057 - Daniel Braum on Creatures of Liminal Space and the Art of Atmospheric Horror - Weird Reads

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of
Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube. Welcome, Hello today, I

(00:30):
am joined by one of my friends that I've made
doing these podcasts, Daniel Brahm. It's only been about a
year and a half since you were last on. I
had to look it up because it feels like it
was like two or three years. How a long year
and a half it has been. Yeah, So how have
you been doing?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Been doing great? Yeah? Great, Great to see you again, Jason,
Thanks so much for having me back.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
For anyone who might not remember, or any new listeners,
do you mind giving yourself a a brief introduction.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I'm Daniel Brahm. I'm a writer of short stories.
Most of them land in the horror genre. I call
the stories strange Tales in homage and in the lineage
of Robert Aikman. Most of the stories are stories that
you might come to expect or find in those old
Twilight Zone shows. They're on the on the on the

(01:25):
spectrum of quiet horror, and they're often stories with that
are intentionally ambiguous, like psychological horror. A lot of play
between is what's happening psychological or supernatural.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
I really love your stories because they're I think they're
character heavy, character based stories, and also the like the strangeness,
the weirdness, the supernaturalness. It's always so low key. Sometimes
there's there's examples where it really comes at you, but
for the most part, I think it's more believable, honestly

(02:02):
because because when weird things happen, it's usually kind of
low key like that. And that's what I love about
your stories, along with the pros and your characters.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Thank you so much. Yeah, I think I think there
is a very similitude and in our lives, like when
the supernatural happens often maybe humans are built to be
like what today? Time to stop, back to life.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Life goes on now Before we get into your writing
and that. We were talking before we came on here
about facebooks and Facebook posting and I wanted to comment.
I may have commented this before, I'm not sure, but
you post a lot on Facebook, I mean a lot,
and most of you most of your posts are quite funny.

(02:49):
I was wondering, like, do you how do you come
up with them and maintain them with regular with regularity,
because that's something I would like to do, just to
keep like an engagement with like anyone who cares to read.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Oh my, I don't know if this is the expected
answer or not, but man, it's because if I'm not laughing,
I'm crying. Nine out of nine, nine out of ten
of those posts are I was gonna post something else.
I was gonna post something that was either too personal
a rant, too political, to this, or to that, and

(03:22):
I'll either take it down or I'll stop mid sentence
and I'll just try to find the humor in the situation.
So it's definitely like if I'm not it's if I'm
not laughing, I'm crying.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I that makes a lot of sense because a lot
of there's a lot of things that you talk about
that you sort of make fun of. And I wouldn't
say make fun of if you make light of, well
not even that you just turn it into like something
funny that could be drastically bad. But you know, you
do go onto the serious stuff too, like when you

(03:53):
can tell when something's really bothering you because there's no funniness,
you're just yeah, straight edge here, like this is this
is be and we need to talk about this.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, And I guess and sometimes it's because you know,
I yep, I you know, I live alone and sometimes
sometimes yeah, one of the look there's there's ills about
the modern world and social media, but sometimes sometimes it's
all we have, you know, So it's like, yeah, sometimes
the real event posts are yeah because it's it's a
real event. And I appreciate Facebook and some other places

(04:24):
as being the place where I really get to stay
in touch with people. Otherwise it would be harder to do.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
So Yeah. I also noticed on Facebook recently you posted
that your your series on your own YouTube channel, Nighttime Logic,
the seasonal readings are coming back, which I was really
excited to see. I'd like to We've talked about this before,
but I would like to talk about it again because

(04:51):
I think it's a really cool thing that you're doing.
And I have to admit I've often contemplated stealing your
idea working with it.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
What I did.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
What idea is that?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Please? Stand please? There are no original ideas, only how
we you know, use them.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Just the whole concept. It's like you see uh in
New York City, what's the name of that famous bar
where they're always holding uh.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Oh kgb kg b a g B.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, there's always the live readings at the KGB, So
this is sort of like people who can't go to KGB,
you can just you can tune into night Time Logic
with Daniel Brahm and catch some really cool readings there.
Can you can you tell us what it is and
where people can find it.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, so Nighttime Logic. The name of the series is
inspired by the modality that I think Robert Aikman and
Shirley Jackson and those kind of people writing. That's the
parts of the stories that are felt but not necessarily
consciously processed. The term itself was coined by author. I

(06:01):
believe it was comed by author Howard Waldrop if I'm
not mistaken, and I thought it was a cool name
for the reading series. God it's been running, maybe it's
running almost ten years before COVID times we would do it.
We would do Nighttime Logic in KGV bar. We did
Nighttime Logic and the Lovecraft Bar and Gregie Village when

(06:22):
it was still around. And I've been fortunate enough to
have guests ranging from the best that we have like
Sarah Langen, Peter Straub, Victa Laval too, people who've never
published a short story before or I've only published one,
so I'm really that's something that I feel really good about.

(06:43):
And I also feel really good about that. Yeah, it's
something that I'm really fortunate. I live near New York
and I have so much available to me. But if
you don't, sometimes he thinks can be harder. And I
just want to be able to do a small part
in bringing that there. So that was a surprise question.
So I have a surprise question or two back for you.

(07:05):
If I did, I was going to talk about this,
you know, backstage when we're off. But yeah, maybe we
could convince, uh convince you to guest host one with me.
Or I was going to ask you if you wanted
to be a reader one of the ones coming up.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
So absolutely that would be awesome. Yeah, just let me know.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it off
the Animal'll set it up.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Awesome. Now, you just are depending on when this drops.
I was going to drop this probably around the release day,
so we'll just say that it's out already.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
You recently dropped a new collection of short stories. It's
called Creatures of Luminal Space, and I, for the longest time,
this is a really silly fact about me. I thought
that luminal was spelt with a U after the L,
and I was trying to type it out and I'm like,

(08:04):
why is this not working? And of course spell check
didn't know what I was trying to say. It was
too early in the word where my mistake was, and
I'm like, I does this word really exist? And then
finally I had to look it up and I looked
up your book and it was like, oh, spelt with
eyes and there's no you.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, I hopen. I do that with rock songs a lot,
and sometimes with British British. Yeah, I'm an American, so,
like you know, Commonwealth country sometimes have those Britishism spellings
about them. And also being a writer, of course, my
skill set is to be absolutely abysmal grammar and spelling.
So you're reaching to the choir, right.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
I love it when you misspell a word. It's the
misspelling parts at the beginning, so your word processor has
no idea what you're trying to say, and it takes
you five minutes to find the right spelling. Absolutely so
Creatures of Luminal Space and I love that title though,

(09:09):
because I love the idea of luminal space. This collection
itself is a little different than most of your collections, though,
as there's pieces of flash fiction separating the longer short stories,
it kind of feels intentional. So I was wondering what
inspired the creation of this collection?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, thanks, thanks, So you know, great great layered question there,
And yeah, the book is going to be out in
wide release on June first, but you can definitely get
it if the episode happens to drop earlier still, they
can still get it or order it at the publisher,
which is Jacket Apes Press. And I mentioned Jacket Apes
Press because that is the answer to the question how

(09:51):
the collection came about was Jacketabes Press is a micro
small press run by illustrator and publisher Dance Hour and Dan.
Dan is a friend and colleague of mine who I've
been working with for a number of years. I first
worked with Dan in the pages of a zine that
he did called Wow Now Now now It's now it's

(10:14):
slipping my mind, the The Audience Void, The Audience Void.
He was the one of the editors for that, and
I had a story in there, and Dan had done
the design in illustrat and we became friends because of that,
and I was like, Wow, something I'd love to work
with him. And when I had the opportunity to have
input on a cover artist for the Cemetery Dance reissue

(10:38):
of The night Marchers and Other Strange Tales, I immediately
suggested Dan for that and it was a really great experience.
We worked really well together. Dan came up with a
really great cover and we'd been talking, we've just been
on the on the lookout, like, hey, we need to
we need to do an illustrated project together. We need
to do an illustrated project together. And I pitched him
the idea of doing a chat book for his company,

(11:00):
which is Jack and Apes Press, and they do he
does small press stuff. He just you know, illustrated editions
like that. And when it came time to go into
production for the book, Creatures of Liminals Base, which is
what you hold in your hands, here's the Dan the
Dan Seller cover hero. It's an arc. It's got the

(11:22):
bar across there. When it came time for it, we
were having so much fun working on it and we
were just talking about production stuff and Dan it was like, well,
we've got we've got some extra page count. It's still
going to be you know, we're talking about the you know,
the numbers and the nuts and bolts. It's like, do
you have more material? And I was like at first,
I was like no, you know, I really don't and
I write so slow. But during the pandemic, a friend

(11:45):
of mine had helped me recover forty eight pieces of
flash fiction. I had wrote them a long time ago
for a project called The Daily Cabal. I don't believe
it's still on the internet, but it was an internet
project that ran for a few years. It was a
bunch of writers, maybe twenty maybe give or tape writers.

(12:08):
And the idea is every day a writer just had
to you had to post a piece of flash fiction
when it was your day, like you had some notice,
you had a few weeks notice. So that ran for
and this is back in you know, like like two
two thousand seven and nine, and for a few years,
whenever it was my day, you know, every couple of weeks,
I had to come up with a piece of flash fiction.

(12:30):
And so that that's when I wrote the stuff. And
then when I realized that hey, this is the creatures
a little piece of project was going to expand I thought, wow,
maybe that's the right material for it, uh, And then
it was a process of taking those forty eight pieces
of flash fiction and sorting them for the project. So

(12:51):
some of them you go back and you read it
and you're like, that's a stinker. Let's let that one
go into the garbage fail history. Okay, that one's decent,
but that's that's that's that's wild, that's out there. So
I was really sorting them to see which would fit
perhaps thematically with the idea of creatures of liminal space.
Like I was looking for stories that either had some

(13:11):
sort of a liminality to it or some sort of
a cryptid to it, or maybe one or two of
them had both, and pitched it, pitched it to Dan
and he really liked the idea, and it became a
really unique, a different project.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Well, that certainly is i've, I've and thank you for
sending the e arc along. That was I got, So
I got like a sneak peek at that's at the
art that's going to be in there, and it's really beautiful.
Did you have any communication with Dan about that, like
what you wanted or did he read the stories and
come up with his own ideas.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah. The way we worked on this was I. I
gave him a just a very basic I think I
think there's fifteen stories in there, so for each of them,
each of the stories, I maybe gave him one lie.
And it wasn't like, you know, do a picture of

(14:08):
a bird. It was just like I just I read,
I read through it, and I just I jotted a
couple of notes of because I know the way Dan works.
He works in a photo montage style and like a
mosaic clage. So I just thought I thought of things
that might might be things that might help inspire him
if he didn't read the stories, or things that I

(14:30):
thought would be a cool detail if he could pick
up on. So that was that was the way we
collaborated on them. And then with the cover was the
thing that we was most most of a collaboration. When
I say collaboration, you know ninety nine percent Dan, Do
you like it? Yeah? And can we add this? Can

(14:52):
we change that? So yeah, I think it's a I
didn't collaborate with him on his amazing art, just kind
of try to do my best to inspire him. And
that that's what's exciting about working with Dan is like
to see he has such a unique vision that I
that I really like and just seeing what he comes
up with is just so it's just so much fun.

(15:12):
It was and it was a it was an absolute
it was an absolute pleasure doing the project. Yeah, oh yeah,
could I couldn't. I couldn't say anything better about the
whole project.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Well, what's that like? Like when you get to collaborate
with somebody that you absolutely admire like that, is it
very like it's got to be rewarding.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, it's just rewarding and it's just exciting. Like I
think there's two ends of the spectrum. Sometimes you can
be like, oh my god, that's exactly what I wanted
to see. You'd be like, wow, I always wanted an
image like that, And the only thing better than that
is the other end of the spectrum, when you're like,
I had no idea I wanted to see that, but that,
but that's awesome. I didn't think of it. I didn't

(15:54):
imagine it like that, and you thought of it like that,
and you're just like wow, that's that's where I think
the real sparks are flying for me. I'm just like, yes,
I had a lot of that, you know, And he's like, hey,
what do you And Dan is so and Dan is
so humble and so down to earth the bout He's like,
what do you you know? When he said when you
said through the image, He's like, Hey, what do you

(16:15):
think of this? And You're just like, you're so sad.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
That's awesome. The second story, like, as we mentioned, there's
there's some flash fictions, and I'm going to get you
to read one in a second here because this story
spoke to me because I've I've had instances in my
life where I've I've suffered from like sleep paralysis and

(16:41):
other kind of like nightmare syndromes. I don't know what
else to call it other than sleep paralysis, but I
was wondering if Breath Steeler is that about night terrors
and late night and trus up thoughts, like deep down.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, I think it is. Breath Steeler was one of
those stories that when I recovered it and revisited it,
I was I had no memory of writing it. I
was like wow, because I, yeah, I suffer from sleep
sleep disorders. I'm being treated, but this is before or
maybe at the beginning of the long process of being treated.

(17:18):
That's something I really feel super comfortable talking about other
than in general ways about saying like, yeah, it's definitely
categorically about sleep disorders, but also some of the emotion,
the emotionality, yeah, that goes with.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
It, waking up with shadows.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah. So I bugged you, as I usually do, because
I love your readings. I was going to get you
to read a couple of stories and this is one
of them, breath Stealer. Oh and so if you don't mind,
we could get into that right now.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's an absolute pleasure to be asked to read, and
it's never a bugging, quite the opposite, and I'd be
happy to read it, all right, Okay, this is a
breath stealer from Creatures of Liminal Space. Breath Steeler comes
at night, when the line between what is and what

(18:14):
was is weakest. At first, she came to me as
a shadowy black hat, waking me in the night, her
jaguar weight on my belly, pause on my shoulders, immobilizing me.
I thought she was an ancient curse I picked up
in the deeper the rainforest, a manifestation of a vengeful spirit,

(18:36):
brought home from a jungle covered pyramid on one of
my long journeys of self discovery. Surely she was vengeance
incarnate here because of the sins of my youth, my
arrogance and ignorance rivaling that of the conquistadors, a trail
of emotional destruction left in the lives I touched. I

(18:57):
often woke with breath steeler pinning me, and I was
filled with thoughts of my past transgressions, lovers, quarrels risen
to screaming matches, low blow words gone devastatingly too far,
the seething yet resigned look on my true loves, my
last love's face as she left me on the side

(19:19):
of the road in the middle of the night, I
felt my air, my life, leaving along with all those things.
Later on, I thought breast Dealer was a blessing, some
angelic incarnation here to reward me for all the pain
I've felt. I often woke to find an ethereal woman,

(19:42):
into aphanous white hovering near me, misty, gentle hands pressing
me with a lover's grace. Thoughts of things long gone,
the secret things, the little moments I shared with ex
lovers and ex friends filled me. In the last note
my true love, my last love wrote me, she asked

(20:04):
where do all the good things go. Now where do
I put them? I ask breath Steeler this. Now she
only kisses me, and I feel my air, my life
leaving along with all these things. My doctor told me
I will die if I don't do something. Not enough

(20:26):
oxygen when I sleep, a condition called hyper this and
toxic that I only know sleep is troubled. Breath Stealer
comes to me now in a form I know well.
I waken the night to find something that looks just
like me sitting next to me on the bed. It

(20:47):
touches my forehead with the back of its hand, and
all the details go till all that is left are congealed,
notions of moments of all the days, all the years,
a life boiled down to talking points and topic sentences.
I know now breast Dealer is not a curse nor

(21:08):
a blessing. And I was born dying, as was each
moment that passes. I sleep better now, I still know.
Breast Dealer comes at night when the line between what
is and what will be is shifting.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
All right? Thank you? You know that story also kind
of reminds me of like that moment I think most
people have when they get maybe a little bit older,
when the realization hits that one day you're gonna die.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
What mortality gets you?

Speaker 1 (21:47):
Because I think you know that, Like my son, he
knows that, but it hasn't set in yet. He doesn't
have the mortal fear of that yet. He probably still
thinks that he's immortal, as we all do when young,
even though we know we're going to die. Like for me,
I was thirty five, when the realization hits like this
is going to happen. You're going to die one day.

(22:09):
So it kind of reminds me of that too, Oh
thank you, which is a kind of a dark thing.
That's what we're here for, right.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
Not even laughing about it. It's exactly what we're here,
you know. I mean, I think in this society and
in this world, I think it's sort of taboo or
it's not. It's not quote unquote polite conversation to talk
about ommortality and death. And I think that's what leads
to maybe a lot of negative negativity around it. And
yeah it is, Yeah, it is a dark thing, but

(22:39):
this world is light and it's dark, and I feel
better talking about it, and I feel better when when
when people talk about it, and uh, because it's scary.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, it is a lot of these stories take place
in South America in a country I think it is
called Belize, Is that it?

Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, well yeah, yeah, the longer ones are are believes.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
You've done a lot of traveling, so I'm assume I
assume that you've been there.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yep. Once upon a time when I used to travel,
I was fortunate enough to go there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
What, I really love these stories that take place there
because they have that dream like quality we've spoke of before, that,
you know, pep, even though people are awake, it's it's
like they're moving through dreams because something kind of strange
is happening just under the surface. And that's what I

(23:36):
love about these stories. But the first half to three
quarters of these take place there, but then it moves,
and so the last part doesn't. I was wondering if
this was a conscious decision or did maybe did you
plan at first to have all the stories take place
there but then decided not to for some reason?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, I think it was just it was just fortuitous
that are either either good or bad that we had
two in Belize and you know, one in the Southwest,
or h why couldn't we have three different places, or
why can we had all three believes? You know, I
think it was just when when writing the stories that
I was they weren't being written necessarily to be together.
They were just being written that way, and it was

(24:18):
just sort of luck of the draw and sort of
fortuitous that they seem to go together as a set.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah, it really makes like a sort of feel like
a theme in the book. It really has like a
feeling of that. I'm assuming that maybe was that was
a happy accident? Then, Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
What I think at first, at first of my writing,
when people say, oh, this is a book and it
has a theme of this or a theme of that,
at first I would definitely say, yes, it's a happy accident.
And I still, to answer your question directly, I still
would say yes, it was a happy accident. But I
felt like I was trying to set the conditions for
that accident, like in terms of writing the three story

(25:00):
that made the larger thing. I can no longer say
it's a happy accident. Because now that I'm much older
and more experienced and more knowledgeable about genres and modalities
and tropes, I'm now definitely aware of the area that
I naturally write in and I write to that, you know,
like that's part of my process. So so to to

(25:23):
have things be a strange tale, to have things be liminal,
to have things be intentionally ambiguous, those themes are I'm
certainly working in that intentionally. And then when I chose
the flash fictions, I was definitely choosing the ones that
had the natural we So yeah, I think I think

(25:44):
the it was a happy accident in the drafting, but
then in the sequencing it was much more, much more
acting with intention and awareness trying to put that together
that way.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, excuse me, h, this isn't your first rodeo though
with like exploring you know, like luminal spaces, I would
say the majority of your work is is kind of
an exploration of that. So I was wondering what draws
you to explore concepts of illuminality and does it stem

(26:20):
at all from personal experiences or perhaps just a fascination
with the in between?

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I think I think all the above. I think when
it comes back to it again, just from going back
to the beginning of what excites me about fiction is
before I knew any of these words or troops or
or where what things are, which is fun for us
as writers to you know, categorize and classify and pick

(26:48):
it apart and see what makes it tick. I love
doing that. But before I did any of that or
even knew anything about that, I love the sort of
stories like or movies or stories where you and your
friends could do, like look at a story and have
two different two totally different. Hey did you see that?

(27:08):
Did you see that ghost in that story in the end? Oh,
you thought that was a ghost? I thought that it
was all in his mind. I'd like, Oh, I like
loved and you're both right, like none of you are
wrong and none of you are right, and you could
have like a really interesting discussion. I had no idea
what you called that or what that was. I just
loved those kind of stories and I'd love to seek
them out. You know, they seem to be you know,

(27:31):
rarer and fewer far between. And as I became a writer,
I realized, Oh, those are the ones that I want
to write things like that. And as I became more
and more experienced as a writer and more and more
educated writer, I realized who the people were that did
that or what that was called and where it's place was.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, I love that that idea too, when you're talking
about a story with somebody and they have like a
different grasp than you, Like, I really when you said
that about uh oh, I thought it was all in
their head and it was like, oh my god, that's
such a great idea, right right right, just imagine right,
like and then you get all excited and uh.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
And you can see like, oh, okay, I'm totally wrong.
I missed that. I missed that thing. Or yeah, you
could be like, oh it was you know. Yeah. Just
just it adds a level of interactivity between the self.
I mean, there already is that thing going on, but
it feels like there's something there's so much extra spark
in charge of interaction between between the story and and
the reader or and even other readers.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, now there's there is another theme at least in
one of the stories of addiction that I haven't really
noticed from you too much before Creatures. Uh, this one
tackles it directly. In Phantom Constellations, I believe, mm hmm,
there's a there's some partaking of drugs, but it goes

(28:56):
much deeper than that. Uh, can you talk to us
a little bit about that story?

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah? Yeah, Like I feel like as as you said
that like the light and I think the light kind
of came on outside that it's sort of like.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
A like I think is coming.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, I know, I didn't. I didn't think of phantom
constellations at first. For a second, I was like, oh
my god, which story is that? I didn't think of
phantom constellations asn't necessarily being a story about addiction, But
how could like, wow, how could I not see that
the main the main character is a recovered addict, and
a lot of the spectative elopment, the whole the whole
story is about a you know, it is about like

(29:38):
a drug fuel desert adventure. You know, so drugs are
That is a story about drugs. I didn't necessarily think about.
I don't know a lot about addiction. I don't. I
think when I was crafting that character, I wanted to

(30:01):
have that character be I want to have him be
a caretaker of a character, and I also wanted there
to be a lot at stake for the character. When
I definitely knew that this was going to be a
story about hey, was what the character's experience real or
was it something to do with the drugs? And what
was at stake for this character. It made perfect sense

(30:22):
that the character would be pushing himself to be able
to do this, so like, to be able to take
care of people who are still in the throes of
recreational drug use is something that's probably dangerous for an addict.
And yeah, that's where I think the decision to have
him to have that element of addiction came from.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, I think I liked the main character there because
he's he's pretty strong in the fact that he was
in a he is a recovering addict himself, and yet
he's hanging around these people who are, like you said,
doing recreate recreational drugs and he's like, they keep offering
them stuff and he's like, no, I'm here to take

(31:07):
care of you guys. And then there's one point where
they're all out in the desert tripping out and he's like, yeah,
I'm gonna go to bed now. That was that was.
I love that story, Thank you, And you know what,
I love it when you write about the desert. I
still remember that one story where they were in the

(31:28):
desert and they were like playing guitar under the full
moon with those amps. That's just like, oh my god,
that sticks in my head. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
That was the moon in the Mesa from the night
Marchers And yeah, yeah, Phantom Constellations is a desert story
and creatures of limital space, and yeah, my inspiration. I
talked about this a lot. My inspiration comes from setting,
and the desert is just such a place of inspiration
for me that I hope. I'm glad that that shows
if that comes across the.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Stories that it does, because I absolutely love your desert stories.
Every time it's like, oh, here we're in the desert. Awesome,
that's gonna be cool.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Do you do.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
You get to the desert very often?

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Oh? I yearned for it. I have not been in
a really long time. I used to live in California,
so when I lived in California, it was relatively an
easy thing to do. But now I'm in New York.
It's a plane ride away, and I have not been
in a very long time. But I think about it
a lot.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah. Have you ever been on those overnight expeditions into
the deep desert.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
I'm not sure what I've stayed. I've done off road camping, yeah,
for I'm not sure if it was an expedition, but
I've gone on my my own expeditions overnight for Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
So yeah, I guess a vision quest. Yeah yeah, did
you ever meet God?

Speaker 2 (32:55):
No? You know, but I mean one of my vision
quests was not even a vision quest. It was it's
no surprise, it's not a jaguar. But I was definitely
obsessed with mountain lions, and I was just like, Hey,
I'm gonna where are the mountain lions where they supposed
to be. It took all my vacation time. I think
I spent ten days or even more doing this, like
real off road camping looking for mountain lions. Mountain lions

(33:18):
not didn't meet God, didn't meet the God of mountain lions.
When I went back to work the next day, I
was on my hike before work. There was a fog bank,
and in that fog bank there was my mountain lion.
Encountered that mountain lion, like right close to home. So
sometimes we go seeking for adventure, and sometimes adventure finds us.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Oh so here's a question, how does this book reflect
your broader literary style or personal philosophy.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, that one. That that's an easy question in that
I feel like these these the three stories, the three
short stories, I feel like are strange tales. And for me,
a strange tale is a story that is meant to
be intentionally ambiguous and can be read to be with

(34:18):
question to the reader, is what happened literal supernatural? Or
is what happened psychological? And the answer to that is
of not consequence to the enjoyment of the story or
to necessarily the outcome of the characters and their humanistic arts.

(34:38):
So in that way, I feel I feel really good
about these stories and that I feel like they were
at the time of the writing, they were like my
state of the art, Like, these are the stories I
always wanted to write. I always wanted to write with
awareness and control strange tales and the flash fictions act
as a nice setting around them. The flash frictions aren't

(34:59):
necessary early strange tales. They may be strange in the
the literal sense of the word.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Mm hmm, Okay, I think maybe it's time for another reading,
if you're.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Up for it, I'd love to.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
I think you chose because I chose the first one
and you chose the second one. Yeah, I believe that's
human impersonation day.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, that's a great one too. That's a great strange story.
Literal sense of the word. And yeah, let's read that one.
And that that is actually the last story written for
the book, so that was not even though it's a
flash fiction, that was not one of the flash fictions
I wrote way back when. That was a more recent

(35:46):
piece of flash fiction. So let me just go to
the table contents, call it up here, and we'll give
it a read. This is called Human Impersonation Day, and
I'll take this time. Let's see if let's see if
it comes out. This is This is one of the

(36:07):
illustrations when Dan Souer and I think I didn't get
a chance to do the other one. We could do
the illustration for Breath Stealer, which is such a cool
interpretation of that story. So it's fun to show those illustrations.

(36:27):
And here's Human Impersonation Day. Human Impersonation Day comes once
a year. My sister and I have our pockets full
of shiny things and are trying to get to the
rooftop unnoticed. Last year, I made it backstage for the

(36:48):
Van Halen concert at Nassau Coliseum and placed green candies
in all the dressing rooms. She went to the Museum
of Knives and the Catskills and left quizzical poems on
strips of black paper for the staff. Defined that day,
she broke the rules of reverse thieving, though, and absconded

(37:12):
with one of the blades. Outside the windows of the
New York City Skyline pretends to be permanent. Let me
read that again. Outside the windows of the New York
City Skyline pretends to be permanent, its reflection shimmering in
the Hudson. The humans here are costumed in dancing. We'll

(37:35):
have to weave through them to get to the stairs.
Look that one is dressed as Edgar Allan Poe. My
sister whispers, Poe. I say, it comes out almost like
a human word. My sister's disappointed look shows concern I
might blow our secret, that we are more than we seen.

(38:00):
She doesn't know that I have a secret too. I
didn't tell her the truth when I agreed to join
her mission. Ooh, great costume, wondered you. Instead of answering,
I give the human guarding the stairs a chocolate coin,
a paper flower, and a squid made of sparkling gold

(38:22):
sludge from my pocket. HM. Still can't let you pass.
The King of the rooftop is up there tonight. I
know I produce more honika gelt, a bottle cap, a
polished dime, a priceless ancient silver coin, a steel screw

(38:43):
from the glasses you lost last summer. My sister shakes
her head condescendingly, then takes the man's hands in hers,
looks into his mind, and gives him a glimpse of
the world between worlds. His blue left eye widens. I

(39:03):
want to poke it out and eat it. Then we
are ascending in the inelegant manner of non winged things.
A peacock my sister once knew, is parading on the
line where the rooftop crosses into dreams. Things that look
like childs impersonations of birds dance with humans on a

(39:27):
mosaic floor. The tiles depict spirits eating birds, birds eating spirits,
all of them entwined with the serpents from the king
of the Rooftop's head. I thought we'd have to get
him alone, spinning. Humans don't notice our approach. There dance
mirrors their lives outside the rooftop. Those lives are mirror

(39:49):
of the solar system, of the universe, of everything. My
sister puts poems in the king's pockets, songs in his mind,
soft pecks on his face, st how it pleases me.
I think I will take it. Give me your knife.
Why I'm not changing back. That's not the way this works.

(40:14):
I love my sister, despite her pension for rules she
thinks will stave off meaninglessness. I reveal my secret in
my question, sister, will you visit me next year on
Human Impersonation Day when I am king of this rooftop
the peacock chortals in approval of what is about to come.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Awesome, handclap, thank you. So do you remember writing that one?

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, that one was written pretty relatively recently, because that
was written for it originally appeared in the Weird Fiction Quarterly.
It's a themed a journal of weird fiction flash fiction,
and the theme was masks, masks and disguises. So that

(41:08):
was what I came up with for that issue.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Awesome. Now, I was wondering, because we spoke briefly earlier
about themes. I was wondering, if you have any themes
that you would like readers to take away from when
they read Creatures of Luminal Space.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Just a theme of liminality, the theme of in between
and all all of what that means you know whether
it means, what it might mean for the characters in there,
what it what it might mean to me when I
wrote them, will put them together, But most importantly, if
it inspires something in them, if they could feel something liminal,

(41:51):
if it will be something that they see in there,
like a worst blot. So I hope that they come
away with something what that is. I just hope that
they see something in it.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah. I also wanted to comment, like, uh, I kind
of noticed while reading this, uh, this collection, that a
lot of your characters they feel like drifters, almost, especially
the Beliefs stories. It's like people find themselves there, especially
the one with the hotel. They don't know where they're

(42:23):
going to go from there. Uh, they're kind of like
thinking about starting over? Is this? Uh? Is is this
a continuing thread throughout a lot of your stories?

Speaker 2 (42:35):
I think I think it is. And that's not necessarily
an intentional thing, but yeah, I mean that that that's
that is an aspect of liminality, that's an aspect of
I think they could make for good storytelling. You know,
if you're at you're at a good good dynamic plots

(42:58):
and dynamic characters, starts where and end up somewhere else,
and I've always thought that is a great recipe for
conflict and storytelling, except I don't like the nice bows
and the nice cherry on tops on the ending, so
it still feels like there's I like these stories. I
like stories, and I like these stories where it feels

(43:20):
like there's motion, but it doesn't necessarily feel like resolution,
and it could feel like there's either a downward spiral
or maybe a ray of hope. But I like I
like that place, and I guess that's a limit that's
still a limin old place in terms of character arc,
or a liminal, liminal piece of fiction. Perhaps.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
I also like that you incorporate music into some of
your stories. I like the story I just mentioned about
the hotel and belize you know the name of that
short story is Escaping Me.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
That was because it's because it's so easy and so
and so concise. I believe you're talking about a locke
Nest monster under the light of the across a bit
of a Yes album from the nineteen seventies Mouthfuls.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I remember talking about that before, because that is a massfhol.
I think I was making funny like are you a
brog rock fan, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but I like that
story because there is like this like acoustic sort of
set that plays on the beach and with like a saxophone,

(44:29):
I think it is. And that's just like a really cool,
cool addition. I imagine that's something you would see down there, though, right, I.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Don't know, I don't know. I mean to tell the
truth that without spilling the beans, that was a bit
of an easter egg. That was that I don't really
write talkerizations of people, but that one of those characters
was definitely was intended to be tends to be a
tribute to someone, and the music he was hearing was

(44:58):
a tribute to the music that that person listens to.
So yeah, I would love it to hear some to
hear some ghostly, ghostly music in a beautiful setting like that.
But definitely in my dreams. It's definitely the music of
my dreams for sure.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, excuse me. So I really enjoyed this collection. I
really like the idea of putting in longer works with
pieces of flash fiction. So I was wondering if you're
thinking of maybe releasing more collections in this style in
the future.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
I would love to. I don't have immediate plans right now.
But the format really worked, you know, especially all like
the mixed media of it. Sometimes collections all of short
or all of long, or or just illustrations could be

(45:57):
too much. But I feel like this makes of three
long and then a bunch of short and then the
the the illustrations. It allowed me to when I was
proofing the book and spending time with the book, it
allowed me to approach the book in a different way.
I can just flip through it and see the pictures,
or I could just read a bite here and there
with the flash, or that I could dig into it
with the long So I would I would love to.

(46:19):
I would love to revisit that. And hey, maybe I'll
get a chance to do that.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Yeah, hopefully you do. It was really interesting. I've seen
it before, but like Linda Addison, I think I'm thinking
of but she had mixed like poetry in there too.
Do you write poetry at all? I?

Speaker 2 (46:35):
I rarely published it, but yeah, so maybe I almost
said no, but I would say, yeah, I do, but
nothing nothing publication minded. But yeah, I see the point
of Yeah, like intersperson columns with long pieces operates that
same way to a book.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
It's speaking of uh, you know, progressive rock. You could, uh,
you could make like one big album, like something that
feels like it's all attached and then and yet it's not.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, yeah, like prod rock album's kind of kind of
like the Wall, the like pink floids, the Wall kind
of songs like the little the small little snippets of
you know, the interstitial song pieces. That's still totally fun.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, because this this collection kind of had that feel
to it. I think maybe anytime people do that for
some reason, I get that feeling of like a progressive
rock album.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, kind of weird.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
But those long song progressive box song titles can't be
hurting either, there.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, right, all right, So before we go, I was wondering,
what is there anything you've been reading lately that you'd
like to chat about.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah. I'm fortunate enough that I've been revisiting a little
of the Master Stephen King, and I think people can
come to your other podcast and read some of the
Stephen King And Yeah, I've been reading a lot. A
lot of my colleagues work for the Nighttime Logic UH series,

(48:07):
So a lot of a lot of ghost stories, a
lot of strange tales that look forward to talking to
people about.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Excellent, there, awesome. I'm I'm always reading and I find
myself reading for the show a lot. Do you find
yourself doing that, especially when it comes time to, uh
to do your show?

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Absolutely, absolutely so. I feel like for the for the
doing that is, you know, it's a double blessing one.
I just I like to do it for so many reasons.
And sometimes in this modern life, we find ourselves xing
out the time to do the things that we love,
which you know, I grew up loving reading, and just

(48:49):
with the so many distractions of phones, computers, tablets, shorter works,
comic books, movies, sometimes I just I don't get I
get out of the half bit of reading for relaxation
and pleasure and then taking on the assignments of interviewing
or hosting a show that I'm the sort of post
where I, like you, I have to read in depth

(49:12):
for that. So it's it's both. It's both a task,
but it's a task that prompts me to return to
the pleasure of it. So absolutely yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, I thought, as I just said, I find myself
doing that a lot. I also find myself where I
have to just take a break from from doing the
show because I am a mood reader when it comes
down to it. And sometimes there's like these other books
from other genres that are calling to me, and they
call to me for months before I can get to them.

(49:43):
Do you ever have that issue?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, I'm going to go into my grave without answering
the call all the books that call to me for sure.
And Yeah, and I think it's great to read outside
of our genre. I think it's important to both answer
the call of where our interest takes us, and then
even if there isn't a call, I think it's important
into I think it only it will only paid dividends
of imagination and both make us better better writers as well.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
To absolutely to go there.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Something I'm reading, you know now, like the book that
is like I'm reading I'm reading Isaac Bashev's Singer Stories.
I'm doing a panel on Bascheva singer and that was
someone I've been meaning to read for quite some time,
the horror Stories of Ashev, a singer. So that's the
most recent author that I've been reading.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Excellent. So what are you working on right now?

Speaker 2 (50:36):
If you if you're able to talk about Yeah, coming
out in the fall, it's amazing. Sometimes it's feet, sometimes
it's famine. But in the fall. My next short story collection,
which my fifth short story collection, is called Phantom Constellations. Yeah.
Actually the Phantom Constellations from Creatures is also going to
be in that book, but it's the title story of

(50:58):
the next collection come out from Cemetery Dance in the fall.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
That is incredible.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
I can't just thank you so much. Yeah, just working
on sequencing the stories and just doing the last minute
nips and talks on that right now.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Is it like full length short stories or full.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
On story story collection. Yeah, that's why when you ask
about flash fiction, I'm like, well, the next one isn't
going to have any flash fiction in it. Maybe maybe
I'll get to sneak one into the table of contents,
but it definitely won't be the same the same sort.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Of thing you said that comes out in the fall.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yeah, I believe it's the late fall. I believe it
is set for a November twenty twenty five release. Phantom
Constellations from Cemetery Dance.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Excellent. I can't wait for that. I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
I absolutely love like you're one of my favorite writers.
I'm not going to lie when I'm reading you. I've
said this to other authors, but I never lie about it.
But one thing I love about my favorite writers is
when a I could read like a couple of paragraphs
and know who the author is and be the comfort

(52:01):
your Your stories bring kind of an odd sense of
comfort even when bad things are happening. It's it's it's
like your it's just your writer's voice and your prose.
It just it's it's a it's comforting in a weird sense.
I don't know how else to describe it.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Well, I mean, maybe I could corner yous of writing
that as a blurb for me, because that's that might
be the hugest compliment I maybe ever received, because yeah,
you know, like I don't think a lot about why
we write or how we write, but yeah, maybe I'd
like to think of my My stories are maybe the
same thing of what The Cure, the rock band, the
Cures music gives to me. The cute people like, oh

(52:41):
the Cure is depressing or it's dark. It's just I'm like,
yeah it is. But the Cure for me is dark
as it always is. It's always about that thin ray
of hope and the thin ray of light in the darkness.
And no matter how dark, I get my stories. And
you know, reader beware or trigger warning. My stories are dark,
but it's not My stories often are not about not

(53:02):
about nilism or you know, it's always maybe about that thin,
that thin line of hope.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
There's a balance.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Yeah, hope, I hope, so I hope. So to hear
to hear that you get that from the stories really
really feels good to hear. I really appreciate it. Thank
you so much.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Awesome. Well, I have to tell you, man, I really
appreciate you, and thank you for coming on. Where can
listeners find you online?

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yeah, you can find uh. My website is blood and
Start Us blood and Start Us at WordPress dot com
or blood and start Us dot WordPress dot com. Nine
Time Logic is on YouTube. I think that's YouTube at
Daniel Bram And I'm on social social media Instagram and
Facebook and those kind of things.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Awesome, all right, So thanks for coming on, and I'm
pretty sure. I'm not too sure, but I think I
think we'll be talking again very shortly.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Thank you for having me back. It's a real pleasure. Yeah,
I wonder when we'll talk

Speaker 1 (54:02):
To aplely, say than

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057 - Daniel Braum on Creatures of Liminal Space and the Art of Atmospheric Horror

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}057 - Daniel Braum on Creatures of Liminal Space and the Art of Atmospheric Horror