Category Archives: Interview

Me, Talking

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Not one but two podcasts were foolish enough to have me on as a guest recently!

There was the Retro Ridoctopus Podcast, hosted by Steve Von Sansom, and they covered all sorts of stuff with me  here.

And then there was my third(?!) appearance on The Corner of Story and Game, hosted by Gerald Ford, where we talked about the tension between wanting things to be perfect and needing things to get done. Check it out here.

And, looking ahead, on December 7th I’ll be doing another Noir at the Bar at Larema Coffeehouse in beautiful Wilson, NC, home of the epic Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. (Wilson, not the coffee shop). I’ll be reading with some mighty fine folks like Rachel Brune and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, along with warhorse Robert Creekmore and more. Hope to see you there!

Talking GenCon

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I’ve got a ton of writing news to share, but in the meantime, here’s an interview I did with Gerald Ford of The Corner of Story and Game. (and I make him laugh so hard he cries at the end.)

Check it out!

All The Things!

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Hello there! All sorts of wacky stuff is going down in the near future! But today, we’re just going to focus on three things,

For one, the talented Pamela Raymond wrote up a review of my story “Wishing Won’t”. It’s an in-depth analysis of the second-darkest thing I’ve ever written and it’s a great read. Check it out here!

For another, I had the distinct pleasure of getting interviewed on the Halfling and the Spaceman podcast, talking about all sorts of stuff including stories from the good old days at White Wolf. You can find that here, or wherever your fine podcasts are sold.

And finally, Saturday June 29th at 7 PM, I am going to be part of a group reading for Noir At The Bar in Wilson, NC at the Larema Coffee House.  I’ll be reading something brand new…so come out and join us!

Some Love From A Goat

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Kayleigh Dobbs of Happy Goat Horror was kind enough to turn her eye to me and A MEETING IN THE DEVIL’S HOUSE.  She reviewed it, and you have to love any review that includes a break in the action to question whether the author is all right – which you can find right here.

She also sat down for a pleasant hour’s conversation which covered everything from writing for games to the true story behind the zombie frog tale “Meemaw’s Frogs”.  If you have the time, check it out – the conversation was a lot of fun. You can find it here.

Meanwhile the reviews keep rolling in on Amazon – two new ones say nice things like “MEETING IN THE DEVIL’S HOUSE is a meeting you don’t want to miss” and “The amazing thing is that each story is a master class in short fiction. Dansky’s writing in this collection reminds me of the first time I read Bradbury’s October Country. That’s the highest praise I can bestow!”

 

The Scariest Part

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Some of you may recall my good friend Nick Kaufmann’s Five For Writing, wherein we discussed his fungus-centric new novel The Hungry Earth. Well, Nick runs a series of essays on his website called The Scariest Part, wherein he gets horror authors to talk about the scariest part of their new books, and he was kind enough to ask me to contribute. So you can read all about the scariest part of writing Ghost of a Marriage here.

Five For Writing – Thomas R. Clark

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Author, podcaster and gamer, Thomas R. Clark is a man of many talents. In addition to published works like The God Provides, he anchors the metal-and-horror podcast Necrocasticon. So let’s throw the goat and let Thomas answer in his own words

1-Heavy metal and horror. What’s the connection?

My two favorite niche genres of entertainment. And they are niche, no matter how rabid and vocal the fan bases are for both. They are linked through iconography and themes, mostly.One can’t think of Iron Maiden without also seeing their zombified mascot, Eddie. Many metal bands use imagery typically associated with horror – Type O Negative, for example, or Ghost and their Satanic pope character Papa Emeritus – hell, even Black Sabbath’s name comes from a Boris Karloff film. Not to mention one of my favorite horror novels, The Scream from Skipp & Spector, which is a perfect blend of this.

2-What was the experience of writing your first novel like?

Do you mean the one I just wrote? Or the two I wrote between 2015 and 2018 that will never see the light of day cos they are/were nothing but a collection of scenes and awful? Well, wait, that isn’t all true. I’ve cannibalized and re-written portions from both into other pieces. For example, the opening chapter to Whirlwind was slightly modified into the short story “Chirp” you can find in my debut collection, A Book of Light and Shadow. The protagonist of the same book, a private detective named Dianne Brighton, was reimagined as the protagonist of my WIP, The Witch of November. I write slowly, and writing a full length novel is an arduous task for me. My longest piece of published fiction to date is The God Provides, but that is technically a collection of four novelettes. The Death List, my longest narrative piece in print, is just under 40K. Now, the one I just completed, Summerhome, is my first full length commercial novel, no disrespect to F. Scott Fitzgerald. I found the process with this to much easier than I thought it would be, as I was taking what I’ve learned with my prior pieces and applied it to this. I’m in the midst of a rewrite before going to my editor.

3-What have you learned from the process?

I learned your first book will be awful, and likely your second book, too.But they need to be awful. I’ve learned writing books is a lonely trade, and the legends of writers having substance abuse issues are no joke. It’s easy to tip a bottle or light up a smoke when you are alone as much as a writer is.

4-What’s the most metal thing you’ve ever written?

Thus far, it’s Bella’s Boys. The Death List is pretty metal, too, but Bella’s Boys is so much more than a cosmic horror novella. It has meta-layers, making it everything that is metal and Rock-n-roll. For example, the chapters indicating the date, time and snowfall totals – those represent the time signatures of a song on an album. The book is an album in print, with each chapter being a new track, or song in presented in narrative prose.

5-How does your podcasting relate to your writing?

I went to college for broadcasting and journalism, so the podcasting is a natural extension of that. Podcasting, ironically, has led me to my writing career, though. I’m glad I’m doing this now, and not thirty years ago. I imagine the ME of that era wouldn’t have been very popular with the community as a whole, due to my immaturity and rampant, out of control ADHD. I’ve only learned to manage over the last decade – and much of this is a result of the structures I’ve had to build in my life to produce quality creative content. I worked in sales for 25 years nad never achieved the amount of understanding for my trade as I have with writing fiction.

Sometime around 2008 or 2009, my buddies and I started a fan podcast of a regional professional wrestling promotion. Interviews I did during this time period assisted me in landing a podcasting and journalism gig at an online entertainment news site similar to Ain’t It Cool News, called This Is Infamous. During this time period, a peer with a small press printed a series of comedy-genre pieces I wrote over the years. My coverage of horror films and the horror based fiction I wrote landed me in the HWA, which I joined to find mentoring. During this time, I started the Necrocasticon Podcast, after leaving This Is Infamous. Eventually, I was given a mentoring spot with Monica S. Kuebler at Rue Morgue Magazine, which led to me covering Scares That Care for the magazine. And there, after meeting many of the creatives who inspired me, like Brian Keene and Tom Monteleone, I discovered I wanted to write fiction. So podcasting has had a drastic impact on my fiction, without it, I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing today.

Many thanks to Thomas for bringing the thunder to this week’s post. You can find him online at his website, or on Twitter. And check out the Necrocasticon if you get a chance!

Next week is a special treat for me, as I bring you an interview with my long-time coworker and friend, the man who is Vampire: The Masquerade, Justin Achilli. See you then!

Five For Writing – Professor Christopher McGlothlin

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Do you know what a ghost show is? If you don’t (or even if you do), you’re in for a treat, as today’s interview is with the head honcho of Ghost Show Press, Professor Christopher McGlothlin. The mind behind the recent book of essays Transgressive Horror: Reflections on Scare Films that Broke the Rules (which, full confession, contains my take on Curse of the Demon), he’s just getting revved up. Here, then, is his Five For Writing!

1-What’s a Ghost Show, and why did you name your press after it?
Ghost shows were “A Special Weird Attraction!” that came to your local drive-in movie theatre, promising “Monsters Abduct Girls From Their Seats,” “Man Buried Alive for a Week Dug Up at Showtime,” “The Beatles Spiritually Materialize,” and a “Triple Horror Movie Shock Show!” Anyone who wouldn’t buy a ticket to that is made of sterner stuff than I.
What paying customers actually got was carnies in rubber masks carrying off planted female accomplices, cheap stage magic tricks, and decaying 16mm prints of decades-old Poverty Row films. It was a total con, but the willing marks got what they really came for: a wild burst of pure fun and imagination that filled their world with more wonder than they knew.
That tradition is rich in my rural Virginia blood, and when it came time to launch my publishing venture, I realized ghost shows are the perfect metaphor for what I want to do. Ghost Show Press is just me and super-talented folks I vibe with writing books for everyone who still wants that same pure fun and imagination. Although we won’t put on monster masks and bury anyone alive. Probably.
2-Why did you pick the subject of transgressive films to be your meat and potatoes for Ghost Show Press?
I have always wanted to write about how cinema doesn’t have to be objectively good to be worthy of discussion — just innovative and interesting. The Everyone’s Gone to the Movies essay collection series was born from that. There are many, many published works telling you why Psycho (1960) is a classic film. Myself, I prefer to get into how The Wizard of Gore (1970) and Audition (1999) are like nothing else you’ll ever see — and why people should see them.

3-What inspired the first book in the series, Transgressive Horror?
I’d been thinking of doing a book like TH all by myself since back when I was a much younger, energetic fellow, but life and other paid work kept getting in the way. Then in the fall of 2020, my dear friend James Lowder (the legendary writer and editor) casually mentioned he had an unpublished essay on Witchfinder General (1968) in his files. That’s when the cartoon lightbulb went off, and I realized I could finally do TH by leveling up to publisher & editor, writing only as much as I cared to, and asking other creators (first-time writers and veteran scribes) to join in. And thus did TH arise from the slab, ready to run amok in the world.

4-Are there any films you wish had made the book that didn’t?
I’m a fan of pioneering director Stephanie Rothman, and always want to boost the signal on her work (like now!); the underrated The Velvet Vampire (1971) in particular. I offered TVV to every writer who asked for suggestions, and nearly wrote about it myself, to no avail.
Given the genre, we’re fairly obligated to do Transgressive Horror 2 at some point, and will hopefully get to TVV in the sequel.

5-What’s next?

On April 27, 2022, Ghost Show Press launches its Kickstarter for Vol. 2 in the Everyone’s Gone to the Movies series, Subversive Sci-Fi: Reflections on Futuristic Films That Broke the Rules. We’re very blessed to have nearly the whole team back from Vol. 1, as well as some fabulous new additions.

Not sure of the exact date, but at some point my farewell to tabletop gaming industry will be released: The History of Sentinel Comics, the true story of everyone’s favorite imaginary publisher. It’s co-written with the amazing Darren Watts, and published by the greater folks at Greater Than Games. Darren is supremely gifted, and with GTG I was never treated better as a freelance writer. It’s a funny, obsessively detailed, and affectionate ode to everyone who loves comic books, and the best possible way to bid adieu to my time in tabletop games.

Big thanks to the Professor for answering these questions, and best of luck with the sci-fi book and beyond! Tun e in next week, when I’ll be talking to Splatterpunk Award nominee Thomas Clark. See you then!

Five For Writing – Lauren Stone

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This week’s Five For Writing is a day late, for which I apologize, but I promise you it’s worth the wait. Today’s guest is Lauren Stone, narrative lead on the Division franchise and doer of All The Things story-related for Ubisoft. Her credits are diverse enough to include both Rainbow Six: Siege and Eagle Flight. I had the privilege of working with Lauren on The Division 2 and she is smart, fast, funny, and sharp. But enough of me talking about her; here she is in her own words.

1-What says good game writing to you?

Good game writing to me is narrative that supports, enhances and elevates the experience. Anything that helps support and build the world, the mechanics and the player experience is good game writing to me. Whether that is a piece of UI Text that gleans clarity or a cinematic
that makes you cry.

2-How do you keep a story like The Division’s going years after release?

By focusing on character. Though we may be almost 6 years past the original release of Division 1 we haven’t even spent a full year in the world in terms of the story’s timeline. We have really only made it to late-August in the currently released content and October in the new novel that is coming out in February 2022. The majority of our story is told in the past and through flashbacks in the form of audio collectibles and active missions. It’s been 6 years for us but only 10 months for our characters.
As we explore new regions, we meet new people and all of those people have rich histories and backstories that made them who they are and how they react to the situation at this point. We get the privilege of learning more about established characters by meeting people we’ve never met before and getting their perspective on the state of the world and what our characters have represented to them based on how they have been treated by agents of the Division or individual interactions with our established characters. We will be learning more about many of our established characters in future content releases over the next year and I’m excited to see how the community responds to the new information they get about these people they think they already know. The funny thing about people is we are always much more complicated than expected and unless you directly ask someone why  they do a thing and they answer honestly, you can never truly understand someone’s motivations or reasons for behaving the way they do. As long as people are complex and your  characters are built like real people, you will never run out of potential stories you can tell about them.

3-You help coordinate novels based on Ubisoft IP. What makes a good transmedia novel in your
opinion?

One that respects the source material but explores different types of stories that work better for the medium. We get to be more internal in a novel. We get to focus on motivation and character in a way that you can’t really explore in the game without it feeling cheesy or like the writer is trying too hard to be clever. My favorite things about transmedia is that it allows you to engage in the world in ways that are suited to the medium. What works for film does not always work for a novel or an audiodrama, what is perfect in a comic doesn’t always translate to the game. If your world is rich you can make a piece of art in any medium. My weird dream that will never happen because I am a musical theater kid would be to make a Division Musical with Lin Manuel Miranda, my original dream before getting involved with transmedia was to have him get into a booth and just freestyle rap about the state of the world and be an NPC in a safehouse near Broadway. That Lin was just a person who survived and tried to keep making art. This is my weird fantasy that will never happen, but, eh, weirder fantasies have become reality and sometimes throwing things out into the universe can result in the world echoing back, “yes please, I want to have that.”

4-How do you instill narrative in a game like Rainbow Six: Siege, that doesn’t have the sort of
structure that generally allows for narrative development.

The same way I approach all narrative design. I look at the constraints as opportunities. All we have is barks, which means all we have is character. We have ambient audio to build the map, we tell a fixed story in the map. We use the art to build the world. We use the textures and marketing to ground the characters. Multiplayer live games in general are not built to tell a single player narrative experience. That is not the goal. A lot of the stories in games that are traditionally elevated as being amazing are really screenplays with combat beats. The richest and most complex stories are in games that are much more complicated than that. But I think people still expect the game to fit in a screenplay format, especially for award shows. We need to retrain people on what qualifies as story. It’s not just the cinematics. Especially when you can hold A to skip. It’s the content you engage with regardless of how expensive or long you engage with it. The small moments are the things that people remember. The weird lines and characters or a stunning piece of art. A moment that is real and evocative and makes you feel something and helps you better understand the world is a great piece of story, even a piece of graffiti that lets you know the True Sons are here, get ready, can be a wonderful and necessary story that helps the player engage more fully with the world.

5-What are you looking forward to seeing in game writing as we go forward?

I’m looking forward to people respecting barks. Respecting the Menus and HUD. Respecting each other’s work. I’m looking forward to the future where we realize everything matters and everything is worth focus, attention, energy and consideration. Every person in your world from the studio to the characters is deserving of having their humanity and contributions seen, celebrated and respected. I’m looking forward to people realizing that game narrative is a viable option to tell story, to build a career, to create stability and art. I’m looking forward to more people learning how to use the constraints as opportunities.

Thanks so much to Lauren for her time and thoughtful answers, and check out her work on the ongoing saga of The Division.

Next week things are going to get a little crazy – I’m interviewing…an editor.