Conversations - Greg F. Gifune - Paperback Warrior

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Hello, Hello, This is Eric with the Paperback Warrior blog,
YouTube channel and podcast, and it's a dream come true
for me. One of my favorite writers really ever is
Greg Greg Gefune seeing that name right, Yeah, yeah, get Fune.
Have you ever heard anybody say it out loud, you know,
in terms of broadcasts or.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Anything you did, They probably said it wrong?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yeah, right, But yeah, you're my guest today and you're
a tremendous writer. I've been a fan of yours probably
since the early two thousands, and you've you've you've been
kind of commenting on paperback were your posts and comments
and and things like that on the on the on
the Facebook channel, and then also you've been following me

(00:43):
on TikTok too, So I know reviewed a couple of
your books maybe last year or maybe earlier this year,
and so we've kind of connected a little bit through
social media. But it's great to have to have you
on here.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Well, thank you, I appreciate it. It's nice, nice for
you to have me.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, I was I was poking around a little bit
over the last couple of days. I was poking around
a little bit online because my reviews, most of my
reviews are on Paperback Warrior dot com. But prior to
twenty eighteen, man, I had them all over the place,
like on Amazon and Goodreads and places like that, So

(01:20):
I was trying to I was trying to comb through
them to try to figure out when I first started
reading your work. But as far as reviews go, I
think I can go back as far as twenty thirteen.
So twelve twelve years of dabbling in your in your
books in the Dallas.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I'm glad you're stuck around.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Thanks, yeah, most definitely. Yeah. I mean you really need
no introduction, but just in case someone out there isn't
too familiar with your literary work, I'm going to do
my very best in saying you've been professionally published since
the nineteen nineties, Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, yeah, if you count yeah, late the late on
late nineteen nineties, I had my first short stories started
to get published, but I didn't really I didn't really
get going until about two thousand and two thousand and one.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I see that you had. Your
short stories were in magazines like Night Terrors, Dread, Outer Darkness,
and then in the magazine that you edited as well,
called The Edge. So you kind of broke in. You
broke into the business kind of like the old pulpsters
did back in the day.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
And writing for the polls, well, yeah, we had. What
was interesting was when I first came into the business,
there was the whole zine culture, which was was really cool,
and it was most of the people that you know
today who are being published started there. Yeah, it's especially

(02:52):
if they've been published for a while. And it was
kind of like a I was called it was kind
of like the AHL, you know, it wasn't quite the NHL,
but it was a good place to learn the business
and to learn your craft. And it was an amazingly
supportive group of people that were involved in that. And

(03:18):
and there were a lot of zines and they were
just these sort of independent, you know magazines. I edited
two of them. One was The Edge, which was like
a suspense horror, uh magazine, and the other one was
called Burning Sky, which was a science fiction horror magazine.

(03:40):
And they got you know, I mean, we were in
we were in Borders and when Borders was around, and uh,
you know, we had a distribution and all that, but
it was but it was really kind of a a
place for where people could get seen and you could
you know, you could, you could learn and and you

(04:03):
sort of hone your skills there and you got better
and then eventually if you were if you could do it,
you moved up from there. But but yeah, that's where
I got my start. That was the that was how
when I first came into the business. That's where everybody was.
That was I mean, Brian Keane came up through that culture.
You know, guys like westn Oaks, you know, everybody basically

(04:26):
everybody that you know, Michael Iamo, all the guys that
were and I'm forgetting tons of people too, and I
haven't mentioned any of Sandy de Luca. You know a
lot of people came up through that. So yeah, that's
how I that's how I started.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
It's great that that everyone was, you know, encouraging each other.
There was a camaraderie there and not a not a
cut through a business at the time, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean there's always that element, you know what I mean,
there's always one or two that are you know, but
this was pre it wasn't pre Internet, but it was
pre social media, yeah, and it was you know, there
were these things called email lists. I don't know if
you remember those oh yeah, remember wherever you'd have these
groups and that you'd talk through these emails. So a

(05:10):
lot of it was like that, and and so there
wasn't as much. It wasn't I don't know, it like
a lot of the the poisonous stuff was kind of
came with social media that like before that. Yeah, there
were still people who didn't get along and didn't like
each other, you know, had their moments, but I mean

(05:31):
it was a lot more civil, you know, which was nice.
And really we were all kind of in the same boat.
You know. We were all new. We were trying to
get somewhere, we were trying to get noticed, we were
trying to be you know, moved to that next level.
We wanted to do something. And you know sometimes when
somebody from that culture sort of hit it, you kind

(05:53):
of felt, you know, like we all hit you know, well, okay,
you know, so you know, it was a nice it
was a nice time. It was There's always been that
element to the business and there there always will be exposed,
right yeah, but it was nice to It's funny like
today people talk so much about you know, the horror
community or this community, which I don't even Honestly, I

(06:16):
don't believe exists myself, but I think there's just a
series of clicks essentially that are you know that you
put them all together, you've got a community, I guess,
but that's not my bag. But yeah, this was different
back then. It was it was different. It was a
lot more It was just a lot more supportive, and

(06:37):
it was genuine, you know, because like I said, we
were all kind of in the same boat. It was
like we were in the minors that we wanted to
get to the majors, you know. Yeah, so yeah, you
did what you could do, you know.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, that's right. Well you're uh, I'm trying to think
you're I was looking your your story collection Heretics was
your first published work, Is that right?

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well? It was my first book. I had stories published.
All the stories in there had been published except for
the novella Heretics.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, and this would have been two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
With the two two thousand and one, I think, yeah, yeah,
it was funny. It was a funny story with that
because I Shane Staley was at that time part of
the Zene culture and I didn't know him at that point,
and I sent him a bunch of short stories, and
you know, because he was he had let people know
he was looking for he wanted to do some short

(07:31):
story collections. So I sent him a bunch of stories,
and Shane was is a very kind of low key guy.
He doesn't rattle easily. He's very even and his letter
back to me was this was a I don't see
anything here I have any interest then, and I was like, okay, well, well,

(07:56):
so what I did is I kind of put together
I did a little more research into what he was
accepting m and I. So I sent them some of
the stories that were I thought were maybe a little
bit more, and he loved those and he said, if
you can write, he said. The problem is there's not
enough here for a book, he said, but if you
can write a novella, and we'll make that the anchor.

(08:19):
He said, if that's as good as these stories, I'll
publish it. So I went back to the drawing board
and I wrote, heretics, yeah, and I said that he
loved it, and he was like, and yeah, that was
the first time. It was funny because it was a
limited hardcover paperback. Both were limited, and but it it

(08:41):
got me a lot of attention. I got it, got
like stellar reviews and it and it sort of got
me on. It got me going. It got me on
my way because then I followed up with the Bleeding Season,
and then then I was off the basis.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Counting Novella's novels collections, I think you're
floating around fifty published books. I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, it's quite a few. I thought it was twenty something,
but there might be. There might be.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
I think you had forty, like maybe early last year.
Kind of what's coming.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Out, I know there's a lot. My poor agent has
to keep, you know, files on all the different where
they are, what's happening are they? You know? Yeah, that
took a while for to put out the Gala.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, I'm sure. Well you're uh, you're extremely productive and
you've got you've got a lot of stuff going on.
That's one of the reasons why I want to reach
out to you, because you've got so many things in
the works, and we're going to get into sort of
the past, the President of the future and and sort
of kind of dive into everything. But anybody who who
watches my channel and listens to my podcasts, I tend

(09:50):
to go chronologically and always start at the beginning. I
want to talk about writers and bibliography. So are you
cool if we kicked this thing back to like the
nineteen seventies, we'll go back.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
We'll go a way, whatever you want to.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Do, take the mystery machine back in time. Here. So
you you grew up in Massachusetts, but but you like
New York City, Peru, Boston. You've been kind of all
over the place.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, yeah, well, I well there was two parts of that.
One one is as a kid, because we've lived in
some different places. And my family's originally from New York,
from the Utica, from Utica and uh in the New Hartford,
Utica area. And I lived in New York City as

(10:35):
an adult briefly, Peru, I lived. We lived there for
a year as when I was a kid, because my
dad was the principal of the American school there for
a year, which was essentially the school system that catered
to the the diplomats and the you know, all the

(10:58):
Americans that were there. Yeah, because he was a teacher
and a principal and a superintendent at one point and
head master of a couple of schools. And my mom
was a teacher and an elementary school principal. Mhm, so
we you know, they we basically we didn't really move
around much after the PERUEK. We moved around a lot,

(11:20):
but it was mostly in Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Okay, yeah, but I was an adult.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
I've lived in I lived in Boston for a while,
I lived in New York. And you know, I've predominantly,
predominantly I've I've lived in Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
So I'll put you on the spot for a second
and to ask you a tough one here. You're I
read somewhere online that you've attended five high schools. You
attended five high schools, you were thrown out of four
and one of them twice, and you're you're your parents
are in our educator. So what's going on?

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Man?

Speaker 1 (11:50):
What happened?

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah? I don't know it was, but they were thrilled.
I was just a very rebellious kid I had. I
had a lot of anger and a lot of you know,
I was just rebellious. I was. I was kind of
like Brando in the Wild whatever the hell that movie?
That old movie is the Wild One, whatever the hell

(12:13):
it is. When they went and ask him, what are
you rebelling against? These says, what do you got? That
was kind of me like, whatever you have, I'm down. Yeah,
I just didn't. I just I never really liked school.
I felt like I had like my own way of
doing things, which was kind of, you know, counter to

(12:35):
what they wanted me to do, you know, Like I'd
get a textbook and I'd just read it. So then
I was like, well, you know, let me know when
the tests are, you know, and I'll come back, you know,
but why should I sit through this. I've already read it.
I've you know, we're going to take four months of
my life doing this. I already read it. I already
know everything and what's with it, So that a lot

(12:57):
of the times I didn't even show up, you know.
So and I just I was one of those kids
that I wanted to get my life going. I wanted to,
you know, and I didn't. It was funny. I just
I was one of those kids who I kind of
moved between a lot of different groups, you know, Like

(13:20):
I was an athlete, and so the jocks, you know,
they accepted me because they respected me as an athlete,
but we weren't friends. We didn't like hang out, you know.
But I was also into theater, so I would do
theater stuff, so, you know, the theater kids, like I

(13:41):
was with them, but I wasn't one of them, you
know what I mean. So, and you know, I liked
partying and rock and rolling all this. I was a
lot a lot of times I was with the burnouts,
you know, so I could move all around these groups,
but but I was never really of any of them,
you know. Yeah, So it kind of led to me, like,
you know, just being kind of doing my own thing,
which is what I've always done. And you know, some people,

(14:05):
some people and some institutions react well to that, and
some don't, you know. And you know, when you're in school,
it's not you can't just you know, you can't just
do what you want to do. And that was kind
of my mos, like I'm going to do my own thing.
And and I at school. I was bored most of
the time at school. You know, I didn't. I just

(14:26):
I just didn't, you know, it just didn't. It just
it just wasn't. I think had I been a little older,
you know, if I had, if I had been able
to do high school in my twenties or thirties, I'd
have done a lot better yeah. Yeah, but at that
point in my life, I just just wasn't of any
I felt like I could just do, you know, learn
what I wanted to learn then, and I didn't like

(14:47):
being hassled. I still don't have. I have a huge
problem of authority. I always have. It's gotten a lot
better now, you know, because I'm getting older, I'm mellowing
out a little bit. But I had serious issues with
it back then and that led to a lot of problems.
So yeah, it just kind of was the way it
just kind of happened. It's not something I'm terribly proud of,

(15:09):
but it's uh. I don't really apologize for it either,
because I you know, I felt like a lot of
the a lot of the stuff that I tried to
call out too was I thought was legit, you know,
and it just you can't fight the system like that
when you're that age. You know, he can, but you're
not going to win. So, you know, it didn't It

(15:29):
didn't work out great. The one that I got thrown
out of twice, the principal there was actually a friend
of my father's, and so he went to him after
I'd gotten thrown I got thrown out of there and
I went to another school and I got thrown out
of there. So he went back to his buddy and said,
please take him back, because you know, I can't get
this kid into any anywhere, And so he did, and

(15:51):
then I only lasted a couple of months and then
I I got into a thing with it. I had
a physical confrontation with a teacher and that didn't go
well for him, and so ultimately didn't go well for me. So,
you know, it was a tough time. But I don't
know that i'd change it, because I think all the

(16:12):
things you do lead you up to you know. Yeah,
but you know that I went my my life has
gone in a lot of different directions, you know, And
until I corrected it, you know, it was I had
moments where I had it, but it was years later
before I really turned things around.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, it's gonna say you, uh, you were a trained actor, broadcaster,
You worked at radio and and I guess you maybe
did some TV writing producing. Was this is the gateway
into into writing?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Well, the writing for me was always part of me.
I I was one of those kids that knew what
he wanted. I knew what I wanted to do. My
whole life. I I wanted to write and I wanted
to be an actor. Those are my my main things,
and I just didn't you know, I didn't know how
to get there. But that's what I wanted to do.

(17:07):
And then when I was was I thirteen, fourteen something
like that, I started in summer stock theater and did
very well there. But it was tough for me because
then I'd have to I'd have to go back to
school and do like high school productions, which were fine,

(17:27):
but I mean compared to what I'd been doing. They
were like amateur hour stuff, you know what I mean.
So that didn't go well either. But the writing part
was always there. I wrote before I literally before I
knew how to write. I have a sister who's almost
seven years older than I am, and I would dictate

(17:48):
these stories to her as a little boy and she
would write them down and she went on to be
a nurse, but she was She's also a very good artist.
She never pursued it, but and she would. She would draw,
she would like illustrate the stories and yeah, so and
my mom was like adamant that I know how to
read before I started school, So I was always kind

(18:12):
of ahead of the curve on on on reading, and
I've always been a voracious reader and that kind of
always went hand in hand with me with writing, you know.
So writing was always there. It was always a part
of me. And when I came back from New York
and that didn't really go as well as I had hoped,
I kind of shifted from the the acting thing and thought,

(18:35):
you know, it's the writing that I want to do,
and but I just I didn't I couldn't really focus
on it because not long after was it maybe was
three years, about three years after I came back from
New York, I got married, okay to the woman I'm
still married to, and uh so I had to, you know,

(18:59):
I had to get a job, you know. So I
worked in I worked in sales for a while, I was.
I did some radio I did. I was trained in that,
so I mean I went, I did some radio, I
did some I produced an overnight show for a little bit,
that kind of thing, did a lot of copywriting, that
kind of thing. That was a very unstable business. Remember,

(19:24):
I remember I went for an interview one time because
I had the station. I had been working at Change Formats,
and so they when they would do that. I don't know.
They still do it in those days. When they would
change formats, they fire everybody m and bringing a whole
new crew, whether you could do what they were changing
to or not. Yeah, And so I had gone. I

(19:44):
went for this interview to a uh it was a
talk radio station, and I went. They were looking for
an overnight host, so I went, I went, and I
interviewed that and I remember I walked into the program
director's office and there were all these rock and roll
posters all over the wall and they looked like brand new.
And he must have seen me looking at him, and

(20:06):
he said, listen, I know it looks weird because we're
a talk radio station. It looks like we might be
switching over to rock and roll. But we're not. I
promise you we're not. And I'm thinking, why the hell
all these why does it look like you are?

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
So we had a good interview and he hired me.
And this was this. This was on a Friday, Okay, Saturday.
I was supposed to start the following Monday, Saturday. I
get a call from the new program director. We're switching
over the rock and roll. You fired. When I said
I'm fired, I haven't even started yet, as I'm supposed
to start Monday, and so I just thought at that point,

(20:41):
I can't do this is too unstable. I can't do this.
So I went into UH. I went into sales, actually,
and I worked in retail for a few years and
I managed a couple of stereo stores when those things existed,
and you know, it did well with that, and and
then I moved into I was I was unhappy though

(21:03):
doing that. It wasn't what I wanted to do, and
so I moved into doing promotion, which I had also
been trained in. And I started off like managing you know,
local dands and things like that, moved up to regional
talent and eventually national talent, and then I went into
I opened a business, UH promotions business with a friend

(21:24):
of mine at the time, and and we we went
into that, and then that branched into UH we we
uh we bought into a a an existing UH independent
wrestling company at the time.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Okay, yeah, uh.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
And so we owned that for a while and that
was in the That was interesting because that was in
the k FAB days. That was it was before you know,
you had to you had to toe the line, and
it was a closed business, and it was it was
very difficult to get into. Nobody trusted any buddy, it was,
and it was it was a lot of there were
a lot of other in those days, a lot of

(22:07):
other things tied up in.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
It was this early nineties or late eighties.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
This would have been, yeah, early nineties, okay, Yeah, And uh,
you know, it was a it was a different kind
of a life, I mean, and I was it just
wasn't really conducive to being married. Oh yeah. I was
on the road a lot, you know, working with all

(22:33):
kinds of crazy ass people, you know, and just you know,
it was just you know, it was like a circus,
you know. Yeah, And I mean we had a lot
of fun. It was cool, but it just wasn't And
as I said, I don't want to get there. There
were like elements that I was involved with that I
had to be involved with, and a couple of incidents

(22:53):
happened and I realized I was at kind of a
fork in the road where you know, either that was
going to be my life or I was going to
do something else. And I lived to my wife and
who works in like a corporate job, and I said,

(23:15):
you know, I'm gonna stop doing this. I'm gonna I'm
getting out because if I don't get out now, I
will be able to And she was thrilled with that
because she was about had enough of that. And so
I said, well, I really want to try to write.

(23:35):
And I said, I just I don't think I can
do it if I have like some job. I've got
to like focus, if you if I can, we can
just figure out a way that I can just focus
on that, I think I can make it. Yeah. And
so she was like, you know, we had a little
we had some money from what I had made and
you know, and she she had a job, but we
knew it was going to be you know, probably a
little tight for a while. And so she said, well,

(23:58):
how about how about if I give you five years?
Oh wow, said if you promised me. If after five
years you haven't done anything, you haven't gotten anywhere, you know,
you got to go get a job. You get a job.
And I was like, okay. And for four and a
half years, I got nothing but rejections. Yeah, you know,

(24:21):
and back this was back in the day when a
lot of it was still snail mail mhm. And you know,
I'd go to I had a p O box in
the town next to me and I I'd go there
every day and there'd be a stack of letters and
you'd think one of these has to be an acceptance,
and they'd all be rejections, you know, and it was hard.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
That deal that you're what your wife gave you is
the same deal that Dean Koons got from his wife.
Interesting I think she gave him. I think it maybe
in five years. It was something small like that, and
she's like, if if you can make it great, If not,
then you know, we're throwing this whole idea out and you.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Gotta do something else. And I you know, that was fair,
you know, But and so what I mean, I literally
I worked seven literally I worked seven days a week
for like almost five straight years. Yeah, and all that's
all I did. I lived in all day. That's all
I did. And I was lucky to meet some people
who were mentored me. Guys like Ed Gorman, Terry Wright

(25:26):
was very very good to me. Anthony Bruno, who wrote
the Iceman Books, book about the Ice Man and a
lot of other really good crime stuff. He was wonderful
to me, and I remember him telling me, he said,
and I've told I now tell this to younger writers
because it's true. And he said, to me, it was

(25:46):
some of the best advice I ever got. He said,
younger writers tend to newer writers tend to focus too
much on being published. He said, don't worry about being published.
He said, worry about being good. He said, learn, learn
your craft, and hone that. And he said, get so
good that they can't reject you. And like I said,

(26:11):
it was the best advice I ever got. And he
followed it up with because he was kind of a
funny guy, he followed up with, and remember that, you know,
of the big shots in this business, no one, I
don't know what the hell they're doing.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Well, I noticed, you know, with a lot of authors today,
a lot of them are well, it's it's like they
just they're writing for money. They just they think that
they can just write for money and then that that's
all there is to it is. That's their drive, and
there's some motivation is just to get a paycheck, right,
and they don't put any any time and effort into
honing their craft and getting better. And and and I

(26:46):
can always tell when you know, I can always tell
when there's an inexperienced writer or a young writer that
they don't they don't write like they talk and I
and I could pick it out immediately, and I'm like, well,
this is they're not gonna make it. It's not gonna work.
And people don't talk like this, you know. And it's
just I can always pick those things out and I

(27:07):
and typically don't read those. I can put them down
after the first chapter and see, you know.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, you know, I want to be careful here because
I don't want to I don't want to hurt people
that don't deserve that. But there's there are some people
that are self publishing that are good. Yeah, I think
the problem, the thing that I think is not good,
The thing that bothers me about that is I think
you remove that that element, you remove the rejection and

(27:36):
you know, I know there's a thing oh well you
know there's a whole thought. Now, well that's you know,
old school, Well okay, it's old school. You call it
whatever the hell you want. Rejection makes you better. Rejection
does one of two things. Either it either ends you
or it makes you better. And that's up to you.
But without any kind of if you never have any pushback,

(27:58):
you know, I don't think that helps you artistically. I
don't think that helps you as a as a writer.
It's good to have pushback, it's good to have it's
you know it it's not and nor should it be
the end of the world when somebody says no, yeah,
you know, that should motivate you to and like I said,

(28:19):
like Bruno told me, you know, just just let that,
you know, make it, make it a motivator. Yeah, and
that's that's you know. I think sometimes some some of
the writers that self publish are lacking that, you know.
I think it's different if you've established yourself a little
bit and then you may be self published a little bit.
But I think to never have gone through that process,
you might still be okay, you might still be good,

(28:42):
but I can guarantee you with that, if you go
through that process, you'll be better. Yeah, because you don't
have any choice. Yeah, you know. But but when I started,
the whole self publishing thing was really frowned upon, and
it wasn't it was extensive, and it was you know,
it was you know, it was totally vanity stuff. It

(29:04):
wasn't you know, taken seriously at all. Yeah, Nor should
it have been at the time. But yeah, I think
I think the focus is what it is. If you're
going and if you want to be a writer because
you want to make a bunch of money, you should
probably pick another profession because most most most people aren't
making a whole hel of aut of money. If you

(29:24):
can make a living in this business, you're doing something.
That's why I'm grateful. But I can at least make
a living. But you know, you want to go into
this business because you've got something to say, Yeah, you know,
and you want to you know, whatever it is. You
want to entertain people, you want to get some message
out to people. You want whatever it is, whatever it

(29:44):
is you're trying to do, you know. But I but
I think there's a it's it's kind of sad. I
think when you don't when you never have any I
don't know, when when you like you can just hit
a button and do whatever you want. Yeah, you know,
I don't know that that's really.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
I think there has to be a I think there
has to be gatekeepers in a way. I think there
has to.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Be I guess, yeah, I'm not thrilled with that word,
but I know what you mean.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, I know, I mean, I come from the insurance industry.
I've been doing insurance for like seventeen years, and we
do medical insurance. And I always tell people, you know,
it's an HMO plan. So you have to have a
gatekeeper because you have to go to the you have
to go to your primary care position and stay healthy.
The doctor sends you out to the specialists. But the
gatekeeper is there for a reason. Are the people they

(30:38):
always push back, Well, I don't want to go to
that doctor. I want to have my own choices to
go wherever I want to go. Like, yeah, but you
need to have that that one doctor that that kind
of keeps track of everything and sends you off to
all the best places. So I kind of think of
that way. I was in music journalism for a while
and you know, sifting through all the demos and the
indie tapes and all this stuff, and like, these guys

(30:59):
just need some direction here. They just need something, whether
it's an agent or a label or something.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
That's generally what it is, you hit it right on
the head, that's usually what it does. They just need.
Even you know guys that are like people that are
super talented, a lot of times that's just what they're lacking.
They just need somebody to help them get some the direction.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
You know, yeah somewhere, but you but you know, one.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Of the fascinating things to me about this is that
I have never seen a business like this. I've never
seen a business where so many people just come into
it and have no idea how the business works. They
know nothing about it and just come kind of wandering
in and like expect everything, you know, the world to

(31:47):
stop spinning because their air now. And it's just it's
astounding to me. I don't really get that. It's like,
you know, like I said, I think that's why I
feel bad for the writers coming up today that because
they don't have that structure that we had. They don't
that zine culture was awesome because it provided a real structure,

(32:08):
you know, and it really taught you the business. This
is how you do it, yeah, this is how you
deal with people, this is how you you know, how
you work this, and it was it was really invaluable.
And I think it's too bad that so many, you know,
writers coming up today don't don't have that. I wish
there was something like that today, some equivalent, you know,

(32:29):
because I'll bet you I don't know, but I mean
my bet would be if you talked to twenty people
that were in that culture that came up through that,
they're all going to tell you the same thing.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, when you came out really early on,
you had Gosh Bleeding Season, Deep Night Dominion, so forth,
and they were published by you know, a small house
called Delirium Books, which we touched on earlier. You were
really a staple of that publisher. How did you even
get involved with him early on? Like, how did that
even get set up?

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well, like I said, with Shane with those short stories
in the collection, but then from there did he own?
He did? And after after heretics, he said, you know,
you need to write a novel. And I had sort
of I had written. I'd written night Work, which is
a crime novel. I'd written that, but it hadn't gotten published,

(33:28):
and I I felt like I need I I didn't
write another novel because I didn't feel like I was
ready yet. But I had the Bleeding Season in my
head for many years before I wrote it, and so
I thought, Okay, it's maybe it's time. Let me try
and see if I can pull this off. And I
so I wrote the bleeding season, and then that that
kind of you know, that really hit you know, and

(33:49):
then it became like this kind of like this cold thing,
you know, and and still is to this day. It's
like I'm amazing. But that kind of led to a
kind of snowball effect, you know. And after a few books,

(34:10):
they were all they all did well. I mean, Deep
Night was I remember. I remember Deep Night was reviewed
by Library Journal and they called it they said it
was classic, and all of a sudden sales went, like
I remember, like the company was so small, they weren't
like Shane wasn't prepared for it. He was like box

(34:31):
of books for you know, weeks. So they did well
and things were going, you know, pretty well, and then
he asked me if I would The company was kind
of expanding and getting bigger, and he said, you know,
would you want to maybe come in as a as
an associate editor, you know, because I had editing experience,

(34:53):
and I kind of thought about it. I thought, well, sure,
why not, you know, it's an extra paycheck. Yeah, And
so I did that for a while while in that
and then when when Delirium became dark Use and he
told me what his plan was. He said, you know,
I want to I want to keep doing the limiteds
and the and the smaller runs, he said, but I

(35:15):
want to I want to do like you know. He
he was way ahead of the curve on the whole
ebook thing. Yeah, he knew that was coming and it
was going to be big. And he said, I want
to do that, and I want to back it up
with paperbacks, and I want to be able to hit
you know, I want to be everywhere. I want to
just you know. And he really had a really uh
good plan and a good you know, idea of what

(35:37):
he wanted and he said, I want you to be
the acquisitions guy.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Mm hm.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
And so uh that's what I did. I ran the
novel line and I supervised the novella line, which was
run by a guy named Dave Thomas who's part of
the business now but unfortunately but uh, you know, and
then that that just sort of went from there. I
mean I always worked other places too, but I that

(36:03):
was predominantly where I was for several years.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah. And you know those watching at home and listeners,
you know, we're talking about you're talking about talent at
dark views. We're talking about guys like Ron Malfie Jeff Strand,
Alan Riiker, Tim Koran, Gary Frye.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
There's at least three of those that I discovered. Yeah,
and Ron and I are friends to this day. He's
a great guy. And run was funny. I remember he
had what the hell was the name of the book
Passenger I think it was, Yeah, Yeah, And I found
that in the like the slush pile really yeah, And

(36:44):
I read it and I was like, it was about
halfway through it and I'm like, Jesus, this is you know,
it really stood out, you know, yeah, And I finished
it and the minute I finished it, I'm like, I'm
taking this. And so what I used to do was
when I accepted something, I would call the person. If
I had a number, I would call him. And so

(37:06):
I called Ron, and I you know, I told him
I was going to take it, and you know, I
worked with him. We edited it and it was you know,
it did well, and he he just you know, kept
sort of going and when we just got to be friends.
And Tim Kern's another one. I discovered him when I
was doing The Edge Interesting and he said to me,

(37:28):
I do a lot of sci fi and so I'm
going to be starting this other magazine and he became
a staple in that he was he may have been
in every issue if he wasn't, he was in almost
all of them. So I I helped to give him
his start. I'm proud of that. I'm proud that I
you know, I think some of these are guys that
are Look, they're very talented guys. They would have gotten

(37:50):
there anyway, but I'm glad that I had the chance
to maybe help them, you know, at least get their
foot in the door and uh then start. So Yeah,
there were a lot of guys like that, and several
several female authors as well.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
It seemed like it was it was you should be.
It was for me as as a horror fan. It
was a great stepping stone off of the all the
stuff that had happened with Gosh and drawn a blink
on Leisure and the Dorchester publishing that folded. I think

(38:27):
a lot of us were looking for the next publisher
to kind of support and kind of rally around and
find new authors and new books. And Dark Fuse was there,
and like you said, they were, they were cutting edge
on a lot of stuff. Yeah, with their ebooks and
and the way that they packaged their novellas and some
of their hardcovers and things like that. They they catered
to readers, but they also cater to collectors as well,

(38:49):
and it was really great. It was a great hybrid,
and that.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Was that was the plan initially, it was to do that.
That was to both yeah, you know, to be like
kind of his idea initially was to be sort of
more mass market, but but to retain that collectors, yeah
market too, and you know, they he pulled it off.

(39:16):
I mean, it's it's unfortunate a lot of people. There
are some people that are still angry with Shane, and
I think if they, if they really knew what happened there,
they would understand that that's there's there's no reason for that.
I can't really get into why Dark Viuse ended up folding,

(39:40):
but I can tell you this, it was not through
his It was nothing to do with what he did.
He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't he didn't tank
the business. He you know, I'm not going to get
into his personal business. But Shane lost a lot of
oh he lost a lot, yeah, trying to make sure

(40:00):
that everybody got paid towards the end when he was
getting screwed on the other end, And you know, I
think the business is worse off without him in it,
I think. And it's a shame because there's a handful
of people who who have a you know, an issue
with him, and he kind of you know, I want

(40:22):
to speak for him, but like my conversations with him,
you know, he's a lot healthier since he's left the business,
which is not not surprising, but there are people that
kind of lie and wait and like, well, if he
tries to come back, I'm gonna you know, and you know,
he really doesn't deserve that. And if you knew, what

(40:44):
if you really knew what the hell you were talking about,
and you don't trust me, you don't you know nothing
about what went on behind the scenes, and if you did,
you know, you'd think differently about him. So it was unfortunate.
But you know, we were kind of like a I
don't know, man, we burned pretty bright there for a while.

(41:05):
We just didn't we just it was great something some
things were done that crippled that company, and it was
done purposely and there was nothing he could do about it.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Do you still have a relationship with him, I do.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
We're friends. Yeah, you know, I love Shane. He's a
he's a good guy, and he's a despite what a
couple of people might tell you, he's a genuine guy
and he's an honest guy that all the years I
worked with him, he never there was never a single
thing he that man ever told me that he didn't do.
And I can't. I don't know if I can. I mean,

(41:41):
maybe one or two other people, Rich Chismar is like that,
which is a Again, Rich takes some ship. I'm sorry.
I don't know if I was supposed to be. But
you know, he's a good guy, and he's he's always
been a genuine guy to me. He's always been very
good to me.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
So you know, it's you know, it's the business. People
are going to have, you know, their issues, and I'm
not saying nobody's you know, we're also in an era
now where everybody's got to be perfect, you know, which
is absurd. Yeah, you know, so as much as a
lot of these people like to, you know, ran and
rave all day about how perfect and righteous they are,

(42:21):
you know, none of us are perfect. We all have
bad days, we all say stupid things. Sometimes, we all
say stuff we didn't mean, you know, And but you know,
in this in this business, and particularly in the horror genre.
I don't find it as much in the crime genre,
but in the horror genre, man, I mean, you miss
step Man, there's going to be like pitchforks and you

(42:43):
know they're coming for you, and it's yeah, I think
it's ridiculous. I don't really care. So it's like they're
not going to do anything to may But I don't
really But I don't, you know, I don't antagonize anybody,
but but I'm not I'm not gonna tiptoe around people either,
you know what I mean. I've been doing this too
long for that nonsense.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, I've never really had any any major conflicts in
doing the channel and doing the blog and doing the
podcast over the last seven eight years. The only time
I really had any kind of hiccups at all is
I had Brian Barry on just to get his side
of things when he was accused of domestic abuse or whatever,
and I just I heard her side of it. I
just wanted to hear his side of it.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
But yeah, I don't know what that is. So okay.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah, he's a he's a hard writer, and and his
publisher dropped him he wrote the novelization for Chopping Mall
the old uh the old horror movie for Encyclopocalypse Publications,
and I like his stuff. He's he's a decent writer.
I like his stuff. And uh his I guess his
ex girlfriend or something came out and said that she

(43:45):
that he had beat her up or something, and I
was like, well, I just want to hear his side
of it, you know, just have him on and have
him talk about it. And once, once he did, it
came on, he defended himself and then I was like,
tear down paperback, worrier for life, like it was coming
out of the woodwork. But I think should be heard.
And I wasn't there to judge either side of it.
I just I was in the middle. As a journalist,
they tell me your side of it and then people

(44:07):
can make their own decisions.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
But well that's what journalists used to do, right them all.
You'd present the evidence or whatever, you know, Yeah, you
present the story and then people could make up their
own minds about it. But that's tough. I mean, domestic
abuse is never easy. It's a thing. It's a thing

(44:28):
with me that you know brings out the worst than me.
If that if I hear about that stuff is not Yeah,
brings up the violent in me.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
But yeah, well you you had you jumped over from
you know, when Dark Fuse, when they kind of folded,
you jumped over to journals Stone, which I'm not familiar with.
Journal Stone publishers.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
With quite a bit of my stuff. Yeah, yeah, actually
that was that was Ron again. Ron and I talking
one day and he said, uh uh, he had mentioned
he had he had some stuff with them, and he said,
you know, maybe you should, you know, bring some of
your backlists over there. Yeah, And so I talked to
the I had a chat with the owner and uh yeah,

(45:18):
we we we put together. I have quite a few
things with them.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah. They reprinted a lot of old titles and then
they put out a couple of new things too as well.
Are you still being with them?

Speaker 2 (45:28):
I I haven't done anything new with them for a while.
I think the last new novel I did with them
was The Gypsy Moths, I think. Yeah, my last book
came out from Cemetery Dance. And they also picked up
Savages too.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah. Yeah, that's uh, that's one of that I reviewed
earlier this year. We'll talk about that one, but that's
that's a good one. Uh thanks, I want to I
want to put you on the spot for a second.
There again, I'll put you on the spot again. So
he did an interview back in twenty eleven for a
blog called This is Horror, and you said, I'll read

(46:08):
what you said to them. You said, I've always been
a fan of horror, but I never set out to
be a horror writer. And I don't consider myself a
horror writer, just a writer. And you still hold that statement.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I didn't. I started off to be a crime I
wanted to write crime. I wanted to be I wanted
to be Jim Thompson.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
Okay, and you know.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
They're at the time there's still, unfortunately not as big
a market as there should be for that stuff. But
when I was starting, it was almost non existent. Everything
was like mysteries and you know, cozy stuff, and it
just was they just weren't a lot of markets for it.

(46:56):
And I always liked horror, you know, I read. I
read a lot of horror stuff, But I never set
out to be a horror writer. I don't. I still
don't describe myself. If somebody asks me what I do,
I don't say I'm a horror writer or sam a
writer because I write. I don't write just horror. I

(47:16):
predominantly write horror, but I but I write crime too,
and I try to. I try to do like a cross,
you know, like I'm better known for more literary type horror,
but I also like to do the you know, the
pulp stuff too. I like to do stuff like savages
and stuff like pack animals that's coming out. That's kind

(47:39):
of a it's my homage to like the you know,
the paperbacks and the seventies and eighties and the exploitation
movies and the drive in movies and the seventies and
eighties and which that's stuff. I just, you know, I
love that stuff. So I try to do across, you know.
But I don't ever really like when I sit down

(48:00):
to when I have a novel idea, when I sit
on I don't. I don't. I don't think of it
in those terms. I just it's whatever it is. It is. Yeah,
you know, I don't mean anything against people that say
there are I don't. I don't. I'm not saying that
in a superior air, in a critical air, and it's
just I just don't. I just don't consider mine. I don't.

(48:22):
I don't want to. I don't want to box myself
in like that. Yeah, you know. Yeah, so I'm I
write dark fiction, and you know, I kind of leave
it at that. I let readers decide whatever the hell
it is. I don't they want to say it's horror.

(48:45):
That's fine, it's horror. They want to say it's something else.
That don't matter me.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Yeah, And you know, I've read tons of horror from
you know, a lot of different authors and the horror
you know, for ever since high school or middle school.
But and I'll say this and again not pandering or
anything like that, but just being really honest with you. You're
You've got a certain voice. It's very unique you're writing.
Is I can? I can? I can onrmly nail it

(49:12):
within like the first chapter. I can normally since it's you,
you know, and early in your career. And one of
the reasons why I was drawn to you so much
is you you would use weather elements to capture a
type of isolation, and you kind of force these characters
to live in this world of you know, whether it's

(49:34):
rain like gosh, like the rain Dancers, for example, or
a snow or a coming Storm, like Lords of Twilight
view from the Lake Winter Sleep. I think, uh, there's
another one. But how important is it to create atmosphere
within these stories you've always had, You've got a brooding,
isolated sort of act with these characters to dwell in.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
For me, it's it's hugely important because that's what kind
of drives it for me. Usually I try not to
get too caught up in the weather part of it,
But it depends on the work. Like Deep Night for example,
you know, the snow is almost like a character, yes,
you know, the elements are almost like other characters. So

(50:20):
it depends on what the piece is. Other times it
just helps to kind of establish a mood or you know,
like you said, a sort of sense of isolation or
that kind of thing. But I think weather is a
good tool, you know. I you know, you don't want
to you don't want to rely on it too heavily,

(50:41):
But I think if you can, if you can use
it as a as a tool and a means to
to do what I just said, then I think it
can be effective.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah. I think with your with your type of horror writing,
things like the Boogeyman, the Monster and of the Bed
you know, the so called stereotypical horror elements, they aren't
really in your face in your books. Instead, there's there's
like like real world themes that are actually the horror.
Like You've got you know, regret, lost dependency, marital abrasion,

(51:16):
You've got a host of struggles that your character is
dealing with, and when you're writing, you you put that
first and foremost in most of your books. And sometimes
when I'm reading your stories, at the very end, I'll say,
was there really anything supernatural here? Because you you kind
of leave it open ended.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Sometimes with a lot of my stuff, I do. Yeah.
The only stuff where I'm really kind of you know
what my what my friend and colleague Robert Dunbar would
say is subtle as a sledgehammer, is with the pulp stuff,
because you have to be more in your face with
that stuff, because that's what that's what it is. Yeah.

(51:58):
But yeah, generally my stuff I try to be I
try to leave a lot to the reader because I
think when you when you do that, I think you
leave yourself. You leave room for the reader to kind

(52:19):
of experience things in a different way. Yeah, And I
don't like, I don't like to to dictate to readers,
like in other words, I don't I I want you

(52:39):
to figure it out, and I want I want you
to have the answer, and your answer might be different
from somebody else's answer, because you bring what you bring
to the table, you know, And so I think that's
what I try to go for. I try not to
well was it this? Was it that? Well? I don't know,
you tell me, you know.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
I don't like that, I really do.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
How did it? How did it affect you? What do
you think? And so I think that's I think sometimes
that's a lot more effective in terms of reaching people
because you're you're kind of you're letting them get to
it rather than you know, forcing people in a certain
direction or something. Yeah, a lot of times people will

(53:23):
ask me, you know, well can you explain this book?
Or what what did you mean by? And I try
to not do that, not because I'm you know, trying
to be cutty or whatever. It's just if I do that,
to me, it's the equivalent of like if you went
to an art gallery, right, and you're looking at this
painting and you're experiencing it, and you're you're looking at

(53:47):
it and it's however, it's speaking to you. It's speaking
to you, right, Yeah. And then the artist comes up
and says, well, what do you think? Can you tell him?
And he goes, now, no, no, this is what you
should think.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
See, I think that's countered art. Like, I just want
people to experience what I do. However you experience it,
that's up to you. Yeah, because I feel like my
job's done when the book's done once, once you're once
it's out in the world, I I have I have
no more control over it. Yeah, you know, And I

(54:22):
don't want to control what people think or how they
react to it, or how it affects them. I mean, listen,
I'm trying to I'm no different than any other I'm
of course I'm manipulating the reader to a degree, but
I want you to maybe go in certain directions or
to see certain things, or to but the manner in
which you experience it and ultimately what you take away

(54:44):
from it, I want that to be yours. That's got
that's not that at that point, it's yours, that's not mine.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Yeah. I love that, and I think it's it makes
it really unique. It's a unique reading experience. Yeah, when
I'm reading your stuff, I don't try to do anything else.
I want to discompletely drown myself in that in that story.
Other stuff I can. I can read like one handed
and then do other things because I'm always reading. Oh

(55:10):
but yeah, with you, it's more of an experience than reading.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
Well, that's one thing I do try to do. I
do consciously do that as I want. I want you
to pay attention. Yeah, because with my stuff a lot
of it. If you don't, you're gonna miss. Like, like,
one of the best compliments I ever had was is
when people say to me, when I reread your work,

(55:35):
I pick up all kinds of stuff I missed the
first time, you know. And that's believe me, that's by design.
That's not a mistake I do. You know, there's nothing
I can tell you this. There's nothing that I do
in my in my stuff that isn't on purpose.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
You know. I even have a book I won't tell
you which one it is where I purposely was wrong.
I did something that I knew was not I knew
it wasn't the correct information, but I had the character
present it that way anyway. Okay, And what's really interesting
is I've never been called on it, and it blows
my mind because I'm like, once you realize that, you'll

(56:17):
understand maybe more about what the book's really about, you know,
but you know that's part of the that's part of
the experience. To me, I think it's I just want
people to I feel like too. One of the things
I try to stay away from is this whole concept
of whenever I can you know, well, I suspended my disbelief.

(56:41):
I feel like, if you have to do that with
what I've written, then I've failed. I hate to hear
that because I want you to buy what I'm selling,
you know what I mean. I want you to believe
what I'm telling you. I want you to I want
you in. I want you to be like you like,
like so deep into this that you're buying it. You
don't have to you don't have to remind yourself that

(57:02):
this is impossible, because I try to make it. I
try to make you question, as a reader, is this possible?
Could this be happening? Just like it' said? You know,
it says if you can get the reader to experience
it along with the character, you know, then there's there's
a million ways that that can go. And that's that's
what makes it interesting in the first place.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
To me, Yes, it kind of reminds me of some
of the things that The Twilight Zone did so well,
just putting these weird situations out there, just letting you
come up with your own conclusion.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
And David Lynch, who's like, yeah, nobody did it better
than him.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Great. Whenever anybody asked, you know what, can you explain it,
he'd always just saying, no.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
I've seen some descriptions of your work compared to David Lynch.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Yeah, it's an honor. Believe me. I'm always throwing whenever
I am that.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
Yeah. Is there anything that that you've written a novel,
novella or anything like that that you kind of stepped
back from and said, like, whoa, that's that's really dark,
Like if you ever caught yourself stepping back for a moment.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Yeah, yeah, it's happened. I have a personal connection to
everything I write. It's just a matter of degrees. So
some of the stuff that was that's usually my really
dark stuff is I have a pretty strong connection to it,

(58:34):
and I'm I'm trying to work something out. I'm trying
to you know. It's cathartic for me in some ways.
But yeah, there's been time. Deep Night was tough. Deep
Deep Night. It was funny for a couple of reasons,
because one I had the Bleeding Season came out and
it was it was a big hit, and you know,
everybody was, you know, kind of waiting for what I was,

(58:57):
you know, gonna do next. Was I like a one
hit wonder or was that going to be? You know?
And I was thinking about myself, you know, I knew
I was going to follow it with Deep Night, but
I didn't realize how hard that novel was going to
be to write because it took me. Would it take
me two years? I think two years to write that?

(59:17):
And I revised it so many times, and I just
I couldn't get it where I wanted. I just kept
I kept missing with it. And I was talking to
my sister one day. We were just having coffee and
I was we were chatting, you know, and I told
her she had housed the new book coming and I said,

(59:38):
I'm it's killing me, you know, I can't seem to
And after we talked for a few minutes, she said, well,
I think what you need to do, She said, You're
you're trying too hard to top the bleeding season. You know,
you have to you have to look at it like
the bleeding season is the bleeding season, this is its
own thing. And I thought, yeah, I need to that's

(01:00:00):
that's exactly what I need to do. And and so
I kind of, you know, approached it again that way,
and and then I was able to finish it. But
that was a tough book to write, because, uh, there
was a lot of truth in that book, like the

(01:00:21):
bleeding Season. You know, as a kid I suffered from
I've I've since come to know that they weren't actually
night terrors. In in therapy, I've come to learn this,
they were probably more like flashbacks. But yeah, I suffered
from that kind of thing as a little boy, and

(01:00:44):
and it, you know, it was my way of kind
of trying to work through that, what what the hell happened?
And so there was a lot of There was a
lot of that, you know, and it was it was
a it was a very it was a difficult book
to write, even once I had a handle on it,

(01:01:05):
you know. Yeah, but then once that once I had it,
you know, I felt I'm pretty happy with it now,
but it was it was tough. Those are those are
the tough ones. That was that was tough. They're all tough,
but yeah, like smoking Crimson was another one that that
might came out about a year ago. That one, Jesus,

(01:01:26):
that one like that really beat the hell out of me.
But because I tend to do again, I'm goen to quote.
Rob Dunbar was a dear friend of mine and a tremendous,
terrific writer. Brought the pines h among you know, many

(01:01:46):
other things, and he said, you do what I do,
he said. We were talking one day and he said,
you do what I do. Your method right, And I said, yeah,
I think it's from my time as an actor, you know.
I you do the method, you know, and but there's
a truth to that. So it's kind of unless it's
a novel. Like you know, the pulp stuff was a
little bit easier to do. The rest of the stuff,

(01:02:07):
it takes a lot out of me. It's it's a
you know, I get in there pretty deep, and I'm
usually in there trying to figure something out for myself too,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Yeah, yeah, I just I just reread The rain Dancers
the other day, and you know, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
A short books, but that's a dark one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
I was gonna say that one guts you every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's that's fillaid.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Yeah, you know, well that you know, I think that
has one of the great villains too. I think, yeah,
I could figure out how to use him again, I would,
but I can't. Very charismatic, yeah, but just crazy. And
it was that he was actually based on a guy

(01:02:54):
that I met one time.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Oh shit, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
And I was just like he was just one of
those guys that you would just like and believe me,
I've I've been around.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Some some people, but this guy was just one of
those guys where you were like, at first, you thought
he was kind of is he is?

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
He is this guy genuine? Is he really that night?
He just is he putting me on? Or what was this?
You know? I didn't trust him at first. I thought
he was this guy's deal, and then I realized it's
kind of like when you're talking to do you ever
talk to somebody that you don't know and at first
they just say, oh, they just seem kind of eccentric
or whatever, and then they say something with like a

(01:03:37):
completely straight face and you go, oh, okay, you're nuts.
You're like, this guy's crazy, right. It was kind of
like one of those moments where it was like, all right,
this guy is by the devil, What the hell is
the deal with this guy? Jesus got? You know, it
was just like he just all of a sudden hit
it with something. You'd be like okay, and I just

(01:03:59):
remembered thinking, I got to use this sometime, you know,
I gotta I gotta use this. And that's how he
was born. But that's a yeah, that's a pretty dark
I'd say that's about as dark as as my stuff gets.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
But yeah, yeah, so you know, speaking of you know,
the dark stuff and you know the scary stuff. You know,
we as a culture, I mean we turned on the news,
you got, you know, just this train train stabbing thing
that they showed yesterday, and then we're in Europe you

(01:04:32):
get the school shootings, all this crazy stuff. I mean,
can we really be scared anymore? Is there anything that
really scares us?

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
I think he can, I think, But I think it's
it's different than it was years ago because there's not
that there's not really that level of Even when I started,
there was still there wasn't much, but there was still
some semblance of innocence. I guess. Yeah. But Yeah. Now

(01:05:06):
I think it's more I mean ideal in mostly in
psychological stuff. So I feel like I can it doesn't
matter what's going on, because I can if I can
get in your head, you know, I gotcha, you know. Yeah,
But I know what you mean. It's it's it's more

(01:05:28):
of a challenge in the kind of nuts and bolts
part of it. And I think that's sad. I think
it's sad that we're so desensitized. I think I think
it's I don't want to get into politics and stuff,
but I think it's horror. You want to talk about
horror that we are We've got children being slaughtered and
we're like nobody, We're just like, oh, well, I guess

(01:05:49):
you know, I guess that's right. That's just you know,
that's a whole new that's a whole new animal. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Yeah, yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
I don't know, I don't know what. I don't know
what the hell you do with that. Yeah, but I
think you can. I kind of deal more in what's
going on in people's heads than than, you know, than
what's going on outside. And I try to blend the two.
But yeah, it's certainly it's getting harder. I mean not wrong.

(01:06:27):
I mean, yeah, you know, sadly.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Yeah, I think it's a difference of horror versus gore.
You know, I see the kids going to see these
terrifier movies and you know, they're pulling on entrails and
setting them on fire and everything else, and I'm like,
you really had to dig down deep in the in
the eighties and nineties to find that stuff because yeah, whatever, Yeah,

(01:06:51):
it wasn't just readily available.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
You know, you were no, and it was more of
a different It was more of like an exotic thing.
You know. It was like you know, because it was
you did have to look for it, and you had to,
you know, if you're into that kind of thing. I've
never been a big gore guy. Not not that my
I mean, look, I'm a huge Argento fan. I'm a
huge Italian. You know, I'm Italian. I'm a huge Italian.

(01:07:15):
Send him a fan and stuff, so I can get
into the gory stuff sometimes. But yeah, in terms of books,
I've never been like, I'm not really into the whole
splatterpunk thing and all that. I don't. I don't. I
have nothing against it. You know, there's some very good
writers that work in that in that area, but it's
just not my thing. I'd rather get to you, Like

(01:07:39):
I said, I'd rather get in your head. And I
still contend that if what you'll come up with, if
I give you enough, what you will conjure in your
own mind will be worse than anything I can come
up with if I if I do it right, yeah,
we'll go. I don't have to do it. And I

(01:08:00):
think there comes a point that there's also a point
I do respect the writers that do that stuff. There.
There are some that I respect, but I because they're
good writers and they could do whatever they wanted. They
happen to do that. But I do think sometimes there
are some writers that are into that stuff that it
reminds me of porn in a way. Yeah, that's not

(01:08:22):
that's not you know, I don't I don't want to,
you know, be a be a jerk. But like, that's
not hard to do that. Anybody can. Anybody can write pornography. Anybody.
You know, if you've had sex, you can write pornography.
You know what I mean? Pretty much, that's here, there's
your qualify. Yeah, So to me, that's not a challenge

(01:08:44):
to just sit there and write for twenty pages about
some guys entrails being pulled out. I don't. I don't
have a problem writing graphic stuff. And if you've read
my stuff, a lot of my stuff is very graphic,
or it can be. But I just I try not
to go on and on with it because I just
that's not really the point of what I'm doing. Yeah,

(01:09:04):
I just think it's I just think there's there's a
point with that where it gets to to me, it
just gets kind of like, you know, that's true. Anybody
can do that stuff, you know what I mean. But
if you can do it well and you're really good
at it, and there are there's there's a there's a
there's several people that are very good at that. It's

(01:09:24):
just not my thing. But you know that's cool. I
mean not everything has to be everybody's thing, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
There's plenty to choose from, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Yeah, I mean if that's your if that's your deal, man,
then you know rock up.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
So, you announced recently that you had a three or
four book deal with Crossbroads Press, their imprints macab Inc. Man,
you've got novels being released, I guess as early as
next month through them which books.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Are like December, well, December.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Actually, oh December, okay, December.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Yeah, Pack Animals will be out December. I believe it's
December sixteenth, if I remember correctly, December sixteenth.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
They I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Ruff, you are they reprinting
some of your books?

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
Uh? They've I've got a couple of my back list
pieces with them. Yeah. Plus they do a really cool
series of my novella's where they put two in a
in a in one book and they're called double Shots.
There's three of those out right now, and next year

(01:10:32):
there's going to be a fourth that's going to have
a sorry I need a cheat shooter. Uh my. My
novella Dreams the rag Man is going to come back
into print, okay, and it's going to be put together
with another novella called Sam Sarah, which was in a
an anthology. It has not been published only one time,

(01:10:55):
and it was in a limited anthology with Dark Regions,
which is I think they're closed now. It was a
limited paperback and a limited hard cover and so that's
going to be re released and that's going to get
to a wider audience, which is cool. That's coming out

(01:11:15):
early next year, and I also have a standalone novella
that's coming out next year with them called The Standing Dead.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Okay, yeah, I've heard that title. I was curious about that.
He tell us anything about it or you want to
keep your keep it hushuts.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
For the Standing Dead. That one's about, Yeah, it's it's
it's loosely based on a short story that I wrote
years ago that was published a bunch of times, and
it was in one of my short story collections. It's
now out of print, but it was it was a
concept that I always wanted to do more with, and

(01:11:52):
so I decided to do that. It's it's basically about
a guy who his wife. His wife goes for the
hikes in the woods, and on one of these times,
she doesn't come back, and so they search for her,

(01:12:12):
and they have this whole this whole town looks for her,
and they go through all of this and they can't
find her. And then one day she just sort of
wanders back and she appears back and her hair is
turned white and she's acting peculiarly, and so he sort
of tries everything he can think of, and she every
night she leaves and he has to go find her.

(01:12:33):
And bring her back, and he can't figure out what
the hell she's doing or what's wrong. There's something wrong,
something that's happened out there, and he hires a psychic
or you know, a clairvoyant basically to come in and
try to find out what's going on, and you know,
things ensue from there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
So awesome. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, that's great.
You well, let's let's talk about what you've got coming
up in December. You mentioned earlier Pack Animals, Yeah, and
uh yeah, thankfully we had a special treat for fans
and your fans and horror fans in general, for Pack Animals,

(01:13:18):
your publisher and uh, I guess you and your agent
whoever allowed us to uh everybody. Yeah, so we could
reveal the cover on social media and put it out
on the Babyback Warrior dot com blog. At the time
of this recording of this interview, it's set to come
out this week on our social media channel, but for

(01:13:39):
this interview, I wanted to reveal it here as well,
because people come in from all kinds of different different areas. Now,
social media, the blog, the podcast, the YouTube channel, we're
kind of all over the place. So some people, some
people may not have seen it on the on social media.
So let's go ahead and break this thing out. I'm
gonna preface it by saying that Zach McCain did this one,

(01:14:00):
and uh, he worked with you back in twenty two
with your Savages book.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
He did. He also worked with us and he worked
with us at Dark Views. Oh did he Okay, he
did several of the Dark Viuse covers.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
Okay, well, so yeah he did this one here.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Yeah, that was actually interesting story with that. That was
actually the original book. That was actually an interior the
original Savages when it was first published, that was that
was an interior illustration because initially they were concerned that

(01:14:40):
maybe it gave a little too much away, and so
they put it on the inside of the book and
they just had the woman running, you know, for the cover.
But when we when it was re released, we decided
to go with this because it's it was how do
you how do you not love that? How do you
not love that cover? But I mean, Zach is just

(01:15:02):
a he's the he's just a sweetheart. He's such a
nice guy, and he's he's a he's a very talented guy,
and he's he's he's just an absolute joy to work with.
And and he's got the whole uh you know, uh
retro cover thing like you. He's just he's amazing. Because

(01:15:24):
when we when I when I when we did, when
we got this deal, they said, well, you know, do
you have any preference, you know, because we we all
kind of agreed that, I mean, the covers are always important,
but with these kind of books, the pulp kind of books,
that they're really important. And and I said, you know,

(01:15:45):
they asked me who who they want me to? Was
there anyone I wanted? And I said, if you can
get Zach McCain, man, get him. You know, he'll nail it,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
And he did, Yeah, Well, let's take a look here
at pack animals. There it is, and it's it's amazing.
It is amazing these uh these uh wolf creatures here
in the back where wolves I guess uh are in
the back, got the snow with the fists, with the

(01:16:16):
bloody knife. Uh kind of when I saw it, it
reminded me a little bit of oh gosh, was ith
the island by? Is it Peter Bentley?

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
I think that oh yeah, yeah, there isn't that something
coming up out of the water, something like that Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
That's kind of what it reminded me of. But it's
it's pretty awesome. Let's take a look at the wrap around. Uh,
I got the whole wrap around here that you sent me.
It's amazing as well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
It's yeah, I mean just he just does incredible work, man.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Yeah. So I'm gonna have pre order links in the
description of this video so you can pre order that one.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
Yeah, and be able to pre order the ebook and
the paperback.

Speaker 1 (01:16:57):
Yeah. Yeah. And this one is it a is it
a werewolves hunts the Hunter kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
More well kind of it's you know, like I said,
I I had I've had the ideas of doing these
kind of books, and I I've never really there's a
couple of werewolf novels that are kind of fun, but
I kind of like I just I essentially just said,
you know, I'm gonna write a book that like I

(01:17:28):
would want to read about about this kind of thing.
And it's essentially about a group of guys who have
who have been friends since like high school, and they're
middle age now and have families and you know, the
whole dead and one of them gets divorced and a
kind of really messy divorce and he he decides to

(01:17:51):
leave and he moves up to this town in the
mountains up in New Hampshire and where there's this you know,
property that's kind of a steal and EP buys it.
But not long after moving there, he realizes there's something's wrong.
There's something you know, moving around out there that's that

(01:18:13):
shouldn't be. And his friends all sort of coordinate to
take vacations and go up and see him because they're
worried about him, and so they go up and then it, uh,
it kind of goes from there, you know, and there's
a there's a blizzard, and you know, they're they're in
the they're kind of in the middle of nowhere, and

(01:18:34):
there's this this pack of animals that are that are
like stalking them. And the whole thing takes place in
like one night and when they they have to kind
of it's it's kind of an homage to the the
the survival horror novels of like the seventies and eighties

(01:18:56):
and you know, like I say, the driving movies and
the exploitation movies of the seventies, and because it's just
like savages, it's that same kind of you know, One
of the one of the best compliments I had was
somebody said to me when they were reading Savages, was
like watching a drive in movie back in the day,
you know, which is just what I was going for.
So hopefully this does the same thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I people enjoy it. I love
like the nineteen seventies when they were putting out like
the nature of Tacks movies like yeah, like Grizzly, Day
of the Animals, Night of the Leap, as n a Squirrel,
that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Man, I like some of those. I'm kind of iffy on,
like like I don't like a lot of animal violence.
I'm not really I don't like that kind of stuff.
But but if it's like a monstrous kind of thing,
then I'm okay with it, you know. And I just
I never I think the closest thing I've ever seen,
like Dog Soldiers was was cool.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
But I just, like I said, they just I just didn't.
I can't. I did. I didn't see a lot of
novels that kind of captured that sort of thing, and
I thought, well, you know, let me try it, and
it and it kind of came together pretty well. These
are a little bit different. They're they're they're definitely wear wolves,

(01:20:15):
but they're uh, they're more animal than than you know
how most were wolves and lore or like kind of
a they're there. It's it's they're wolves, but they're they're
human hybrid. You know, it's like a hybrid. These are
more when they when they change, they're more animals. They're
like they're like they're like more of a of an animal.

(01:20:37):
And it's it's there's a whole culture that's going on.
It's a whole I don't want to give too much away,
but there's a whole there's a whole thing going on
up there, and these guys are pretty much you know,
they're they're in some serious trouble.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
One of my favorite stories that's kind of like this
one is, uh, maybe once you even edited. I think
maybe it was Michael McBride's Snowbound, which came out on
Dark Use to Believe.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
Mike's another guy. Yeah, he's done very well for himself.
Too good for Mike, you know, because he's a he's
a very nice guy. Was like Mike, he's a good guy,
and Mike's I you know, it was it was hard
for Mike and he was. He was a good guy
about it, but he you know, it was hard sometimes
for him because I think Mike wanted to to get
more attention and he deserved it quite frankly, and you know,

(01:21:22):
we tried to get him as much of that as
we could at Dark Fuse, but I think he sometimes
felt like like he was like the third or fourth
Feddle and wanted to be and he deserved to be
higher up. You know he did. Yeah, and uh, he
did some great stuff and he's still doing good stuff. Yeah,
he's he's really good at that kind of stuff though.
That's kind of his thing. He always was good at that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
I did a podcast episode and uh, if you haven't
heard it, all Sindol linked to it. It's where I
deemed the term deer hunter horror and yeah, but it
was it was a thing. It was like in the
seventies and eighties. There's a lot of a lot of
books that came out where it was people hunting other people,
and you know, it was really cool. But I like

(01:22:05):
the hunter aspect of it and being hunted and that
kind of things with that that appeals to me.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
Yeah, these guys aren't really so much hunters they're they're
just kind of regular guys, like, you know, one of
them is an accountant and one of them is you know,
you know, they're they're just kind of when guy's a
bartender one guys you know, uh, you know, they're just
kind of regular guys that are just up there trying
to help their friend and all hell breaks lose, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
Yeah, And it's really a lot about that too. It's
about their relationships and and I write about that a lot.
I write a lot about the relationship like friendships between
a lot of times between men and and and and
this is that's a huge part of this is there

(01:22:54):
because they have a history and they have a it's
not just guys that don't know each other. These are
guys that love each other and are really super close.
And yeah, you know, it's it's it's pretty it's pretty
horrific stuff going on.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
So yeah, well, the last thing I wanted to talk
with you about was something else you've got in the works.
Is one of your your books is being adapted to
a film. If I'm not mistaken, it's long Long after Dark. Yeah,
long after I'm gonna say deep night, but yeah, Long
after Dark. That one and that, I'll be honest with you,
that kind of surprised me because that's very intimate work.

(01:23:31):
I mean that's very intimate.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
Uh and and I think it almost killed me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:35):
Yeah, that's like, it can't be this because there's you know,
when you're reading it, there isn't a whole lot of
stuff visual. I mean, it's all very very psychological. Yeah,
you're really living in this guy's head. It's I was like,
how do you get a movie out of this? But
it's almost like it could be a one camera movie
kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Well, it kind of part it's partially going to kind
of be like that. It's not gonna be like that
through the whole thing, but there's it's going to be
a very kind of intimate film too. There's really not
a lot of characters and and you know, the main
character is pretty much in everything. So but it's it's

(01:24:16):
I will say this, it's based on Long After Dark.
It is not a complete movie version of the book,
but it's elements of the book. It's it's it's the
essence of the book. I guess it's the same concept.
He's in the house, he's you know, he's alone, he
doesn't feel well he's all these crazy things are happening,

(01:24:37):
or are they. Eric Shapiro who's another very good friend
of mine, and incredibly just like he's one of these
guys that's like there are people that are talented and
then there's people that are like scary talented. You know,
he's just one of these guys that can do Like

(01:24:57):
he's an amazing writer first of all, never known anybody. Well,
you can just give the officially the screenwriting. I mean
he's a good novelist too, but I mean, you give
this guy a concept and he'll give you a script
that's like will blow the top of your head off.
He does it. It's just like, yeah, he's a great writer,
and he's a he's a he's a very good director.

(01:25:18):
He's got several uh uh features under his belt now
and a lot of shorts, and and he's also like
a really gifted actor and I think he's like born
to play that part. And there's already a teaser. It
hasn't actually gone into production yet, but it will be soon.

(01:25:40):
But they did do a teaser which is uh you
can see on my my Facebook page. It's pinned at
the top, and you know it's just just even that.
It's just like, all right, this is gonna be as bounding,
This is gonna be great. So yeah, it's it's uh,
it's going to be a little bit different from the book,

(01:26:02):
but like I say, the essence of the book is
going to be there. So I'm excited about it. I
think it's going to be I think it's going to
be very effective and I think if anybody can can
can make this thing pop, it's it's Eric.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. What's the
what's the ETA on it?

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
I don't know, sometime next year probably. I know it's
going to go into production soon. There, it's right now.
It's like in the financing stage, so it kind of
that you got to wait for. I don't know if
it's going to be a I don't know yet if
it's going to be fully funded by investors, or if
it's going to be partial like a partial uh what

(01:26:44):
do they call it, like a crowd source thing or what.
I don't know how that's going to go yet.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
But any of your other any of your other work options.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
Oh, I've had lots of stuff optioned. I mean the
Leading season was optioned like three or four times. Yeah,
but they just couldn't. They couldn't. Nobody could ever figure
out how the hell to make it right, which you know,
I kind of get, but I kind of don't, you know.
But yeah, that one made the rounds initially and it

(01:27:17):
went nowhere. And then the funny story there was some
producer who was in the bathroom at some studio I
can't run in the studio, and I guess they had
books there and he picked up The Bleeding Season and
was reading it while he was in the bathroom and
ended up going to somebody and saying that we own this,
like what's the deal with this? Is really good? And
so I got optioned again, and then again they couldn't

(01:27:40):
figure out what the hell to do with it. So
I've got option I've had several that have been optioned.
None of them have ever come to fruition. This is
the first one that's going to actually go into production.
I got another one that's going to be optioned soon
on one of my crime novels. I can't really say
anything about it yet, but that'll be coming up soon too.

(01:28:02):
So and that looks pretty good. So, Okay, you know,
the movie stuff is hard. It's children and chaos is
another one. That one was, that one's been there's a
there's a brilliant script that and that one is like
the book, that's the book. It was even most of
the dialogue is even the same. But it's a brilliant script.

(01:28:25):
And that's been going. That's been bouncing around Hollywood for
several years. And at one point there was a director
when I was when I was with Paradigm for a while, uh,
that there was a director attached. There was you know,
it looked like it was going to go, and it
just it's a it's a you know, the whole Hollywood
thing is it's a it's a it's a strange you know,

(01:28:48):
you never know what the hell until until the money
is in the bank and it's the movies up on
the screen as you never know, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
Yeah, yeah, Well I got a friend of mine. He's
had his book options several times. But he's always happy
when he gets to rejects because he's like, I'll take
the check every time with these options.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
Yeah, I mean, and you know, if something comes to fruition, great.
I mean, you know, I also have another project and
I'm I'm working with Eric's a part of that and
another friend of mine, Greg Schapori, and he's he's a
part of it too. It's a it's a movie that
we're just waiting for finance. We we sort of created
and Eric wrote the script and it's with a pretty

(01:29:28):
you know, dominant, a pretty pretty big, you know outfit,
and we're just uh, the financing has come in. We're
just kind of waiting to see if we're gonna get
get any of it and if we are, how much
you know. But uh so that's in the works too.
So there's a lot of stuff going on. That's and
like I say, these are great, they're friends of mine,
but they're like Greg, I've known since we were like

(01:29:48):
twelve years old. He's he's an actor and right he
was in uh Julia on HBO. He was in The Holdovers.
I don't know if he saw that, but Jami and
he's a writer too, and of course Eric's involved, and
so we're we got We've got that going to and
hopefully we'll have some word on that soon too. So

(01:30:10):
a lot, yeah, lots going on.

Speaker 1 (01:30:13):
Thank God, I'm just guiding you fit me in today.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Well I'm glad, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
I love what you do, man, I love your I
was I was immediately drawn to it because I again
you know, I love that. I love that kind of stuff.
So and you do a great job with it. So
but I appreciate you having me.

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
Yeah, this has been a dream come true. Uh. It's
a real pleasure talking with you about all of your
past works, how you broke into the business and uh
and all this great stuff you got going on now.
So again, I've got pre order links in the description
of this video, so go out there and get your
copy of Pack Animals. And I've got links in here
for uh for Greg's Facebook page as well. You can

(01:30:55):
always follow him. He's always if you like food, great,
We've got some great looking cast roles and meats on there,
so be sure to check that out as well as
his beautiful three dogs. We get three beautiful dogs. All right, Well,
thanks so much, man, But yeah, check out paperback Warrior
dot com for hundreds of reviews. You've got links to videos,

(01:31:17):
and follow us on Twitter x Facebook and uh we'll
catch you next time.

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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;}Conversations - Greg F. Gifune