well, congratulations and what a treat for all of us.
That is definitely I'm definitely looking forward to that one.
I will be adding it to myselves as well.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Well. Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
I'm sorry to take a moment.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, I just can I take a moment to thank
you for being such a leader amongst our community in
sharing these stories from generation to generation. Like I honestly
believe that humans have been storytellers for the end of
time and there are a few of us who carry
the torch of storytelling from generation to generation, and I
(38:51):
truly think you were one of us. You take the
time to gather the stories, to keep them, to retell them,
and keep them alive. So thank you Aiden for all
the work that you do on this podcast, but just
in life sharing the stories with the new generation.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I'm trying really hard not to cry because I'm a
chea on thank you that means so much.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Well, if you are a best goalfriend on Patreon, Patreon
dot com, slash Susto podcast, you will have access to
some bonus content that will be coming up next. If not,
thank you so much for listening today and anas Sasia
one more time, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
I truly appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Thank you every much.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Bye, Welcome back, girlfriends. So, if you are a best
cool friend on Patreon again, you have extra content on
(39:51):
Patreon that you can watch. If not, then you just
heard about the book giveaway. This is the signed copy
of Ghostly Ghastly Tells that Anastasia signed in here.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
To give away.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
We are doing the giveaway on Instagram, so again you
can visit an Asasia at at Anastasia Rights and me
at Sustal Podcast. We'll post a joint post on Instagram.
The rules I believe will be to follow each of
our profiles, to leave a comment of some sort and
just make sure you read the caption through. Follow all
those rules and I will announce the next winner the
(40:26):
day before the next episode, which is October tenth. As always,
if you have your own spooky story that you would
like me to share on your letters from the Beyond episode,
or if you have a photo, video recording anything you
think I should share on the socials that's at Sustal Podcast.
You can do so by sending it to Sustal Podcasts
at jenail dot com, visiting my website sustopodcast dot com,
hitting the contact button, or sending in a voice message
(40:48):
that way, leaving a five star rating or review on
Apple Podcasts, or leaving a comment on Spotify.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
So many ways to do that.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Again, follow at sustal podcast for any on all updates
on the show and to catch those live events.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Final thing I will.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Leave you with thank you so much to this episode's
Patreon subscribers. You are Liza, Sadie, Rachel, Alejandra Luther, April, Mario, Eva,
d Josette, sam Angelo and Co, Mandy, Jules, Lori, Genie, Desiree,
Anna Ashes, Nedesa, Rachel, Asusena, Rios, Marlen, Chata, Laney, Desiree, Cynthia, Sidenai, Flamenca, Belinda, Archie, Ricardo, Sera, Anastasia,
(41:28):
Vanessa and Marisa. Thank you all so so much for
your support. It truly means the world to me. You
all have a good one. I have good luck in
the giveaway. I will talk to you in the next episode,
and until then notts.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Bye,
Hey, girlfriends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I
am still your host and you are still listening to Soustal,
the podcast of ouky spooky scary stories centered on folklore
from Latin American Hispanic cultures. Welcome back. Thank you so
much for returning, and if this is your first time, welcome,
thank you so much for joining us, Gulfriends. I have
(00:45):
a very special treat for you this episode. As you
may have seen in the title or on the social
media posts, in this episode, I am interviewing Anastasia Garcia.
It was a true pleasure, a true honor. Anastasia. If
you don't know, and you will hear about more in
a bit, is the author of Ghostly Ghastly tells a
new young reader's illustrated book. This book is amazing, and
(01:08):
Anastasia is amazing herself. We get into some really cool conversations,
we have really cool moments, and I'm so excited for
you to be listening to this. And if you are
a best golfriend on Patreon, then we're looking at each
other right now.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
This is a video episode and there is also bonus
content at the end of the episode for best Goalfriends
on Patreon. We also have a very special announcement at
the end of the interview, so make sure to listen
all the way through to that something really cool that
Anastasia and I are working on together. So yeah, keep
your eye on it. You may have seen it in the.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Social media post. It might be spoiled then, so if.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You're impatient like me and you want to spoil the surprise,
go ahead and go there first if you haven't seen
it yet, but either way, you want to listen to
this interview. It's such a good time. As far as
updates go, all of my upcoming events are in that
one graphic I said in the last episod I was
going to make, so if you haven't seen it yet,
it is on every social media platform at Soustal podcast
(02:06):
has all my events listed, and if there are any
updates to that list, I will.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Be making them.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So you can keep an eye out for annual updates
on the show and on live events. There some really
cool stuff coming up in the month of October, so
make sure to check those out and I hope I
can see you there. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Without further Ado. Here's my conversation with Anastasia Garcia. Welcome back, girlfriends,
(02:42):
please join me in giving a spooky chilling, a ghostly
ghastly welcome, if you will, to our guest today, Anastasia Garcia. Anastasia,
thank you so much for being here today. Rietus applause,
airhorns everything. I'm so excited to chat with you and
(03:03):
to introduce you to anybody who may have not heard
about you. Could you do us the honor and just
kind of tell us who you are, what you do,
and a little bit about your background.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So, my name's Anastasia Garcia. I am a Mexican American
horror writer. I also write speculative fiction. So this is
my first time publishing a book. So I have lots
of short fiction that features in podcasts, in anthologies out
there in the world, but I just published my first book,
Ghostly Ghastly Tales. And where I'm from and a little
(03:38):
bit of my background. I'm from Texas, originally from South Texas.
I grew up around the area of Goalie At, Texas
if you're familiar, and that area is very much steeped
in Texas history, battles, conflicts of the wild, West and
that significantly influenced my writing.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
My love of horror.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
And now I'm based in New York City where I
work at for a day job and write books in
the dark.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It's always people say, it's always the.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Thing that you do from the five to nine, right,
Like that is like where the real passion lies. Not
to say anything about day jobs, you know, because I
know I like my day job too, but you know
the thing you go home to after working a full
day and saying, all right, let me get to it.
That's amazing already, such an inspiration someone who does something similar.
You know, I work full time and susto's what I do,
(04:29):
you know once I clock out, So thank you for
doing that work. And I have here for anybody who
is watching on Patreon best school friends. I have the
book right here with me.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
This is the book.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And a little fun fact, I'm going to put a
picture up as well. The book Actually these parts glow
in the dark and it looks so cool.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
The first thing I.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Did when I got my copy was I of course
took it out, flip through the pages, and I have
a little like.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Black light flashlights.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, yeah, I just show it all over and it
looked so so cool like that.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, definitely, here's the book.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
If you all are wondering about it, could you tell
us about Ghostly Ghastly tells.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
So this book is a collection of twenty two short
horror stories specifically for young readers, so that's the age
range of like eight to twelve years old. All of
the stories in the book are based in folklore and
mythology from around the world. Included in the book are
little notes of horror history, and in the back there's
like a note section for those like dark academia, people
(05:30):
like me who love to find out.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
More about where the stories came from.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And I also include little fear meters in the book,
so I know when kids approach a scary story book,
they're like, is it scary?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
How scary is this?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I mean the cover is pretty scary, so maybe kids
when they first open it aren't sure. But in the
book there's also little fear meters that show you each
story from one to three how scary it might be.
I will say some people have already like it's it's
controversial my my rating system, because apparently what's scary to
me is not what's scared everybody else.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, no, I totally get that.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Some people ask me about the show and the stories
that I tell, and I'm like, yeah, this story is
it's kind of spooky, you know, it got me a
little bit. And then someone replies and they're like, I
couldn't finish listening to it. So I mean, I love
that those little details in your book were so fun
to see. Again, that scare meter, those little three triangles.
Of course, I was flipping through and looking at all
(06:24):
the three yeah, the scariest ones and going through those,
and then those little tidbits of you know, attention to
history and folkalore at the end of those. I think,
you know, anybody who listens to Susto knows that. I
just mmmm, that's my favorite thing. I love diving into that.
So it feels like.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Such a such an appropriate relationship.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I will say, is this book and Susto so again,
I'm going to keep saying it over and over. This
book is so cool and I encourage everybody, not only
young readers, but again adults to look at this book
exactly exactly. So, speaking of young readers, how do you
balance writing horror for them, like making it spooky but
(07:06):
still kind of age appropriate?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
If you will.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
So when I was a kid reading scary stuff, which
I loved every book I could get my hands on,
I was trying to read so at that meant I
read Stephen King and Anne Rice like when I was
a little, tiny child. So when I was a kid,
I kind of disliked two things. One was being talked
down to or treated like a baby. I kept thinking,
I'm a big kid, I'm older, I can take things.
And I also really didn't like happy endings treating like
(07:33):
a baby. Like I feel like what scares kids also
scares adults, but what scares adults is kind of wrapped
up in like adult drama, relationships, life, financial struggle, et cetera.
Like there's a lot of like drama and stresses that
adults take on that kind of colors fear and scary things.
So for kids, you kind of strip out some of
those things the big adult dramas. You obviously exclude things
(07:57):
that are too sensational and too titillating, but you anchor
it in real fears. We're all still scared of the
same things. Plus, I think that kids have dealt with
some pretty heavy things and they you don't have to
tiptoe around some things, some things kids want to confront
head on. So as much as I like tried, you
simplify things and you make things a little easier one, two, three.
(08:20):
For kids in a book, it's still really like beaty,
scary things and then happy endings. For me, like most kids,
book end and happy endings. Cartoons end and happy endings,
you kind of just restart. But for me, what was
kind of important when I wrote this book is some
stories end and happy endings, but not all of them.
I really never liked when books are scary things pulled
(08:40):
their punches and like made things wrap up in a
happy ending. It didn't feel real to me. The steaks
were a little too light. So even if someone survives
a scary story, you know for sure that they're fully
changed as individuals and people. So I wanted to make
sure that that was captured in here. So some stories
end on a happy note and some don't. Own that's
kind of life to me. That's why I always thought
(09:03):
Goosebumps was for babies.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I really I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I mean as someone again who is also at the
public library reading books about the Zodiac Killer when I
should not have been holding those books.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
At all.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I appreciate that and kind of allowing again with that
scare meter system, allowing young readers to kind of choose
their own adventure, which also I think is great because
then you know, if you're concerned about your young reader,
you can get this book and start them off with
maybe something that's on the one scale, and this book
will then last you a long time as they get
braver and more willing to confront certain things. So, speaking
(09:39):
of that, like sort of confronting you know, real life
realities and real life horrors, if you will, do you
think that horror can be a tool for young readers
or readers in general to explore our fears and to
learn about bravery and resilience.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Definitely, definitely. I think that's why some people gravitate towards horror.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
It's a safe to kind of enjoy something that's kind
of scary and oh my god, the stakes are so
high life or death, and then you get to just
kind of like close the book and move on. I
think books especially help us become more empathetic people in general.
You have to as a reader, you have to fully
immerse yourself in someone else's life.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Their experiences.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You have to feel what they feel so that the
book at the end you know you've got resolution. And
so to do that, you have to be empathetic, you
have to be able to sit in someone else's shoes.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So horror books, books.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Especially for kids, help you tackle really scary things in
a safe space. If at any point you feel like
the emotions are too high or I can't deal with this,
you can close the book physically, put it down, walk away,
enjoy something else in the rest of life, and then
like slowly approach when you want to again. And it
allows you to kind of see the scary parts, talk
(10:50):
about the scary parts. I think books too, because you
get to share the stories with others. Everybody gets to
read the same book and experience the same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
You can then talk about it.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
With other people, and it allows you to like unpack
feelings that maybe you didn't know you have. So I
think it's a great a great safe space to enjoy
scary things, try out what you would or wouldn't do
in a life or death situation and think it through
in a lot of different ways, in a safe way.
So definitely building that resilience, that bravery, that confidence in yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, absolutely, I think it's a really useful tool. I remember,
and I mentioned this book a lot of the time,
and you may have seen it too growing up that
I have it on my shelf over here. But that
Orange book of the Stories that Must Not Die. Yeah,
so I read that book, or it was read to
us in elementary I love that and you know, it
has those stories Laodona Dancing with the Devil litusas like
(11:44):
ghost stories and other not spooky folklore stories. But they
were kind of using these stories to teach us reading
comprehension because the book was in English and Spanish, and
at the end of each story there was a set
of questions, so it was teaching us, you know, of
course reading apprehension, to think critically or to start thinking
critically at a very young age. So I think, why
(12:08):
not make it entertaining, why not make it as engaging
as possible. I've said this too many times. I feel
like connecting on a level of fear is a very
strong way to connect with people.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It's a very strong thing to feel.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, and it can be fun. I love being scared,
you know. I love going a haunted house, an amusement park,
haunted house. Don't get me in a real one, because
I don't know how I'll do there, But yeah, definitely,
I think I think it's a very useful tool.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Yeah, and I also think that like kids want to
be a little older, they want to test their metal
a little bit more. They want to be big kids,
they want to be adults. They want to say I
could totally do that, And scary stuff is the edge
of that, right, Like they get to go ooh, that
was too scary, I'm gonna take a step back, or
I want more of that.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I feel I want to try more.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
So I do think like horror is on the edge
over here where everything else kind of plays in the middle,
safe space, fun space, and horror is like are you
ready for something new? And kids like want to prove
it that they can't. I can read that book, I
can take that, I can do that, I can go
to a haunted house.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
So yeah, kids love that.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I mean I've already showed the book, but also looking
inside the book, and there's some of these illustrations on
your website as well. These are amazing beautiful illustrations, so
huge shout out to Tao Scafa. So Tao Scafa is
the illustrator of this book, who did an amazing job.
There are over twenty two full color illustrations. How did
(13:33):
you collaborate with him to bring, you know, the horror
of these stories to life visually? And do you think
it's important for artwork to kind of enhance the atmosphere
or the experience.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah, well, partnering with Teo was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Taos from Europe, so he's lived kind of all over
the world, and he's just kind of like this mysterious
enigma to me.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I'm like, what comes out of your brain?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
GiB Smith, the publisher of the book, is actually small publisher,
and therefore they allowed me to be part of the colla.
They allowed me to collaborate a lot more closely with
Tao as the illustrator than most publishers allow you to do.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So this was a very huge opportunity for me.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I thought. They allowed me to submit some illustrators that
I like to start, so I wrote the book and
then they were like, give us some illustrators. You like.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
The illustrators I picked here a little too adult.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
They were like, we kind of want this book to
be a little bit for kids, so we had to
like scale it back a bit, and I was like,
that's cool.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I respect that. So they gave me a list of like.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Illustrators that that are skilled in the art of like
children's and picture and art and illustration, digital illustrations specifically,
so that I could kind of peruse. And while I
was going through the illustrators, they allowed you to go
through their portfolios, and so when I.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Found Tao, I was like, he's different.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Deep in his portfolio like kids stuff, cool, cute, adorable,
high color, high profile kid stuff. And then in the
back of his portfolio were monsters with teeth, red eyed,
floating creatures, found footage, monsters in the woods. And I
was like, oh, this guy likes to draw horror, but
he does his day job is kid's books. So I
(15:05):
shared with him for each story, a mood board for
each story, a one line synopsis of each like kind
of where it was going, and like a one line
double click on the main character and the location because
they're kind of specific to each story. And then he
shared his initial sketches, which were basically fully flushed out
amazing things.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I got to go in and comment.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
A little bit and push a little bit, but like
instantly there was a full book and all these illustrations
were there, and then he made the cover, which is
truly fantastic, beyond what I imagine.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
For a cover of a book, So it was really amazing.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
And then having tail like he has a more modern
eye for what kids like to look at, color, spatial play,
digital artwork.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
That's different. It's very contemporary.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
It doesn't look like anything that I was familiar with
as a kid, and I feel like it hopefully will
resonate with like kids nowadays and what they see, and
it'll book and feel hopefully like some kids can find
some illustration that really speaks to them in the story.
There's really scary ones and then I think there's some
like softer ones.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Absolutely, If if anybody wants to, you can find to
on Instagram at at Tao Scoffa, and I'll throw that
up here for the video as well, because yeah, that's
I went, of course immediately went to his Instagram as.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Well, and I was like, whoa this is? I honestly
might honestly hit him up.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
For some new Oh my goodness, I have something to
share as well, he drew. So I commissioned a piece
of artwork of me. He drew me in his style.
I'll post that on Instagram so you can see. But
that was to me a true collectible and I'm gonna
love that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Wow, what an honor. That is so so cool.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, his art style is it's amazing. And again it
just it truly added to the overall kind of experience
that you're writing offers. So it's such like a great
partnership there again, moving back to kind of like the
experience of reading the book and self and reading horror.
Horror off teaches important life lessons through cautionary tales and
the like, what are some life lessons or maybe moral
(17:07):
themes that you hope readers take away from ghostly ghastly tales?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
So I think there are two big ones, two ones
that like really really speak to me and I hope
speak to kids as well. One of them is like,
you have to be smart, skilled, and like a little
lucky to survive to the end of a story. I
did mention that, like, not all stories have happy endings,
and so some not all.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Kids in the stories.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Are smart, are listening, are thinking it through, are skilled,
have the skills necessary or even the little bit of
luck that helps them survive all the way to the end.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So if you want to survive in life.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Or in your scary story, like make sure you're smart,
make sure you build up those skills, and then make
sure you're like a little tiny bit lucky to make
it to the end. So I think that surviving to
the end of the story is key. And then I
think the second one, which really probably speaks to a
lot of what your podcast is is listen to your
elders so much we can learn from both our grandparents,
our theos or theas, our cousins, our older friends, like
(18:04):
people who have life experience as a kid, you think
I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I don't need to listen to anybody else.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
But you'll notice that in the book, like sprinkled throughout
there were like older people who are like handing down
life lessons or skills or stories that if you just
listen and are willing to learn, might help you through
life different difficult passages and choices.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, through the scary story of yea life, I love that.
I feel like that's gonna have to be a short
or something like life is a scary story. Yeah, were
there any stories from the book that or maybe your
favorites or kind of stood out to you, and could
you talk about the folklore or the myth behind that story.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Yeah, there are so many of my favorites in here.
Sweet Treats, which is based on this one's very easy.
Sweet Treats is essentially a sweet shot pops up in
a small, little European town and the kids are excited
about all the sweets, but there's a mysterious dark ingredient
to where these treets are coming from.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
That's obviously based on Hansel and Gretel, the story of
the witch who makes a bunch of a candy house
that invites all the children in that one's very simple.
That's a very familiar folklore that I think people have
read and know and understand. And in this I was
also watching a lot of Great British baking show at
the same time I was writing, so all mixed in together.
(19:24):
So that's one that I really love in the collection.
But I will double click on another one called Little Playthings.
So this one is about a child who sneaks into
a toy shop to meet the mysterious toy maker who
makes all of these great kind of like clockwork toys.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
So this story, it's.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Not necessarily folcal or, but it's based on a point
in history that was kind of eerie and kind of
creepy as I was reading through it.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I should say the most sophisticated technology of the time
was actually clockwork, so very much like we have AI today.
Clockwork was their version of that. They didn't know how
it works. There was very skilled craftsmen who made it.
Carved clocks, tiny pocket watches were all moved by tiny
gears and cogs and complex inner workings, and the world's
(20:13):
best clockmakers.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
The way they would.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Show off their skill was that they would build these
elaborate mechanisms based on clockwork. So in Switzerland specifically, there
was this family called the Jacques Dreuse family, which were
a family of clockmakers that created these like lifelike.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Human esque creations out of clockwork.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Something about that is like Uncanny Valley, right, Like there's
something about like oh, so they actually made children sized.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Creations.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
One could play the organ with fingers, so they could
actually play songs with their fingers, terrifying. One could draw
like they would put a pencil in its hand, and
put a piece of paper and it would draw different artwork.
You just set play and it would so. And then
there was another one that could actually.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Write full letters.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
If you gave it like a goose feather and ink,
it would essentially write a full letter from start to finish.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And these are these are real things that were made real.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
They exist, they're out there, they're out there.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
So like the idea of that was terrifying, like what
they can make things do that? What else could you
make kids like little lifel like creatures do? So that
inspired this short story. It's very small, very tight about
a toy shop. Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Wow, truly God, Yeah, and I love that also, I
just I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but
these stories they're based on folklore and events and history
from around the world. So again, that's one of my
favorite things to do on the show, is to find
something from another part of the world and kind of
relate it to maybe my own experience or to a
story that I've covered on the show before, or a
(22:00):
potential story to cover. So yeah, this is this is
a really also fun way to learn about culture, not
only learning about you know, ourselves and horror and how
we process that, but also you know, other cultures in
the world.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So another.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Another reason to give this book, you know five five
out of five booze or something.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Yes, five out of five boos I hope and that
that was also to me too as a kid. I
was also a library kid that spent a lot of
time in libraries, reading and trying to learn about everything
outside of my small town Texas. And I hope this
book gives you if you never travel to these parts
of the world, the Philippines, Switzerland, the the Alps, like
you know, any of these monsters, you know, cool interesting places,
(22:44):
you can always open a book and find it, whether
it's this book or any book in the library. That
that was something that was very important to me was
the access that books give you as a kid.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
That's so like that tugs at my heart strings, you know,
making the world accessible, you know, with just you know,
a pile of paper, right, It's like the doors that
that can open and the kind of the ripples that
it can create. You know, I read books like this
when I was a kid. So I'm so excited for
another little weirdo out there to grab your book and
(23:18):
to be inspired and to see what they come up with.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's all very, very exciting.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And so, you know, speaking of our background and our upbringing,
we're both Texas ghoulies, and Texas has such a rich
history and folklore.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Are there any.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Texas specific ghosts or cryptids or any legends that particularly
stand out to you and that maybe you think are
underappreciated in a sense.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
So I in the book, I touch on Laidona. She's
in here, so there's a whole story on that. But
she obviously is kind of like the star of Texas folklore.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
She gets her own movie.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
She's the Beyonce Ye ghost if you will, if you.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Will, So she gets her own movies, she gets everything.
But I think my favorite short, like like like urban
legend I should say, from Texas was actually, have you
covered this the San Antonio school bus massacre?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, yeah, I've heard. Is that the one with the
railroad truck?
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yes, I haven't covered it yet, Okay, in future, Yeah,
definitely in the future, possibly a visit to the site itself.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Well, we shall see, Yes, just.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
To quickly touch on it, that was one of my
favorites San Antonio. There's a school bus, there's a railroad track,
apparently where a school bus of children was crossing and
was hit by a trained and brutally murdered in a
dark and dangerous way. And now everyone says that if
you dry your car a night and you approach that
railroad station, you park on the train tracks, that something
(25:06):
will push you to safety off the train. I've also
heard it told that if you sprinkle a little baby
powder on the back of the car, you will find
tiny little handprints that helped push your car to safety.
So that to me was always terrifying one because you're
a kid who rides a school bus and goes, wait
a minute, I can.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Die whoa hold on pause?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, terrifying.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
And then obviously like the the the way I heard
it was very urban legendie so and So's cousin went
to go there and saw it the other night, just
two weeks ago, you know, and so that.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
If I was there and they pissed her car.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Exactly and so fell very close to homes that one
I love. And I just never haven't seen that around yet.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Have you visited those tracks? Before I smell a trip,
I start a road trip. Yeah, I definitely remember hearing
that story growing up, growing up as well, I had
never been so thankful to be a pick up drop off,
yeah kid in that moment.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, such a good one, for sure.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
There was also there was a similar one that happened
somewhere in the Rio Grande Valley where the bus was
it allegedly drove off into this kind of like water reservoir.
And so now that whole areas is said to be haunted.
All I need to I can't remember what city it
happened in, but anyone from the Organda Valley, if you're
hearing this and you know where it's at, please let
(26:29):
us know because similar story with you know, a bus
full of children. You know what is more sad and
traumatic than that, right, losing so many young innocent lives
and then the stories that kind of come from that.
But yeah, definitely those those tracks in San Antonio is
a very popular one that I will cover in the
future for sure. So on the other side of this,
(26:52):
you know, horror is often kind of dismissed as just
purely just for entertainment purposes, there's nothing deeper behind it.
Do you think that horror does play a role in
reflecting on I mean, we're already talking about it on
societal fears and cultural illnesses or issues rather, especially within
the Latina community.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah, definitely, I think the Latin community, for me, is
very steeped into supernatural.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I don't know how.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I mean, obviously it's in your podcast, so I know,
But so much of just the stories we tell with
each other, the myth, the legends, the history is all
steeped in something kind of slightly supernatural. There's healing, there's prayer,
there's all kinds of like power that we find in
the spaces that we live and kind of like the
communities that we build around us. So to me, the
(27:43):
supernatural very prevalent in just our culture, in our community,
And so the idea that like horror, which is one
step beyond now we've got vampires and monsters and ghulis
and spooks, is very close. And so't it wasn't that
far of a departure to like make horror such a
big part of our community. And I do agree that
like horror is usually treated as kind of like a
(28:05):
like a funny, silly, la ha like genre and it's
not that serious, it's never literary, et cetera. But to me,
horror is on the bleeding edge of culture. Here it
writers of horror tackling new fears that plague us like
every day, and that can include old fears that are
very familiar to us, you know, man versus nature, man
versus man, man versus monster, but then it also plagues
(28:28):
like new fears all the time. That can include things
like like climate change, like watching our communities change. It
can include toxic love, changing roles within a home. It
can talk about war, It can talk about disease. It
can talk about technology. It can talk about human brutality
against each other. Or it could even just like the fear,
(28:49):
can just be a place unknown. It can be flesh
and blood like someone you know. It can be an
unfathomable cosmic entity.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It can be a thing, a feeling, a.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Place like Horror lives in all of these places. So
to me, yes, it's entertainment, but it really is dredging
up some of these things that we carry with us
from generation to generation.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
And I love that.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Horror allows us a space to kind of play with it,
deal with it, approach it, uncover it, and kind of
tackle it together as like readers and as a community.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Also I like that you mentioned that it's not like
the love or the appreciation of horror is not a
far card from the way that many of us were raised.
My kind of working theory around that is because a lot,
if not the majority, of Latina people are raised in
the church, are raised Catholic. And so I've always said
(29:47):
that Catholicism is it's inherently spooky. You're telling me that
we gather as a as a group, as a coven
once a week and we chant and we sing and
we praise a deity who is who came back to
life and is also by the way, hanging on the
wall above us with blood dripping down like that, is
(30:10):
that is horror? Like of course we're like.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Oh, yeah, no, I love this too, exactly so.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And then but but don't go into hot topic because aos.
But you better believe believe that we're going to be
lighting our candles, yes, and maybe even going to get
our cards read, depending on what kind of Catholic you are.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yes, I think Catholicism and just like Christianity and religion
is one way of approaching kind of like the fears
and the unknown of the world, and yes, many of
us did and the like there's so many and like
everything it's just like a general appreciation that there's other
worldly effects taking place every day, that our prayers have
power and meaning, whether it's praying to a religion specific
(30:49):
god or just praying for the safety of our family,
like that has power. And yeah, just like somehow that's
all just built into how we were raised. Very all
of that was very real to us.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, and I'm sure it applies to
many other religions, but it's just again, that's.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
That was my experience. That's what I know.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So I'm like, yeah, I remember, it's like I'm eating it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, you have blood? What this is heavy metal? So true.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
I remember being a kid being like, can you explain
the Seven Deadly Sins one more time? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Please, I need to run down.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
So, Anastosia, have you had.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Your own encounters with the paranormal?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yes, I think I think everyone.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I don't know, maybe it's just everyone. My whole family.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
We spent so much time sitting around a bonfire when
the sun was setting, and that she chatted their humming
in the distance like that was very familiar to me,
and everyone in my family somehow had a.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Brush with the paranormal. In some regards.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
So these were just stories we shared after dinner, just
like casual. And I'll share one story. I've had so many,
like you know, footstep, myospheries, footsteps, haunted houses that I've
lived in, doors opening sounds in the distance. But there's
one that's very Texas that I'll share with this group
and let me see if I can, let me see
if I can find Okay, I just had some notes
(32:09):
on like trying to remember setting my stage. Yeah, this,
this story actually inspired one of the stories in here.
This one of the stories called the Drums of War
is about a girl who visits a haunted battle site
and like slips into the time, slip back in time.
And so when I was younger, I don't know if you,
or maybe lots of little Texas kids visited a battlefield.
(32:31):
There were many of them in Texas. A battlefield and
the field that we visited when I was a kid.
I'm not going to say which one because I kind
of want every Texas kid to feel like it's the
one right next to them. Most of the battlefields are
just generally open fields. The one I went to had
like little pavilions and picnic tables and like a visitor
center and it had like a giant circle driveway that
(32:52):
had a bunch of trees, and we went we saw everything,
and everybody was getting ready to load up to go
back on the buses. And for a minute, cousin and
I kind of like wandered off, which is obviously the
first step in a horror movie, right, We wandered off,
and we were kind of playing and we were talking,
we're laughing, we're just joking around, totally not looking for
anything scary. And for a minute, it uh, it got
(33:16):
supper quiet. We couldn't see the busses anymore, and everything
came way down. It's like all the sounds that the
kids were gone. There were no there was no wind
in the trees, there were no leaves, there was nothing.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
And it felt weird.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
It feel for that moment like, wait, something's wrong, something's
a little off.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
And I had.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
This feeling like somebody was watching us. And obviously we
were in a group full of kids, but somehow we
were on our own, and all of a sudden, it
felt like someone was watching us. And I was looking
around for a minute, like is something weird? Am I
just feeling something strange? And in the trees. All the
trees that lined the driveway of this thing was filled
(33:56):
with blackbirds, hundreds of them, but not making any sound,
no cawing, no birds, no feathers, nothing.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
And I was like, oh, no, something's happening.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
It's like there was a there was a feeling, a
palpable feeling of like something is wrong. And I was like,
am I going nuts? But then I looked over to
my cousin and she's looking at me too, and the
both of us are like, something is happening, something weird
is going on. All of a sudden, sound came back
in the sound of footsteps in the grass, and we
(34:26):
were looking around like where is that coming from? And
then another set of footsteps and then crunch, crunch, crunch,
Cuntry County country, country, crunch, hundreds of footsteps all around us,
and we booked it. I was like, I don't know
what it was, where it was. We went flying back
to the school of us. We were like, do not
separate us.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
We're going home.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
But something about like the dead silence, the fear that
there was no sound happening, and then the first thing
we hear is footsteps lots terrifying.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Oh my god, that sent a chill up my spot
and just yeah, I think something that I think is
very clear to anyone who listens to Sustore or maybe
who even also just loves I'll say ghost Stories is
the tie between history.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And the paranormal is very real.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
The tie between trauma and the paranormal is very very real.
I'd say that almost every episode. But yeah, because of
history and major events in history, and so I think
that's why when you if you've ever done any of
those like haunted bar crawls in major cities, it's always
somewhere historic, and so it ends up being like a
history tour. But I'm like, yeah, that makes perfect sense,
(35:42):
of course, Like you know, these long standing places or
places where big events happen, it makes total sense that
there would be activity there.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
I think places have memory and they carry the trauma
of let's say an event or just the weight of
the mini live that have affected it. If energy is
something that we give off in something that when we
die just dissipates into the universe like there, I think
places can hold.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
On to that like a sponge.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
And in that moment I really felt it like this
place has a memory and this is what I'm feeling.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I love that. Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Thank you well, thank you so so so much for
being here today, for sharing with us, and before you
let people know where they can follow you and find
your book, we do have a very special announcement. I
guess you could say this is actually a second copy
(36:37):
that you sent me, because we are giving it away
to one very lucky winner, and this is a signed
copy and they will also be getting a pack of
stickers that you sent with this. So make sure that
you follow both myself and Anastasia on social media to
learn how to enter the giveaway.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
That will have all the rules.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And a and also the deadline for when this will
be happening. So thank you so much for sending this
over and for.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Doing this giveaway with me.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Can you please let people know where they can find
you online and where they can find Ghostly Ghastly Tales.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yes, Ghostly Ghastly Tails.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
You can find it anywhere Amazon, Barnesmoble dot com, your
local bookstore if you'd like to support, Just search Ghostly
Ghastly Tails and you'll find us. You can find me
at Anastasia Rights dot com. That's my website, but I
also am on Instagram, That's where I'm most lively, Anastasia writes,
and then also on Twitter a Garcia underscore rights if
you so choose. But I can also share something special
(37:39):
with you as well, a new announcement. So this is
you might notice it says frights to tell at Night. Well,
this is actually book one in a series and book two.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Is coming soon.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Oh my god, get breaking. You heard it here first
on sustill k S s t O Breaking the spooking news.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
That is so exciting. Do you have a rough timeline
of when the second one will be?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Yeah, and the second one should be coming out? Is
the second one is going to be all about monsters
and the outdoors and it's campfire story themed.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
So you can expect it in time for summer camp
next year. So get ready for summer season. It'll be
coming out next year.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Well, congratulations and what a treat for all of us.
That is definitely I'm definitely looking forward to that one.
I will be adding it to myselves as well.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Well. Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
I'm sorry to take a moment.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, I just can I take a moment to thank
you for being such a leader amongst our community in
sharing these stories from generation to generation. Like I honestly
believe that humans have been storytellers for the end of
time and there are a few of us who carry
the torch of storytelling from generation to generation, and I
(38:51):
truly think you were one of us. You take the
time to gather the stories, to keep them, to retell them,
and keep them alive. So thank you Aiden for all
the work that you do on this podcast, but just
in life sharing the stories with the new generation.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I'm trying really hard not to cry because I'm a
chea on thank you that means so much.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Well, if you are a best goalfriend on Patreon, Patreon
dot com, slash Susto podcast, you will have access to
some bonus content that will be coming up next. If not,
thank you so much for listening today and anas Sasia
one more time, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
I truly appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Thank you every much.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Bye, Welcome back, girlfriends. So, if you are a best
cool friend on Patreon again, you have extra content on
(39:51):
Patreon that you can watch. If not, then you just
heard about the book giveaway. This is the signed copy
of Ghostly Ghastly Tells that Anastasia signed in here.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
To give away.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
We are doing the giveaway on Instagram, so again you
can visit an Asasia at at Anastasia Rights and me
at Sustal Podcast. We'll post a joint post on Instagram.
The rules I believe will be to follow each of
our profiles, to leave a comment of some sort and
just make sure you read the caption through. Follow all
those rules and I will announce the next winner the
(40:26):
day before the next episode, which is October tenth. As always,
if you have your own spooky story that you would
like me to share on your letters from the Beyond episode,
or if you have a photo, video recording anything you
think I should share on the socials that's at Sustal Podcast.
You can do so by sending it to Sustal Podcasts
at jenail dot com, visiting my website sustopodcast dot com,
hitting the contact button, or sending in a voice message
(40:48):
that way, leaving a five star rating or review on
Apple Podcasts, or leaving a comment on Spotify.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
So many ways to do that.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Again, follow at sustal podcast for any on all updates
on the show and to catch those live events.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Final thing I will.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Leave you with thank you so much to this episode's
Patreon subscribers. You are Liza, Sadie, Rachel, Alejandra Luther, April, Mario, Eva,
d Josette, sam Angelo and Co, Mandy, Jules, Lori, Genie, Desiree,
Anna Ashes, Nedesa, Rachel, Asusena, Rios, Marlen, Chata, Laney, Desiree, Cynthia, Sidenai, Flamenca, Belinda, Archie, Ricardo, Sera, Anastasia,
(41:28):
Vanessa and Marisa. Thank you all so so much for
your support. It truly means the world to me. You
all have a good one. I have good luck in
the giveaway. I will talk to you in the next episode,
and until then notts.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Bye,
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