TIH 218: Craig Davidson on Pseudonyms: Craig Davidson vs. Nick Cutter, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and Writing Supernatural and Human Villains

Michael David Wilson 0:00
Welcome to This is horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm your host. Michael David Wilson, and today, we are going to be rejoining Craig Davidson for part two of our conversation. If you missed part one, all you need to do is head back one episode in that conversation, you will hear us talk to Craig about life lessons, growing up in Niagara Falls, being a mid career writer responding to bad reviews, how to tackle creative burnout and a lot, lot more. But as I say in every episode, really, you can listen to these conversations in any order. So by all means, listen to this now and then. Go back to the first part before we get into the conversation. Let us have a quick word from our sponsors.

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Michael David Wilson 1:34
All right. Well, with that said, let us not delay. Here it is. It is part two of the conversation with Craig Davidson, horror.

Well, we spoke about obsession, so I have to ask, what are some of your other obsessions? Apart from writing, i

Nick Cutter 2:01
Huh? I mean, life obsessions, I'll, I don't know, you know, hate to sound boring, but, uh, yeah, I you know that, just like personal stuff, you know, there's not nothing even really worth talking about that sounds pitiful, but like, you know, I play basketball, I have a friendship network, I don't have. I mean, that's one thing I'm sure we all get as as horror writers and horror lovers, is that there must be some dark, corrosive aspect of your personality that the only way that you can grapple with it is to write horror and express everything that way, so that you don't, you know, going and going to killing spree or something like that, which I find a little annoying. And I especially find it annoying because I have the literary side. And you'll go to events where, where it will be in the literary sphere, and people will come up and, you know, they've said more or less something along the lines of, why are you slumming in horror? And I find that outrageous and deeply annoying. And, you know, now, now I just say it's like, I don't, I don't consider it to be slumming at all. You know, like horror has been my first love has always been I'm grateful to be able to write these books. In many ways. I find them. I certainly find them more fun to write than the Davidson stuff. And you know, if I, if I catch the tail of the tiger, proverbially, with those cutter books, from time to time, I mean, it feels even more I don't know it works at a different level, and I certainly don't see it in any way as a lesser writing either either of my two writing persona or of like the the great wealth of horror literature that exists out there, You know, because there are many, torturously boring and dull and unfun, laborious literary books out there, you know, so the idea that literary fiction occupies this exalted space, while horror and other genre books or writers should kind of grub around in the dirt is, um, I mean, it's enraging. And it's also like, look at yourself, you know, the people who come up and say this often other writers, and it's like, your stuff is not very good. You know, if you know, you know, if you were to try and write horror, you would be terrible at it, basically in the same way that you're terrible at writing literary fiction. But it's not like you could just and every so often we see that, you know, and I never wanted people to think that about myself, too. You know that that, like a literary writer, kind of descends to writing some horror book for a cheap buck. Not the way it is. And I think the you know, the best horror writers, the best writers of the of that style of writing, are every bit as talented, if not more, to be honest, than their their literary counterparts. And generally, I find, anyways, when I go amongst horror people, there's not that there might be a chip on the shoulder because they assume that that literary writers think that about them, but there, there's just not that kind of, I don't know, nose in the air aspect to to the horror writers that I hang out with,

Michael David Wilson 5:34
yeah, and I think many of us do come into contact with people who have this misconception that horror is somehow lesser, and it can be tricky thinking, how do you deal with that? You know, what's the appropriate reaction? And honestly, I think maybe it's a case of being like, well, if you really think horror is lesser. Why don't you read these books? Here's one by Brian Evanson. Here's one by Gemma file, Stephen Graham Jones, I'll even throw in a Joshua maliman, so go away, have a reader then, then let's have a conversation. Yeah,

Nick Cutter 6:16
completely. I think a lot of it is based on no actual interaction with with the genre. You know, it's like they want to dislike. So not, you know, I am making massive blanket statements. This is not like I am. I am talking about some of the worst encounters I've had. And obviously, months can go by without any of this happening, but it certainly has happened, certainly in academic circles, which I think that's changing now, because, I mean, I think, you know, academic scrutiny of of texts of, say, body horror or texts of suspense, paranoia, these, these are all like becoming, if they if they weren't already, you know, vital and important and under scrutinized academic kind of discipline. So, but that's about the only way sometimes that they do, because on a theoretical level, they're interesting to academic types or literary types. So they're almost looking at books as as a collection of theories that they can extrapolate from, and we I mean, which is fine, but ideally they also enjoy, and if not enjoy, can see the worth and the merit and the skill that it takes to put these books together, and that that skill, even though it's differently employed than it would be in a literary work is the same baseline ability, just displayed differently,

Bob Pastorella 7:47
right? You have all these, you know, it horror is not a dirty word. It is. That's one of my pet peeves when I hear that. And I don't like to even like Michael said, hey, just read, you know, read, Stephen Graham Jones. Read, whoever. I always like to throw back literary classics at him, like, read, a Christmas girl, yeah, yeah. Read, read, you know, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll, Mr. Hyde,

Nick Cutter 8:14
yeah, turn to the screw, yeah. Read,

Bob Pastorella 8:17
read the these are considered literature. The only reason they're considered literature is because you've got 200 years of criticism from people who are trying to to bring out some type of other higher meaning, and sometimes the curtains are just fucking blue. I mean, it's just that simple, you know? Yeah, it's, it's, it infuriates me. I'm have to calm down.

Nick Cutter 8:43
I get it of myself here. I do sometimes, you know you you plus you know sometimes you're pissing into the wind. Anyways, is that any kind of explosion you might have is generally gonna not be met in the way that you'd like it to be anyways. So you just kind of, and the camps are so entrenched, it's, you know, I wouldn't say it's quite the same way as is in American politics, but, but there are pretty strong party lines and if and if someone feels that way. And, you know, I don't know about you guys, but it feels like it only goes on one way. You know, it's not let that. I mean, we will sit and talk about, you know, literary books, quote, unquote, literary books that we love, you know. But it seems, if you've camped yourself on the other side of that proverbial fence to even acknowledge outside of maybe, yeah, like said, Frankenstein, or some of these kind of seminal works, maybe The Haunting of Hill House, yeah. So, like, no, it's, it's a it, you know, it's some kind of genre that is meant to be shunned and not spoken of. And if you admit to it, you know, it's, it's, it is a dirty word. And I can, obviously, I work in it. We all work in it. So we don't consider it that way at all. But. Yeah, I know, certainly in the university structure, though, in terms of teaching it, at least, you know, in the MFA programs, when I went to do my ma if, even if, I'd wanted to write a horror novel, which I did actually quite desperately, and this was years ago, but that was not on the plate like that was not going to be allowed. That sort of sense was like, keep your zombies and slime creatures and vampires to yourself, but we want good Canadian literature, whatever the hell that meant. And that was infuriating, but also that I knew that was kind of going to be how it was going to be that was just the way university programs operated at that point. But I think now, I've certainly heard anecdotally from from friends of mine who've gone through it or are now in it, younger writers, they're like, No, there's there's an opening, there's a broadening now, and if you want to write something that is genre, you know, whether it's a thriller, whether it's a detective novel, fantasy, horror, you have the allowance now to do that, and, you know, it's a small step, but I think it's a meaningful one,

Bob Pastorella 11:10
yeah, and I've heard that from other people too. I mean, it was, I didn't pursue an MA or MFA when I was in university, but then, you know, the time that I spent in, you know, in the English classes I had, I was both mortified at, you know, what they what they wanted us to read, but also enlightened by one particular teacher who, when I asked to Do my thesis on Stephen King, she she said, Well, you know, here's she said, Look, if you're going to do it and you're going to contrast to compare Dracula to Sam's lot, and I'm figuring shit, this is going to be easy as pack, because she don't know nothing about Sam's lot. Well, I was wrong. And, you know, and I made a beat because I was, like, really wrong. And then, you know, here's this, there's, you know, this professor who's, you know, probably in her late 60s. And it just blew me away that she would even, you know, and she would go on and on and on about literature. And I asked her, I said, So which do you like better, you know? And she says, Well, she has some help teaching class, and I want to teach about Bram Stoker. And obviously I'm going to kind of slant to that. And she goes, but she goes, I've read Sam's lot several times. And she goes, that book scared the shit out of me. So ultimately, you got to look at it as readers don't care about any of that stuff. That's That's what that's your impetus to push, to push it forward and say, hey, well, then, you know, I write hard because none of that literature stuff matters, none of it, none of the critique matters. Notice that critical aspect of it actually matters, because readers don't care. And I know me, I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that in a good way. They just want to be entertained.

Nick Cutter 13:01
Yeah, I feel like I agree with that. I also feel like, you know, and this isn't, this isn't the disagreement. But certainly, even within horror, you know, the readership skews as to what kind of horror they like, what what you know. Then, then you get into this inter senine Battle amongst horror, people of like, well, you know, this is the best kind of horror, or this is, you know, honestly, the most literary horror amongst horror, you know. And you've got, you know, the the Aikman kind of contingent, or that kind of group. And you've got, you know, people who write, you know, maybe more Gothic ghost stories and like, again, we are getting down to like, just what we like, basically. And I guess I've run a run aground into that a little bit with with Nick cutter, is that I listen, I definitely have a point of view that I want to to. I mean, there's certain things that I want to write about. There are certain obsessions that I'm clearly working over on the page, you know. But I, you know me personally, like I was, you know, talking about going way back to like, childhood, you know, we would go to the video store as teenagers or even younger, and get like, you know, the horror, I mean, I missed the video store. I missed the horror section of the video store. It was, you know, right down from the the area with the beaded curtain in front of it, where they had all the smut films. You know, at most of the video stores it was, it was set next to that for whatever reason. And you know, you I just get, you know, obviously, carpenter and my own countrymen, Cronenberg, who are immense, you know, kind of inspirations to me. And that's it, that kind of created the fundament that them, and King and Barker. And, you know, I'd be the first person to say that, that I'm, I am. I. It's almost like, you know, I try to explain it to me, it's almost like a baby duck who imprinted on too early, almost on on his set of influences. And so it is difficult for me, outside of my own obsessions, to get away from the people who influence me. And sometimes they, they creep in, in ways that I am chagrined at To be honest, and I have a difficult time fighting that and knowing especially that there are, there are people who like this type of horror and consider this other type of horror to be kind of like pulpy or too on the nose or derivative or any number of other things. And so it's interesting, while you know horror, you know, you know, people such as ourselves feel like we're getting it from the literary establishment from time to time. I think within horror, there is also some very clear party lines that have been drawn. And I have no problem with that. It's just the mat. It's just the fact that if, if you are online, you can, you can certainly see it. And for me, that's like basically caused a pulling back from kind of social media, because just for my own sense of self worth and and sense of self and and the sense that sitting down behind the computer is is a tough enough gig, as we we, all three of us, know on a regular day, even even more so when you feel like that, you're the work you're producing is meritless, which is not what I think, but certainly I could let myself feel that way if I weren't careful,

Michael David Wilson 16:46
right? And I think having access to so many people's opinions via social media, I mean, yeah, if you don't manage it, can be incredibly detrimental to your well being and indeed, to your mental health. So, I mean, we've said it numerous times before on this is horror social media. And the internet is a great tool that can be used for good, but I think using it for good that is the key. And you know, it can also do a lot of damage as well.

Nick Cutter 17:24
I agree. I think, sorry, yeah. I think the people, you know, I think the people who they probably are using it for the good as they see it, you know, I guess that it's how what you think of as good, if you if your estimation of good means sticking up more or less for the writing that you see as as valuable and and having the most merit within the genre or external to the genre, then that is good. And I mean, I like I said, I have no zero problem with that. And I honestly have zero problem with criticism as an actual thing. It needs to be there. People need to be able to say what they want to say about the books or movies or music that they that they like or dislike. I think from the sense of the creator of that, you know, my sense is like a good review. I how you guys feel when you get online, kind of review of your work? Is that a good review? I always think, ah, you've, you've let me off the hook. You're not, you know, for whatever reason, you're just being nice. And a bad review is like, Oh, you've accessed my secret heart of hearts, and you've, you know, teased out all of my flaws, which I always knew about, but I thought maybe I could hide them, or that they had been properly hidden within the work. So it's like, the good ones don't give you any real satisfaction, at least in my sense, and the bad ones rip like rip at the sinews of your heart. So it's like, I, you know, in that estimate, you have to avoid it, because it's just like, it's the sum of the good and the bad always ends up tilting towards the bad, but at the same like the bad and the way that I feel about it, but like for those people, being able to express those things and to say the things that they they want to say, I think that's that's vital. And, you know, people need to be able to do that right?

Michael David Wilson 19:17
And I can't remember who it was, but someone we've spoken to, they said, if you listen to the bad reviews, you have to listen to the good reviews. And equally, if you take the good reviews to heart, well, you've got to take the bad reviews to heart too. So basically, the conclusion is to not really give too much of a evil way. You know, take them all with a grain of salt, and I mean, Seth Godin says if he reads a bad review, his response is okay, it wasn't for you. You weren't my intended reader. You weren't the audience. This product or this book isn't for you, and really that's about. You can say, yeah, yeah,

Nick Cutter 20:01
exactly. Were you or you were, I was hoping you'd be the I think a lot of us writers are kind of innate people pleasers, and you'd like to have everybody enjoy the work that you produce. But obviously, having said everything that I said, and I completely agree with you, Michael, because it hasn't, it hasn't encouraged a change in what I'm doing. And whether that's because I'm incapable of of shifting course too much, or because it's sort of like a hey, like, No, fuck you this is what I do, you know, or, and there's plenty of stuff out there to like and, and if you don't like it, don't be a masochist and read it. Or, do you know, do as you like, basically. But I think for a lot of us, you just you do pursue your own path, whether that's by by your obsessional nature, whether that's just by the slant of who you are as a person. And yeah, I think I'm too old now to do stuff because I'm being a just want to be a dick about things that doesn't really make a lot of sense. Of sense anyways, but yeah, I think there is something when, you know, say, if we had all been writers, you know, 40 years ago or something, you have a book come out, even a big book come out, you know, you would get, I don't know, let's say when the newspapers were bigger than there are now. You know, you get maybe 20 or 30 reviews, and you'd only probably get them unless you're, you know, your publicist clipped them out of the wherever the newspapers were and sent them to you. And ideally, he or she would probably withhold the slams. But now it's, it's different. You know, any book you put out, you you have a an immensity of reviews to grapple with if you want to, you know, and they're gonna all express a different opinion. And just, I think it really is just your the way you either cope with them or don't cope with them. And again, I've been doing this for quite some time, so I'm, I'm better at coping with them, but at the same point, I'm like, Well, you know, if I'm not on, I mean, what happened? I was on Facebook, and this is probably, you know, too much information or something, but like, I'd already been talking to my wife about, like, well, I like Facebook and I like my friends, but like, I know my friends, I see my friends. We have other ways of communicating and staying in touch. And little heaven had just come out. And it's that's a rough time for any writer. Obviously, just when you're when your book is coming out, it's a particularly sensitive time even even, you know, for someone who's put out a few books, such as myself, you know, there's some scar tissue there, but it's still, it can be ripped open at the edges pretty easily. And someone who was not a bad intentioned or bad natured person, but he had friended me years ago, and prop must have forgotten that he friended me, or, I don't know, I'm going to assume he forgot that he friended me. And I think the title of the post was something like, you know, a lot of people are going to tell you, this is a good book, don't believe them. And, and I was, you know, and if you guys could picture yourself, you just kind of flipping through Facebook idly, like, okay, all right, I write, oh, what's Oh, man. So I just thought, like, if it can invade your own sphere, you know, that wasn't me going out to seek it. That was me in my own, you know, arena, I suppose, with with my quote, unquote friends. So you're like, you know what? I I don't I don't need that. I don't need that. And it wasn't just that. It was an accumulation of other things, but that's kind of an example of how, you know, how things can be crushing. And, you know, it's not like I sat around crying, you know, into my pillow for the next week or something. But it's tougher to get behind the computer the next day to kind of work out your your stuff when you've got that kind of idling away in the back of your brain. So I thought, yeah. So anyways, there's my long and torturous too much information of Craig Davidson's parting with Facebook, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 24:02
but, I mean, I can understand your decision, given what happened, but I've noticed that you seem to intermittently be on Twitter, which, I mean, I've seen people who kind of come and go on Facebook, but it seems more of a rarity on Twitter. So I wondered is, is that a kind of similar case that it's like, right? I need to take a breather, but then you kind of return and you'll get, I guess, the benefits of promoting and the benefits of engaging with your fans on Twitter. Because I would say that I think, I think Twitter is easier to log in, interact with people and log off like you don't tend to find yourself going through the news feed as much. There's a very easy mentions tab, or it might be a notifications tab, but either way, you can see who is specifically engaged with you, and you don't need to look at. Your timeline, or anything like that.

Nick Cutter 25:03
Yeah, I agree. I think for me, I I was on, I just didn't post very much, you know, I would answer direct messages, and if someone somewhere to post something, I would, I mean, I'm always grateful for that, you know. So I'm always, I want to, not even I'm happy to respond or a game to respond. It's like I'm deeply grateful that someone reached out in whatever capacity. And I would, it would be important to me, to, you know, to interact, you know, and just and to say thank you. I mean providing that's that they were, they were, it was laurels, not brick bats. But that was rare that someone would, you know, throw some at, I think any writer, you know, kind of on their Twitter feed. But, yeah, it was, it was a convivial back and forth. And I did enjoy Twitter, but it was about, you know, I've been off like, I actually, yeah, I suspect my accounts done. I think I spoke over almost two months now, so I feel like they gave me a notification that if you didn't re log on after 30 days, it was gone. And I gave myself a notification for that. And I sat with it for a bit, and I said, you know, I've gone 30 days without being on, I responded to everybody who I, who I had, should have responded to before i i took my, what it felt like a sabbatical, and and I just let it lapse. So now it's as far as I know, it's done, which is fine, you know what I mean, like I I know, I know I remember both you guys from from your online presences and are like, you guys use it the right way, and clearly get a lot of joy and utility out of social media. And I'm not the last person I'd say that there, it's not a valuable tool, but that's like dehumanizing a little bit. It's a valuable way of keeping in connection with people. And I'm not an isolationist or anything, but I just don't feel like social media is my best vector to companionship, friendship and meaningful connection with people. For me,

Michael David Wilson 27:17
yeah, yeah. And I can see that, and I, in fact, did an article where I took a 30 day break from all social media. And I do think that it gives you enormous clarity, and you do see just how invasive it can be. So then I found, for me, obviously, there are benefits. There are benefits to this is horror as well. So I don't, rather than completely be done with social media, I don't. First step is, it's off my phone. I do not want people to be able to contact me via social media on my smartphone. And then the second thing is to just set yourself rules. Say, Okay, this is the time when I'll check social media, or even this is the time when I'll check email. Now I think email is less invasive, but it's another thing that you can find yourself checking or refreshing, and it's gonna eat into productivity. It's gonna eat into creativity, and it might even eat into well being. So you've got to be careful. I agree. Oh yeah,

Bob Pastorella 28:30
I have a bookmark that has that links to a page that will help me remove within 90 days every aspect of my Facebook, Oh, wow. And there have been so many times in the last year that I have looked at that bookmark thinking, all I have to do is just, basically, just do three things. So my relationship with with Facebook is is tenuous. There are reasons why I'm still on there, because so many people are doing such good work that I think that other people need to know, and they and you know, that's that's probably the fastest, easiest way to reach people. I have stuff of my own that I need to promote. There are things that I want to talk about, but I realized that my audience is limited no matter what. And then sometimes you see something on Facebook and you just like, you know, you can scream at the sky all day long. You're not going to change anything. And you're kind of like, God, well, fuck this, you know, I don't need it. It's, you know, but, yeah, I've looked at that page a lot, you know. And it's like, to me, it's just so easy. It's just, you know, log out. I send, send an email, and pretty soon, 90 days later, it's like you never existed on Facebook, you know? And it's something done through Facebook, you know. People say, Well, you just log out, or you can delete your account. Nope, there's, there's another step that you need to do, and it'll completely remove you. And it takes, it takes 90 days.

Nick Cutter 30:23
Might have to do that with myself. I didn't, I didn't do the final, final step there. I just did the classic to me, not knowing anything about computers or technology. But yeah, anyway, I want to apologize. I don't know if this is what you guys were expecting or hoping to talk about, I feel like I'm just going on my own tangents about stuff that that, you know, I know I've listened to some of these, some of the podcasts before, and I know you guys talk about a whole bunch of different stuff, but I want to apologize if it's, um, I don't know. I guess it's about writing. It's just kind of more, I don't know, like we've been talking an hour and a half, and I I just want to make sure I'm yes, that you know, if you want to take it into sort of cheer your waters, I'm happy to do so as well.

Michael David Wilson 31:13
I mean, definitely no need to apologize. And for people that are with us at the 90 minute mark, they know that we go in all sorts of directions. They know we're talking about life, we're talking about technology, we talk about health and mental health. So, I mean, this is all I guess I can't say this is all good territory, because we're talking about some fucked up things, but this is all interesting and engaging territory for our listeners. So, yeah, definitely, no need to apologize, right?

Nick Cutter 31:47
Okay, I just, you know, it's, um, I have a difficult time. I don't know about you guys, like talking about actual writing as a, you know, just as, like, the nuts and bolts or that kind of aspect of writing, there's, you know, I'm, as I think I said earlier, I'm resistant to giving advice, because whatever works for me, I recognize as my own kind of peculiarities and particularities of the way that I go about trying to get work out there. And to say that what works for me, well, we've kind of talked about that obviously, what we're we all are different as humans. And you know, there's, there's been no practical writing advice that I've ever gotten or heard anyone else say that. I'm like, Oh, I could see that as being other than say, button chair. There nothing that that strikes me as like, Oh, yeah. That's something that probably everybody should follow and would work for everybody, right?

Michael David Wilson 32:44
Yeah. And, I mean, we always say that writing advice comes with that disclaimer that it is advisory. This may help. This may not give it a try, or, equally, don't listen to it and say, You know what? I don't think they know what the fuck they're talking about. And even if they do that is not for me,

Bob Pastorella 33:09
your mileage may vary. Yeah, that's right,

Michael David Wilson 33:11
yeah. Something that I wanted to bring the conversation back to is you said that when you were doing your MFA, you weren't allowed to write horror. Now I'm wondering, looking back, are you glad about that restriction, and did it force you to go in a direction with your writing that you wouldn't have gone in if that hadn't happened?

Nick Cutter 33:41
that's a that's a great question, kind of to set things historically in, well, in my own life, not very historical, but in terms of my own timeline. I remember I was at doing it, doing doing that degree, and I had, I actually set a novel with, well, the preserve under Patrick lestuka, with Dave at necro publications down in Florida, who, you know, shout out to Dave Barnett. I'm sure people, anyone who is, you know, kind of conversant with horror, would probably know about his, his press down there. But Dave is like a tireless, you know, just, just a wonderful guy. And, you know, we, each in our own histories, have people who were, like, fundamentally important for their development and development, you know, often just means, like confidence or someone, someone taking an interest in you. And I was, I don't know how old I would have been, my mid 20s, or whatever, when I had finished that book, and I I didn't know where to send it, I had, like Mo, like a lot of people, at the beginning of their career, it seems like it's all closed doors. And how the heck do you how do you get even to anyone other than your friends, to even read a book, let alone. Agree to publish it. And I was, I was fascinated with that press for many reasons, and I just took a flyer and contacted him on email and said, I'm nobody, and potentially will be that way forever, but I have this book that I wrote, and would you have any interest? And he sort of said, I have no idea who you are. You're very right, but, yeah, sure, whatever, send it off. And so I printed up and sent it off. And a couple weeks later, he got back and he said, this is, this is pretty good. We don't make a habit of, like, accepting stuff out of the blue. But he did, and I guess one of the I was actually up this weekend with some friends of mine from from chazine, the the press here in Toronto, yeah, and Ian Rogers, and, you know, a great press. They live up in Peterborough now, which is about an hour outside of Toronto. And Brett was reminding me that I actually had an account, a Hotmail account like that was like Patrick, lacA. So I was actually going back and forth with people as my and submitting stuff as Patrick. So Dave and Brett and some other people got to they thought that that's who I was, and they actually would send me checks to Patrick lestuka, and Brett was saying, How the hell did you even cash those? And my dad was a banker, so he was able to to do it, vouch for me. And they weren't, you know, they were. They weren't big enough checks that they were going to make, make or break me, but they were, they were some pin money. And it was, it was a validation and be nice to cash those checks. And so, yeah, I was at that point. So I had, when I was at my MA program, the preserve came out, and so, so I already was a horror writer, and I felt like that's what I really wanted to do and to be. But because of the Yeah, kind of the strictures at the University at the time, I had to, you know, write a short I ended up doing a short story collection, which ended up working out well, because it was, it was basically Rust and Bone my first collection, I wrote probably five of the stories that ended up in that collection at school, and then I fleshed it out later, once we had a had a publisher. So you're right, would that that would definitely would have not have happened potentially, had I been allowed to write a horror book, and so in that way, like I think, you know, I've never really thought about it this way, but, yeah, it I've always thought that that took me off on a detour, that I had to come around to come back to horror, which is, which is the case. But if I'd been allowed to write horror, I'm not sure I would have ever deviated from that. I might have just continued to write horror and hit a wall, you know, in a different way. So I really do, even though I think the idea behind why they wouldn't let me write what I wanted to write is annoying and short sighted in terms of my own personal development, it was good to be forced to write stuff that I might not normally have written. That's still like it wasn't like I was writing stories about, you know, like lovelorn English professors who broke up with their wife because they got in an affair with their student, or those kind of like dry domestic entanglements that a lot of literary fiction is about. I was writing what was pretty much, I would say, for for the forum, was pretty much on the edge, and I was surprised that it even got picked up for publication. Because you think if you got, like, an eight page dog fight, that's going to be an impediment to publication at a major publisher. So thankfully, somebody believed in me there, and that's the story of my life. You know, you have to have people that believe in you. But also, I guess, because my program put that those shackles on me. It propelled my life and my crew in a really interesting direction, and I wouldn't recommend it for everybody, but that's how it worked out for me. And I guess in retrospect it I'm grateful,

Michael David Wilson 39:13
right? And I'd imagine that the collection Rust and Bone getting early praise from the likes of Chuck polonik And Brett Easton Ellis must have also had quite the impact on your career. Yeah.

Nick Cutter 39:27
And you know what that was? That was pretty d, d, d, y, I too, or DIY. I was living in Calgary at the time, and Chuck came through for a reading, and I had like arcs of the book that they had sent, because I asked for some and I just, you know, basically importuned myself on him in the line, and said, hey, you know, we happen to be published by the same publisher, Norton, so I use that as kind of an opening. And said, you know, I know this is terrible, terrible input. Position, but, um, could I, could I, could I, you know, give this to you, and he accepted it, and that, you know, he could have thrown it in the garbage as soon as I was out of eyesight, but he did hold on to it, and he did, evidently, read enough that it that he felt fair to give a blurb. And so, yeah, that was super meaningful. I think the most meaningful one to me, actually was Clyde Barker blurb that book and and I was actually in Calgary and sitting upstairs doing something in my completely unfurnished home, absence of any female touch. And the phone rang and Hello, and it's like, I will try and do his voice very quickly, but like it was like Craig, and it was just like, it was just all gravelly, and it sounded like he just somewhat had scoured themselves with an umbrella pad, like their vocal cords. And I said, Yeah, this is him. It's Clyde Barker. I was like, You are kid, you know, like, one of those things where you're just like, I literally, if I didn't fall out of my chair, I was teetering on the back legs. Because, you know, even though, for me, King is the the king, you know, he was the, the main thing that I imprinted on Barker was not far behind. I remember reading with in like Christmas Day, I used to get those sphere paperbacks of the books of blood with his own illustrations on the front. And just devouring those and and just realizing over time, just what a kind of Polymathic creative genius Clyde Barker was not just a writer, but an illustrator, a painter, a movie director. I mean, the world will not see the likes of a Clyde Barker again anytime soon. And so, yeah, and all of that, though, I mean whatever. And advice again, I don't give, but like, in order to get those blurbs, I kind of, like pushed it. I usually what would happen is, you'd write a book and your your publicist will send it to or, sorry, your editor will send it to places and to people. And sometimes maybe they ask you to, you know, maybe sign a postcard or something to them, please. But usually the ones I get anyways, are, you know, it comes from the editor, you know, would you, would you be interested in reading this book or and for me, I was like, No, I would, I think, you know, sending a personal letter. You know you're writing ideally to the people who like you really were important to your esthetic and who you basically just simply who you love, who's writing you love. And all the people who blurred Rust and Bone are our writers who I absolutely love and and that's pretty much been the case for most of the blurbs that I've gotten. I have reached out personally to even with like little heaven for Robert McCammon, I reached out through his webmaster, which is kind of the only way you can get a hold of the man, and just wrote how much I admired, you know, Robert and how much I really respected his writing and his career, and, yeah, I got this book out, and this is kind of an awkward thing, and I really don't like doing it, which is true, but I feel like if, if I'm going to get a blurb from anybody, I would like those people to know that truly they were meaningful to me in terms of not just my own development really, but but just in terms of, like, reading them when I was a kid or a teenager, or at points in my life where they influenced me,

Michael David Wilson 43:50
yeah. And I think having that personal touch and deciding, you know, to approach PIAAC at one of his readings. I mean, you can sit at home and you can wait for opportunities to come to you, and maybe they will. But why take that chance when you can go out and you can actually create your own opportunities, and you know you're right that, of course, he could have just taken the book and been polite about it and then never read it. But I mean, how remarkable and how great that he, he did read it, and, you know, thank goodness he liked it as well, right,

Nick Cutter 44:29
right, yeah, I mean, and, yeah, it's, it's anybody's career, your guys, or mine, or, I mean, there's a great deal, I think, in most cases of well, it's like it's a chemistry equation. There's a certain amount of talent, there's a certain amount of drive, and then there's a certain amount of luck. And I would actually be lying to both you and your listenership if I said that the first two were all that it was, in my case, you know, it's just whatever talent I have in the drive. Luck has played a massive role at just times when things are working away, behind the scenes, behind the curtain, where you're not aware of them, you know, and you and you get lucky, and obviously sometimes you get unlucky too. I mean, I think the scales can balance themselves out that way. But I guess my own sense of it is, is that if you're putting enough into it, by continually applying yourself, you're you're kind of maybe earning that luck in the best way that you can, and maybe in the only way that you can. So, you know, I say that to a lot of young writers is that, you know, my career, almost anybody's career, there is an amount of luck there, and kind of things that are happening external to you that you get blessed by, and you can only be thankful for it, obviously and ideally, try and pay it forward. But yeah, yeah, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 45:57
which I think you have done. I mean, I've seen in previous interviews you talking about, I guess, what you might call more up and coming right as or do I mean doing fantastically, but people like Josh maliman And people like Michael we hunt,

Nick Cutter 46:14
sure, yeah, both like, Well, I mean, Josh is, you know, at a stratosphere, you know, he's, he's wonderful and, and Michael, I mean, Michael's books are, or Michael's, I say, really don't know which. It's not just the one book, right?

Michael David Wilson 46:32
You know? I mean, I know that, of course, like greener pastures, is the one that you know is most known. But that is a good question. Has he actually released anything chaos he should have?

Nick Cutter 46:48
Well, he might be like a TD client who just, you know, wants to, you know, wants to have everything just right. Or his motivation is such that he's happy, you know. I mean, a lot of us could, could just, you know, be happy with, excuse me, something the something the level of greener pastures. I mean, yeah, people, their whole writing life, and they don't do anything quite that magical. I don't think so. I doubt that he just wants to to sit on those laurels, but, but if he were to, you know, people, would I, you know, anyways, yeah, yeah. I just want, you know, it's, it's funny with, you know, and this kind of takes it off in a direction that, like, I think I mentioned earlier, of like, there are styles that, that the cognoscenti, the people who really understand horror and love horror, and have kind of made it their their mission, to devour as much far as possible and see all the different kind of nuances of it where they would it's unsurprising that, like, I was talking to a couple guys here in Toronto who are Massive horror guys, and they, they were like, We hunt is awesome, you know. So, like everybody who knows horror would say that we hunt is and then the literature of the uncanny would would say that he is at the top of his game. But when it comes to, like, major publishers, and this is only a guess, I mean, I can only speak a little bit through my own experience and some what I see anecdotally, it's like, well, yeah, but there's not a vampire in it, or it's not like a traditional monster, or the style is such that we just are cons. We have concerns which are probably, you know, would be baseless, if they actually published it and discovered that, oh, wait, no, they're, you know, good good writing is good writing. It's going to find its spot, you know, or they'll draw comparisons to other attempts where they've, they've tried to break out, say a writer who, you know, was really beloved, but, but for whatever reason, can't catch a foothold in the wider market. And I don't know that that will happen to Michael. I certainly hope it doesn't. I certainly would say that the percentages of that happening are quite small, actually. But there is that, you know, there is sort of the palette of the mainstream horror reader, even, or even more so, the publishers assumption of what the palette of the mainstream horror reader is, but I don't know, puts puts a weird, puts writers like Michael potentially, in a weird spot where it's like he's not going to change what he's doing, nor should he, but you feel like, you feel like, I love this guy. Why wouldn't everyone love this guy and then, and then define that? Maybe there would be some kind of hesitation from, say, the big five publishers to take on someone like Michael. Is shocking and saddening to me, and I'm sure it won't happen. I'm sure we will see his name on on, you know, major press books before too long. But. I've seen, I've seen it happen to other writers, and it's always perplexed me and bothered me. Oh,

Michael David Wilson 50:04
yeah, definitely. And I should clarify, because there is a reasonable chance that Michael will be listening to this episode, that when I say he should have written more books, that is my own selfish motivation. So Michael, you do what the fuck you want to do. But if I'm being selfish, if I somehow in this by weird coincidence, have a say. Yeah, you should definitely be writing more books. Thank you. But I'm not sure that I've got the money to back that up. It's like, okay, well, if I'm specifically writing for just you, here is the invoice for that.

Bob Pastorella 50:50
I think he is working on a novel good I'm not mistaken

Michael David Wilson 50:53
so

Nick Cutter 50:56
well we, I mean, I hope to see, I know we all hope to see that, because he really? I mean, he's not the only one. Obviously, there's many great, great, great writers, but he's just one that people will bring up, kind of, apropos of nothing, you know, like, especially if they're writers who are, you know, plugged into the genre. And just, kind of, like, it seems like that one book has as cast, Ian Rogers gave it to me, who was another wonderful writer out here in Peterborough, and he just had it on his bookshelf. And, like, I heard stuff about that, he's like, yeah, here, borrow it. And you know me, as long as well as you know 1000s of others, you know we're enthralled by it so and again, I, yeah, I hope I'm not like, is nothing that like, I don't know all it all is to say is, like, you know, major publishers have, like, they, I don't know, you know, we have a writer here in and I don't begrudge or anything. She's, she's, her name's Kelly Armstrong, and she, like, does, sort of vampire, like, you know, werewolf things and and the writing is good, and she's invested in it, and she's, like, a super successful and quite talented writer, but it's like, you know, it's sort of the stuff that is kind of catnip to a certain segment and demographic of readers, and there's a sizable number of them. So the, you know, the publishers realize they're not taking much of a chance, especially now that she's proven herself. But it's like, how do any of us get to prove ourselves unless we get a shot at it? And I, really, I'm bugged by kind of the gatekeepers, for lack of a better word, assuming that, you know, there's no tolerance, or there would be no market, or there would be no interest for books that are, like, stunningly well written, full of really rounded characters dealing with some really interesting, you know, kind of themes, thematically. And it's like, why, well, isn't that books? I mean, why wouldn't isn't that just a good book? Why wouldn't someone be interested in that? And unfortunately, you can find evidence where you know a book like that has not found favor, so it's really just a matter of, yeah, any of us is just, is finding that right, supportive editor who's willing to put his or her neck on the line with you?

Michael David Wilson 53:16
Yeah, definitely. We've got a number of questions from our patrons, and I know that we're coming to the end of our time together, so I'm gonna jump in with those now. So the first is from Lydia piva, and she says I had the pleasure of speaking with Craig during the Simon and Schuster Dark Side tour in Ottawa a few years ago, and loved his insight on his experience with many styles of writing. Has the Canadian landscape changed since then in terms of publishers and readers of horror? And do you have any advice for genre writers, seeking primarily Canadian agents, publishers, fans and promotion.

Nick Cutter 54:09
Ah, that's like an inside baseball question.

Nick Cutter 54:16
so we would have met, I guess, probably a couple years ago, Lydia and I?

Michael David Wilson 54:21
Yeah, yeah. So she says that that was when the troop and the D right hit really big.

Nick Cutter 54:29
Myself and Andrew Piper is another really fantastic Canadian writer. We're, we're doing that and, yeah, ah, Have things changed? Good. I mean, that's a that's a great question. Specifically here in Canada, I think they have to degree. There's actually another writer who, another Canadian writer, who is just blowing up right now and is awesome and is in his charting territory that is uncanny, and her horrific, but, but very subtle. Um. Um, and you guys might have heard him. His name's Ian Reed. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he did. I'm thinking of ending things. And now he's got this book out called foe, which will be out in mid August. And it is like, I've read it. It is fantastic. And he started out writing a couple memoirs, one about his going on a road trip with his grandma, which was awesome, and one about in his 30s, he went back to live at the family farm because of some, you know, a variety of personal calamities that kind of forced him to go live, live back under, under his childhood roof. So this is a change for him. So I would say, I would say that, yeah, I mean, Canadian editors or agents would be, you know, obviously, in cheesine as well being here, like there is a lot of interest, I think there would, you would definitely find people here who are and I think horror in general, whatever you want to, however you want to typify, it is going through. Wouldn't say a renaissance, right? Because I don't think it's ever gone anywhere. But I know, when I speak to people kind of associated with the Hollywood side of it is that, you know, they're really looking for those kind of properties right now. So, you know, I think, I think, yeah, I think, but I think it always comes down to two, if you've got something that publishers deem as I don't know if it hits that sweet spot so and but if not, Lydia, could, you know, again, look into cheesine, or some of we have a lot of really good small presses here that. I mean, that's where I got my start, obviously, with necro. So it's never a bad idea to get your feet wet with a with a small press, and, you know, kind of get your stripes and then move on from there, potentially,

Michael David Wilson 56:46
yeah, and not only she's in producing some great books, but, I mean, they're great people too, and like, you know, the promotion, and just like, you can Tell that they'll look after you. So definitely an avenue to pursue?

Yep, absolutely. Well, Darryl Foster

Michael David Wilson 57:07
says a couple of questions for you. So number one, what is the inspiration behind your new novel, The Saturday night ghost club? Um,

Nick Cutter 57:22
well, that one is, basically, yeah, it's a Craig Davidson book. So it's a coming of age book, you know, set in my hometown of Niagara Falls. And basically, it's, it's a boy coming of age and to a degree during his 12th summer. And it is, you know, I think I'm always looking for a fusion between the Nick cutter side of things and Craig Davidson side of things. And this is not it. This is much more soft featured. It's not, there's no there's no worms, there's no not nothing emerging from another body or anything like that. But, um, but it is about a young boy who was obsessed with horror, and who was obsessed with and scared of everything that goes bump in the night, and he falls under the thrall of his uncle, who is kind of into a cult and the paranormal, who kind of acts as his guide through some of the local legends of the area, which were, you know, places that when I was a kid would go to, the screaming tunnels. And I mean, every where you guys both live, there are, there are places that you know kind of are haunted. And I was always fascinated with those places and scared of them in equal measure. So, you know, as I said earlier, I think a lot of my best stuff is the stuff that is closest to home, into my own memory, into my own experience. So ideally, readers will believe feel the same way.

Michael David Wilson 58:46
Yeah, and I have to say that when I read about the Saturday night ghost club, and when I looked at the cover, which could almost be an old school horror cover, I did think this is as close as we've got to emerging of Craig Davidson and Nick cutter, that's right,

Nick Cutter 59:06
don't cross the streams like in Ghostbusters, but we'll see. Hopefully this won't end in calamity,

Michael David Wilson 59:10
right, right? Yeah. Well, the second question that Darryl Foster has, what is the most challenging aspect for you in your writing process.

Nick Cutter 59:25
Oh, I think we, I probably belabor this already, so, you know, it just, it's just difficult to find the motivation in whatever way that you would construe that, you know, it's not necessarily a lack of ideas. I think we all have lots of great ideas. You know, in the execution, some of them can be reduced. I think that's natural. In fact, you never quite end up with with the book that you would, you would maybe envision when you embarked on it. But yeah, I think a lot of writing is just finding that motivation and. And it's either settling on protocols, whether they be emotional or mental or physical. You know, I make sure I go for a run or a walk or do a workout most days too. I find like I that helps with my mental focus. But all these are just are just tricks? Is not the right word. They're habit, habitual, things that I've embarked on over the years that helped me get my best out of myself. So, you know, motivation is a is a day to day, almost hour to hour, minute to minute, sometimes thing that I that I'll always struggle with,

Bob Pastorella 1:00:40
yeah, there's a big difference between motivation and inspiration. They, they kind of go hand in hand, but I know I know exactly of where you speak, because there's, there's a ton of inspiration, but at times, I lately, I've, I've found my motivation is, is lacking, and when I can find it, it's, it's almost like you're whole again.

Nick Cutter 1:01:04
Yeah, yeah. It's a very good way of saying it. And they are, they travel two separate streams, but they, they, you know, when it's best when they merge, but it's trying to get them to merge. Engineer that merging that is that can be tricky. No,

Michael David Wilson 1:01:17
definitely. Well, David 13 has a couple of questions. So the first he says, was one I wanted to ask at your panel on villains at last year's International Festival of authors, I've noticed in your nick cutter books, you tend to include both a supernatural and a human villain. I'm going to call your worm supernatural here. Is this a conscious choice or something that comes out in the work? What extra dimension Do you feel it adds to your stories?

Nick Cutter 1:01:53
That's a That's a good question, and that's that actually is pinpointing something that, again, I think a lot of us don't understand our obsessions until we and until they're so plainly and starkly illustrated in, you know, if you do have a creative outlet for them, and, yeah, even the new one I'll be working on. It be said, it like a reform school. So, you know, boys about like, 1617, and you know, there's but there's a threat external to that, but there's also the inner threat of guards, you know, some of whom have their own agendas or their sense of how they want to see things administrated. So I am fascinated by human evil, as many people are, but I kind of like the idea that even they are in thrall to a greater paranormal or supernatural evil that dwarfs even there makes makes look petty. I suppose they're evils. And, yeah, yeah, there. I don't know why that is, you know, I'm unfortunately, there are some things that you can't pinpoint. They there are things that are chimerical or whatever, run around in your brain. And you can. You can never really catch them, and let alone not catching them, you can. You don't know how they got there, either. At best, you can kind of exploit them, I suppose, to kind of put in your work, but then you run the risk, obviously, of repeating yourself or saying the same thing, and in a way that is not markedly different from the way that you said it last time. So, and that is something that I run into with the cutter stuff. I was even talking to my agent that, you know, I'm not sure how many more cutter books I will write. It's at least on, you know, on the on the path that I'm on where I'm writing them fairly frequently, because it's some, I guess it's like eating the same kind of ice cream all the time. You know, you you kind of deaden that, that center that used to have find pleasure in it, and still does. But, um, you know, you're always trying to conjure the same kind of general palette of emotions, Dread, fear, tension, yes, and you want to braid into that, obviously, ideally, if you're doing it right, you know, characters who you know exist outside of those. But the kind of, the kind of palette that you're working with is, is a little concise, you know. And certainly, even in the Craig Davidson stuff, it's, there's a certain concise palette, which is based on my own outlook too. But yeah, there, there is a sense that I might want to take a break from, from the cutter stuff, only because, yeah, like a palette cleanser. Move on. Maybe write kids books or something like that, which I know sounds absurd, but it would be a new challenge. It would be something that I would probably be really interested in doing, and, you know, would allow me to step up off the path that I'm really happy to be on. But, you know, a change of path is, I don't think, ever really a bad thing.

Michael David Wilson 1:04:56
Well, that actually ties in quite. Nicely to his second question, because it's about using pseudonyms, and that itself is sort of related to the question from Dan Howarth. So just because I know that we're coming up to time, I'm going to give you all of these at once, because I think they're all touching on a similar topic, anyway. So David has said, I'd like to know about your experience with using multiple pseudonyms. Have you found it has helped your career to keep your different writing styles compact compartmentalized? Uh, he also says, Thanks so much, and thank you for contributing such wonderful books to the genre and to the book universe as a whole. And then Dan Howarth says, How do you split your time between writing genre and non genre fiction, as in what dictates whether you sit down at the keyboard as Nick cutter or Craig Davidson,

Nick Cutter 1:06:00
okay, these are both good questions, I think, really quickly. The first one, and my my agent, used to get upset when I when he assumed I was throwing him under the bus. And that's not, I'm not, but, but we, we spoke about, you know, because I wrote the troop on the heels of writing a book called cataract city under my own name, and the part that I really liked about writing that book was there were these kids lost in the woods. And so I had this idea that there was clearly not in any way literary, and in fact, I wanted it to be very horrific. And so I wrote the book without telling him. But, I mean, I wrote it really quickly. I think I probably wrote it in about six weeks. So it's not like we keep in super close contact, where he'd be like, What the hell. But I sent it to him, not really sure, because up until that point, I don't really think he'd done a lot of working with horror authors, but he got back and he's, he actually is a big horror reader, and said, I you know, I think we can do something with this. And then once it got accepted, we got into the idea of like, well, whose name do we put it out under? And what I was told, not just by him, but by a lot of people in the publishing fraternity, is that readers evidently lack the elasticity of belief or tolerance to think that someone could write this, these kind of books, under these two different kinds of books, you know, it was like, That's bizarre to to a reader, which I think is kind of hogwash. I don't I feel like that's really, not really the case. But sometimes publishing just has this set of beliefs that they think, that readers have, and they operate under those guidelines, you know, without ever actually testing that theory. But for me again, we were, our first child had just been born. We moved into a house in here in Toronto, that was, you know, just at the limit of what we could afford. So I think you guys see where this is going. Maybe it's like I made a somewhat bloodless choice to go under Nick cutter because I was told and the people I trusted, and I still do trust in that that's their belief, or they're what they're saying about publishers. Belief is that, you know, you have to separate these camps. But then, pretty quickly, as soon as was published, I made sure everybody knew that I was that guy. Because, you know, the truth is, we talked about the cheesine guys, and I have lots of friends in the horror field. I was, first and foremost a horror reader and a horror lover. There is no in any way, shape or form. Do I think that the knit cutter stuff is any lesser to any of the other stuff I've written? It is the fact is, not only is it the stuff that's keeping the lights on in the house, I enjoy writing it. I put every ounce of effort into it that I would put into any book. And and I mean, horror readers are very dedicated. You know what I mean? Literary readers can be pretty wishy washy. I find horror readers are pretty, like, we're with you, we're with you. And that's, that's not in totality, but like, there's just a lot more of that I find, and so I find my own personality bends really more towards horror readers and the horror field, actually. So the last thing I would ever want anybody to think is that it was done out of, like, embarrassment or something like that. It was a practical choice made on the behalf of my career and, you know, and my family, and if I had to do it again, I'm not sure I would do it the same way, but you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. And Dan's question, no, I think you know, it is no different, because I work just as hard. I think there is a sentiment among. Most writers either just setting out or even whatever mid career. Is that? Well, if it's literary fiction, you really got to throw yourself around the room, and you got to go to these dark places, and you got to, you know, really be, you know, passionate and in a way that like, but if you're writing a genre thing, you can just kind of toss it out there. And I think at worst possible case scenario, yeah, you probably could. And you see some of these literary writers who put out a couple horror books, and you could, it feels like a cash grab to me a little bit sometimes. And you know, to me, I'm like, as I, as I've said through throughout this podcast, I love horror. I've read deeply and widely, not as much as some people, obviously, but I certainly think I have my chops on that level. And I wrote these books because I love horror, because I'd always envisioned myself as a horror writer, and I'm grateful to have been able to have this part of my career. But there is no difference in terms of of application or energy or dedication, any of that i There's no, there's no Craig hat, you know, or and then there's like the fools hat that I put on when I write under Nick cutter, it's, it's the same application and the same mindset. All right,

Michael David Wilson 1:11:27
thank you for spending such a long time chatting with us. Well, my pleasure, guys. Yeah, I wonder where can our listeners connect with you? We know, not on Twitter and not on Facebook, but where can they find you?

Nick Cutter 1:11:42
accept homing pigeons and smoke signals if you're within the vicinity. Yeah, I have, I have a website. Geez, I know that's a tough thing to say. It's and that that's, you know, a question that you know, in today's day with authors, you know, normally you would say I'd have a Facebook page or Twitter page. Right now, I'll say I'm kind of old school and that it's, it's really not that easy to climb me. And that's not about any kind of like, dislike or anti sociability, or anything like that. I think it's just something I'm trying out for now. So we might, we might speak six months from now, and I'll be gung ho invested in social media again, but right now, I'm, um, keep my head low.

Michael David Wilson 1:12:31
All right. Do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to leave our listeners with?

Nick Cutter 1:12:37
Well, you know, basically, like some of the writers we talked about today, like, yeah, seek out. If you haven't read we Hunt's book. Read that book. If you haven't checked out. Ian Reed, check that out. You haven't checked out. Ian Rogers or Michael Rowe, you know, those are some, some, you know, there's tons of writers putting out, you know, and yourselves as well, a lot of great horror literature right now, I think we're at a really great spot for for the lit, for for the genre, and I'm just pleased to be a part of it, obviously so and read as much as you can.

Michael David Wilson 1:13:17
Thank you so much for listening to the this is horror podcast, join us again next time when we will be chatting with Patrick Lacey. But if you want to get that ahead of the crowd, you know what to do. Become our patron over@www.patreon.com forward slash. This is horror patrons at the $1 level, we'll get part one of that conversation right now, and patrons at the $4 level have access to the full conversation. So have a look, see if Patreon is for you, and if it is, please join us. Please join the family@www.patreon.com forward slash. This is horror. Before I wrap up, let's have a quick word from our sponsor. Do you

PMMP 1:14:06
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Michael David Wilson 1:14:36
Now I often end with a quote, and this is something that Seth Godin said, I think it was during the Kel fuzzman podcast that he said this, but it's something that's really resonated with me, and it's something that I've been thinking about and thinking about how I can apply that to my life, how I can apply it to my writing and. If you're familiar with Seth Godin, you may know that he has a very successful blog, and he blogs almost, if not, every day. And what Seth said was, I have something to say because I blog not I blog because I have something to say. I just thought that was interesting, how he flipped those ideas. And I thought, you know, this can really be applied to your writing, particularly if you're lacking inspiration or inspirado, as Jessica McHugh likes to call it, and I love that. I love that word. So if you are lacking in inspiration, that might be the pickup, that might be the call to action that you need have a little think about it. Consider it within a fiction writing context. I have something to say because I write fiction every day, not I write fiction every day because I have something to say. I'll see you in the next episode. But until then, take care of yourself. Be good to one another. Read horror and have a great, great day.