SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, my fellow Dreadites. Welcome back to the Dread Alert Podcast. Today I'm joined by Shirley Jackson award-winning author Scott Thomas. I'm thrilled to have Scott with us here today. Scott has written a number of novels, and today we're going to be talking about his most recent, which is Midwestern Gothic. I had the chance to read this and I really quite enjoyed it. His other novels include Kill Creek and Violet. He's also a showrunner for Disney and Sci-Fi with shows like The Wizards Beyond Waverly Place and Day of the Dead and R. L. Stein's Haunting Hour and Raven's Home. You are a busy guy, so I'm really grateful that you've taken the time to join us here today.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Well, first and foremost, let me embarrass you by gushing about how much I enjoyed Midwestern Gothic. I think it is full of vivid and rich and complex prose while still being extremely digestible. And what really struck me is it has such a strong sense of location and really compelling and challenging characters at some point. These characters are not perfect people, and you were asked to go on this ride with them. Uh, and I found it to just be a very gratifying experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. I, you know, I grew up in a small town in Kansas, uh, a really small town of about 9,000 people, um, and uh right on the border of Oklahoma. Um, and so when I write about Kansas, I I I set Kill Creek in Kansas because Kill Creek, the the actual area, is in, I mean, there are several states have Kill Creeks, but Kansas does, and and um and then I just kept writing about it. And I think I've been in LA since 1998, but I just uh still write about Kansas and I and that kind of small town rural um life. And then, you know, because it just felt like uh not a lot of people were setting uh horror stories there. So it seemed like a good enough place to uh to set a lot of my stories.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

What attracted me to the title is I I'm from Pittsburgh, and so we're like right on the edge of Midwest. If you ask somebody who's from LA, they'll tell you we are Midwest. If you ask somebody from Pittsburgh, we're you know, we're Rust Belt proud. Um, but we spent a lot of time in Ohio, and my dad's family was from small town West Virginia. So that Appalachian Midwest kind of vibe is something I have an interest in in terms of the folklore and the the bones of it. Um, this is definitely you know true Midwest, but why don't you tell us a little bit about the book, about about these four novellas that make up Midwestern Gothic?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, um, well, it's uh it started with one novella, and I um was actually up in uh Vancouver. Um and I was running a show uh that was uh very loosely based on uh Day of the Dead um for sci-fi. And it was a zombie thing. And I was up there and we were shooting uh during the pandemic, so it was uh things that just kind of opened up. They were more open in Canada than they were here. Uh, but I was stuck up there for five months and I couldn't come home. My family couldn't come up uh and see me. So I ended up writing this novella called The Boy in the Woods. And uh and that really kind of originated with just an idea of uh trying to flip kind of the 80s slasher on its head a little bit. Um, instead of the counselors being the victims, the counselors are the threat, and the young boy who is at the camp has to defend himself. Um and uh that one was kind of standalone for a minute. And then I just when uh actually I got back to LA and I was working on the sort of, you know, everything opened back up. I was working on uh a Disney show called Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. Uh actually, we were just getting ready, sort of gearing up to start that show, and then the writer strike happened, and so I had a lot of time on my hands, and so I decided uh I have this one novella. What if I just wrote three more? And at first it was going to be a novella and a collection of short stories because uh I have been working in kids and family television for quite a while, and so which means that uh I'm sitting on a lot of horror ideas because uh I love horror, it's my absolute favorite genre. It's really kind of what I what I've always written and what I I came out to LA to do and sort of accidentally gotten kids and family. But um so I start, I was like, I it's gonna be the novella Boy in the Woods, and then it will be some a bunch of short stories. Well, of course, the next short story I started writing ended up being another novella. Uh, and that was that was uh another one that's in the book. It's called The Door in the Field, and that one was an idea that I had had for a while, which was uh it's a little bit like a rural collateral with a serial killer. Um, it's kind of a guy who is on uh you know ends up going out with the wrong person one night and kind of ends up on a ride through hell uh until dawn. And uh and then that one I set in Kansas as well. And then I I um while I was up in Vancouver, I got the idea for the one of the other uh novellas in the collection, which is called One Half of a Child's Face. And um, which that one is about a uh a woman who is copy editing a book. Um she is uh at home and she's recently divorced. Her ex-husband and his new girlfriend happen to live in an apartment building down the hill from her. So from her back porch, she can see the apartment building where they live. And their share their daughter, who they share custody of, is with her dad and this girlfriend for this for this weekend. And then as um she as this woman is watching, kind of watching these this apartment building and making up stories about everyone who lives there, she starts to see strange things happening in this apartment. And it seems to lead to an apartment, a seemingly empty apartment up in the corner that has a strange painting that looks like one half of a child's face hanging on the wall. Uh and then so I had those three novellas, and I had sort of mentioned the authors from Kill Creek, my first book, in these other novellas. I sort of was having fun expanding my own universe and letting them live in that same universe with the authors from Kill Creek, but there was one I hadn't really mentioned, and so I was talking to my publisher and um Adam Gomlin at Inkshares, and he was he was like, What if you wrote a fourth one and and included TC Moore from Kill Creek? And the problem was I didn't really have an idea for a fourth novella, but I did have a germ of an idea um for a story that I wanted to tell. And so that became the fourth novella in the book, which is called Where Your Secret Like a Stone. And that one is about a young woman who works at a big box store, kind of like Walmart. She's asked by her boss to uh, and the other employees there are asked to pick a scary movie or a scary book or something to put on their Halloween display at the front of the store. She picks a book by the author T C Moore from Kill Creek. Moore's very, very much kind of a female Clive Barker and writes very sort of explicit, like uh violent sexual um horror stories. And so she she picks this book, they put it on the display, and then someone comes in and complains about it. And she's called into her boss's office, and they say, you know, you have to pick a different book. Like they were getting complaints that we got to complain about this book. And instead of picking another book, she decides, I'm gonna find out who complained about it. And then by kind of going down this rabbit hole, she ends up uncovering a dark secret about her hometown that actually hits pretty close to home for her. Uh, and so those are the four novellas. And what they ended up all sort of the theme that they ended up sharing, and I think one of the reasons that I called it Midwestern Gothic was I since Kill Creek have really thought about my own interpretation. It might not be the scholarly interpretation or the right one, but my own interpretation of Gothic and Gothic horror, thinking of sort of classic British Gothic and how it sort of originates with crumbling castles and and the atrocities that happened, you know, centuries ago in these castles. And now today, whoever is going to this castle is sort of having to face the the uh the evil that resides in these places because of the original atrocities. Um when you think of sort of New England Gothic, it's a little more the it's it's the houses of the rich, turn of the century, sort of turn of the 20th century industrial revolution, kind of robber baron, sort of uh, you know, these um, if you think about like um hellhouse or or anything like that, it's it's it's uh a little more recent, but it is again, it's about sort of the wealthy and the awful things that these wealthy people do, and then uh uh the you know the evil that is festered in these places. And Southern Gothic is very sort of centered around obviously plantations and things like that, where where it's obvious, you know, very clear what the the horrors that happened there were. And so I started thinking, what is Midwestern Gothic? What is the sort of place that Midwestern Gothic resides? And I decided to focus on the land because the land is the thing that everyone came out for, that they killed for, that they committed atrocities for, that they ran people off of, that they stole. And and what does that mean for future generations, generations who are now living on that land and maybe don't think they don't have a connection to those atrocities? And and you know, some of them are some of the stories are a little more on the nose than others, but it is that that's the the root of of the the evil in each story is you can't really own land. And if you think you can own land, you're kidding yourself. And if you take over the land, you you owned the things that happened there. So if bad things happened there, they are now yours, and now you have to deal with them. And so that became thematically a bit of a thread that ran through all four stories.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, I think that was a really clear um thread and and a very clear sense of guilt uh that that permeates this. I and I really I really enjoyed that aspect of it. And you speak about it beautifully diegetically within these stories. The characters speak about this. Um another thing I think these stories do incredibly well, and I wanna I want to quote Anne Radcliffe here because we're talking about gothic literature. Uh she talks about terror versus horror, and uh she says they're opposites. The terror expands the soul uh and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life, and the other horror freezes and nearly annihilates the soul. And I think that's a really interesting contrast because I think you do both extremely well in this. Um when you were plotting these, did you find that you had to spend an extra was there extra effort given to the slow burn terror here? Or was it did you know where you were heading and just wanted to uh make that hammer drop as hard as possible by plotting it uh to be a little bit more terror-filled than slow burn? That's a white weird question, I know.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

No, I get it. I think that um, you know, like my style is pretty slow burn. I I and that's just because that's how I enjoy writing. I I really love exploring a story. I love um I will always know the basic plot points of the story that I'm about to write, but I don't always know everything in between. And to me, that's the exciting thing about writing is the exploration and the discovery. And so I already kind of tend to write, and I I personally really enjoy slowburn stories. I I like stories that immerse you in atmosphere and take their time and sort of before you know it, they they have their claws in you and you didn't even realize it. Um, and it's not to say I don't love you know stories that are just fast and violent and in your face and really visceral, um, but I tend to, when I write, um I tend to explore a lot. And so in writing these, I really had a good time exploring the locations and the characters and and letting that sort of horror build. Um and I think if anything, it's sort of like the buildup of horror that kind of leads to the terror, you know, it's it's that sense of dread that, and then eventually you're in it, you can't get out, and now you have to face and try to survive the thing that that you've you've uh allowed um yourself to be lured uh by. But um, yeah, it's just, you know, I think it's just kind of uh my style is is much more um uh uh atmospheric and and uh and slow burn.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Absolutely. And speaking of your style and your process, I'm curious how you were able to create such wonderfully complex characters who challenge your sense of empathy. We talk on our we have a sub-editorial channel where we talk a lot about empathy and horror, which you know goes cross gender, it goes cross age. You're asked to put yourself in situations that you'll never be in and go on a ride with a character who's completely unlike you. And these characters, these protagonists are challenging people. I think of Ray specifically. Uh there's a lot that I'm asked to empathize with, which is outside of my experience. Do you have an approach to that that you can share with us?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Um, I think I I usually try to start from a place that I can identify with, which, you know, I think we're all complicated people, whether we want to admit it or not. We all have our demons, we all have our things that that we struggle with. Um and uh and so I I think I I usually try to with a character, I try to either start with a uh a character trait that I myself can identify with that maybe comes from me, or or you know, um things that I've struggled with, or with things that I've people close to me have. So um with Ray in the door in the field, it came it actually came from an experience, uh, a childhood friend uh who had um was uh just the sweetest person, absolute most innocent, sweetest person in the world, and then was in a car accident and had a had head trauma and then became the exact opposite. And just not not to say that you know she wasn't a sweet, wonderful person, but it really did change her. She was sort of uh, you know, uh a a very uh the opposite of what we had known. And for me, it was when I thought about that, I especially for Ray, the character, I st I started to think, and I think this is how it spoke universally, and and to me, is was that who Ray was always supposed to be? Was the person that Ray was before the accident uh actually kind of a mask, the the real Ray was hiding under this? Or was the is the real Ray the one before the accident and real Ray's gone? And now this is just post-accident Ray, and there's and there's kind of no recapturing that. And that's the the that's the struggle ultimately the Ray has to face with himself is am I a good person who can do bad things, or am I a bad person who maybe in the face of a worse person can do something good? And uh, and so you know, I think with with uh Tara from Where Your Secret Like a Stone, I really liked the idea that she's a little more like she's in her young her early 20s, she loves horror, she's she doesn't uh apologize for that or or apologize for her the horror she likes. Um, but she's also very she has a lot of faith. She's a she's raised Christian and she has so I I sort of liked exploring that what does that mean to sort of have this faith and and believe in God and in the Bible, but also like these awful horror stories, um, which uh and sort of the the the struggle of of her living in the in this really small uh town, Midwestern town. It there's a feeling of I want to get out, but I also want to be loyal to this town. It does it can only get better if people stay there and they and they make it better, but also I want to get out. So that's kind of the the you know the struggle that she's going through, which I could completely relate to because I, you know, I I left my hometown when I was after high school. I went to University of Kansas, and then once I was done there, I was ready, I was just ready to go to LA and like go to a city and you know, sort of live somewhere bigger. Um, but in living here, I found myself constantly thinking about my hometown. And I see the, you know, I have friends who still live there, and I see, you know, the the struggles that a small town goes through in trying to sort of um uh you know survive. And uh and and so that was definitely uh a character trait that I a personal um for character trait that I could put into her. So I think I always kind of go, what's something I can identify with, and then what is something that maybe uh twists that personality a little bit so that it's more interesting, so that it's there's a bit of a dichotomy there. There's something to kind of explore um in uh an internal struggle, you know, in these characters.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

I always like hearing that kind of an answer, especially when I talk to actors. I my background is uh my degree was in theater, uh, and so I was an actor and a director and a producer for decades. Um but that's the way I approached character work was what is my way in, and then building up the circumstances around that. So it's always so gratifying when an author is approaching the material the same way. Because, you know, what is a what is a performer doing but reverse engineering your process as a as a writer? Um yeah, really interesting stuff. And I I found Tara to be incredibly compelling, uh, not only because of you know, maybe some things in her past which she has some guilt over, which may or may not be her responsibility or her uh fault. Uh, but oddly enough, the the inciting incident of that short story that you mentioned before was that the a big box store asks their employees to select their uh recommendations for their customers to make it feel more at home. And I have to admit that I found out about you as a writer because my local Barnes and Noble was highlighting Kill Creek, and so it was just that was my way into this story. And and even things like um, I was bit by a dog, my scars have healed up very well, but I was bit by a dog when I was two and a half years old. Um, you know, I have a strained relationship with my father. Each of these novellas has such a human core, and I related to at least a major character, if not the protagonist, in every single one, with something just extremely lived in. So it was really, really well done. And I I have to ask, you've written three horror novels. You've written Kill Creek, you've written Violet, and you've written Midwestern Gothic. And I will I will honestly admit to you that Violet is at the top of my to be read list, and I've not read that one yet, so I'm excited to dig in. But I have to ask, you you said earlier in our conversation that you've always loved horror. Is there something specific that drew you to the genre? I always love finding out what other horror fans get from it because you know, there's so much, it's such a big tent of uh satisfaction, let's say. So I wondered what what drew you to the genre.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Uh you know, I can't say. I have as long as I can remember, I've loved it. I've I think it it really started with, for whatever reason, a love of scary stories, of ghost stories, um and the supernatural. Any when I would go to my public library in the, you know, there was always the adult side and the kids side, and I would go over to the kids side and I would find the section that had all of the like books on monsters and UFOs and ghosts, and I would just eat it up. And whenever we had our scholastic book fair at the school, I would pick, I would I would buy every single little paperback about ghosts or or Bigfoot or the Loch Nest Monster or UFOs or anything. I just really I think it's in the same way that. Some people just like roller coasters and they just the first time they go on one, they go, I want to do this for the rest of my life. I just love scary stories, and it does kind of give me that thrill. There's this sense of that some people hate, you know, and I understand. There's this sense of of am I it it's a it's a fun chill. It's a it's a it's a sense of of excitement of sort of adrenaline. Um that and then it's also this sense that is there something more out there? Is there this weird world beyond this thin veil around us that that these strange things are happening, and they really are, you know, and I think that fascinated me. I always loved um when I was little, there was I grew up in the 80s, and there was a we would get up on Saturday mornings and at like six o'clock start watching cartoons, you know, and at that point there were three networks, and so you would watch CBS NBC and ABC, and you'd watch all of their cartoons until noon, and it was every Saturday morning was amazing. You'd watch the Smurfs and you'd watch Pac-Man and you'd watch, you know, and so and they always had a uh a story break special, and it was like a a little like half-hour or hour-long live action kind of short based on a story. And I don't know what this one was supposedly based on, but there was there was one called Riddle of the Red Room, and it was uh and it didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it creeped me out. It was like this boy is walking home and he meets this boy at the house next door who says he just moved in, and then he invites him over, and it just gets weird, and it's like it's I don't remember even it even making sense back in the day, but it's there it was just scary. And so when I started uh when I kind of started writing my own stories, I actually I still have it somewhere around here. I I uh I um I should have gotten it out. It's probably right behind this curtain in a box. All my crap is back here, it's I'm in the garage. But uh the it's my it's when I was in first grade, I drew a picture of a cruise ship and I wrote in prayon this little detective story about a detective who finds a dead body on the cruise ship and and and then um has to kill the murderer. And uh and I just my teachers were like, This is great, you should keep writing. You know, they didn't send me to the counselor or anything, they just said yeah, keep writing. And so I so I just kept writing kind of weird, scary stories and and eventually ghost stories, and then in junior high and high school kept writing and and a lot of scary short stories. And I don't know, I I you know I read a lot of Stephen King growing up. I read a lot of Ann Rice and Clyde Barker and and uh Edgar Allan Poe, and uh every birthday, my birthday's in December, but every birthday I would have a ghost or a haunted house on my cake. I I didn't have superheroes or anything, I had something scary, the Loch Ness Monster or something like that. I just always really liked these stories of otherworldly things, and I think it is a little bit uh, you know, just that that excitement that of hearing a story that you know you're safe, you know there isn't someone actually in the house with you, but it sort of chills you and it and it's exciting, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

We hear from our audience a lot that that controlled fear actually helps them with their anxiety, uh, not only gives them that thrill, but helps them manage fear outside of horror as well. And I think there's something to be said for the rite of passage as a young, a young person encountering horror. My wife runs a uh a side channel where she does recommendations for ages like birth to 17 with spooky content. So uh probably a lot of the shows that you've worked on uh with the Young Adult Entertainment, uh, if they lean spooky, she's probably covered them. But I think there's a rite of passage that that leaves a lasting impression on your psyche, and some of us don't break away from that. Uh, we have a two a two-year-old, uh, she'll be two in November, and she loves Nightmare Before Christmas. And I'm just watching her on the same trajectory that I was on as a youngster being a spooky baby.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

It's it's the funny thing is, I have I have two daughters who are now in high school, and one of them does really like watching horror movies with me, and we watch a lot of horror movies, but like the other one just like somewhere around middle school was like, I don't like this. I it stresses me out. I have enough stress in my life, I don't like this feeling. And I think I think you're right in it for for some, you know, for us who do love it, it it is cathartic in some way. It um, but I have you know, I've thought about it a lot, and obviously we all sort of think about it and get asked that question like, why do we like these things, especially by people who don't like them? Like, how can how can you like that? Oh, it's awful. And I, you know, I think it is it is cathartic, it is a sort of a journey you go through where you face the monster and you see someone face the monster, and even if the monster shows up again in the last you know 30 seconds to set up a sequel, you at least saw someone from beginning to end go through a fight with this evil, whereas all of us get up every day and look at our phones and the bad news never ends. And so to see to have that that uh um you know the conclusion to that and and and see someone actually sort of go to the end of fighting this thing and seemingly stop it, uh, there is something you know very cathartic about that. But I also think that it's also a little bit about not, I think for a lot of us not feeling alone. I I uh you know, I've always you know struggled with anxiety and depression. And I think that when you are a sensitive person and you sort of struggle with those things and you feel like, God, does that does is everyone else freaking happy? Because I'm not, and then you sort of get to read these stories that kind of are how you feel inside sometimes, and they're scary and they're dark, and they're and people are going through things, and it's everything isn't okay. And I I think there's almost something comforting in feeling like the author gets me, the other readers of this get me, and I'm not alone.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And we we cover a lot of movies on the channel, and people are probably sick of hearing me say that we are the outcasts alone together in the dark of the cinema, and that's what unites us as a community. Uh, we care about these books deeply, we care about the genre deeply, we care about each other deeply, but you know, oftentimes we do feel alone out there. That is so well said. I I think you hit the nail on the head with that. Um so these these novellas reference your other work, as you mentioned. Um but they're four independent stories in topic as well as in tone. Outside of the location, and and maybe you already talked a little bit about this with the land, but I'm I'm interested in hearing uh if there's any more. Is there anything that unites these four stories outside of the location thematically or structurally? How whatever you might think unites these four stories.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I mean, I do think each one is about kind of a lone character having to go through a bit of a bit of a uh a night of hell. Uh I it's it they all are kind of about um individuals who are facing something, uh a personal struggle, and then having to face a uh either a a human threat or a supernatural threat. Um and you know or both in some stories. Yeah, absolutely. Both uh there's a definitely uh uh uh some cosmic horror and folk horror that go into these stories that that sort of unite them, even in Point in the Woods, which is probably the most, in some ways, the most grounded, literal, kind of straightforward, um not necessarily supernatural story, but where the the origin of this sort of evil that's that's spreading throughout this summer camp does come from kind of a strange folk horror, you know, maybe cosmic. It sort of starts with this animal that doesn't shouldn't exist here. And so it's a little bit um I think that if you're a fan of folk horror and cosmic horror, if you're a fan of sort of like uh um you know stories about sort of a character going down a rabbit hole and uh and and then having to fight their way back out. These that's that's a little bit of I think what you what connects all of them. They're all every single story is kind of like if you just hadn't gone there, you never would have gone through this. It's not it's not like the threat came to them and the aliens came and we and I had no choice but to fight. Uh everyone in this story kind of, with the exception of maybe Eddie in in uh Boy in the Woods, who's sort of stuck at camp for one more night. Everyone else sort of had the decision to either do I keep snooping or do I just look the other way and not go through this awful experience? And they all just can't help snooping. And so they uh so they they follow the trail and they they end up in a in a pretty awful place.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

It's that small town nosiness, you know. It is.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

It's it's like no one can mind their own business, everyone's a gossip.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

So were there any uh scenes? And and by the way, brilliant answer. That was sort of a trick question because these are four distinct uh uh stories. I didn't mean to trick you. I just wondered if there was a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

No, I honestly have never really thought about it. I just kind of realized that that it's it is sort of every story, is is there's sort of one main character, and they and they are um, you know, they're all kind of facing uh their individual demons.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

It was selfish of me because I just uh to ask that because I wanted to know from the author if there was a connective thread that you saw. Because thematically, I I will agree that it feels like land stolen and squandered is the main connective tissue of this. Uh the the the guilt that we have over what we've done and the uh specifically the the fallout from that is that we didn't allow ourselves to do anything better than strip malls with the hand. Um, but I was w I I I just had to ask you personally, out of personal curiosity, what that what the other connective tissue you might see is because your your novels are all very much so uh of a world, you know, uh of a I can see, and and this is in no way saying that it's derivative, but I can see the influence the king might have had on you as a young author or young reader, I should say.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Well, and that was that was very eye-opening for me. I think both everything Stephen King wrote, and then also uh Ray Bradbury's um Something Wicked This Way Comes were really made me real made, they were those were the kind of the first stories where you went, Oh man, this could be happening in my backyard. This is basically small town horror. This is you know just an average town, average small town, and then the this horror comes in and infiltrates it and corrupts it and corrupts the people. And there was something really exciting about that that I wasn't reading about you know, a far-off land or somewhere on the east coast or somewhere in in England, or uh, you know, I I was reading about what even though King was Maine, it felt very much like my small town. And uh, you know, I think a small town anywhere is a small town. And so that was kind of the first time that I had been exposed to that. Um and it was a huge influence. Um and and I even the movie uh based on something wicked this way comes, I watched that multiple times when I was a kid, and I just loved it. And there was just this sense of you could just be in your whole your little small town and a car and a carnival comes in, a train pulls in, and a carnival's suddenly there, and now there's evil in your town. And kids are the only ones who can stop it. You know, there was just something that was sort of when you talk about like Goonies and it's an adventure in your own backyard, horror, those those horror stories were like it's horror in my own backyard, and I really liked that.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

I think there's something that grounds it in reality uh that makes it a little scarier when it's when it feels so specific and so local. And and I don't know, I I'm a giant slasher fan. I love the fantastic elements, I love you know that kind of horror, but I also really I'm a David Lynch fan at heart. I love David Lynch. Yeah, right. That blue velvet underbelly. Uh it can be And that's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Blue velvet, you go, you find an ear in a field, and you just all you have to do is not ask questions. You just go, yeah, I'll just call the cops, they can deal with the ear. But he can't, you know, he ha he has to follow this, and that's obviously blue velvet stories like that are, I think, very also another kind of connective tissue, the connective tissue of Midwestern Gothic. It really is. These I've always loved those stories of just the character who just has to find the answer, they can't stop looking into it, you know, whereas everybody else is just turning a blind eye to it, don't worry about it. And I think, you know, on a bigger scale, I think it's kind of that's the scary thing about the world is that a lot of very few people anymore are going, hey, but let's look into this. Everyone else is going, just don't worry about it, turn to turn a blind eye.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Hey, do you guys hear about TikTok? This is great. Yeah, it's not yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not engaging. That's that's very, very astute. Uh to change gears a bit, I wonder, were there any scenes in any of these four novellas that you really looked forward to writing that you were driving that train towards I can't wait to get typing on this one?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Um you know, in one half of a child's face, I was really looking forward to getting in that apartment uh and sort of like like really kind of like exploring what was happening in there and and and letting her find out the weirdness that was going on. Because up until that point, she's it's very rear window. She's just watching it from the her back porch and looking at these apartment windows and kind of making up what she thinks is going on there. And then as weird things start to happen and she starts to worry about her daughter who was in that apartment with her ex-husband and his girlfriend, uh it getting her finally letting her get in there was felt freeing. I was like, okay, now we're in, you know, this whole story, we've been out. Um, you know, I think for me, actually, for the funny thing with Door in the Field, I was really excited to get to sort of the postscript of that story, which is there's a bit of a uh a framing story that that starts with the daughter of the main character and her and how he abandoned her and is never and her mother and has never been in her life and she doesn't understand why. And then she finds out who he is and she goes to confront him, and then he tells her this whole horrible story that that explains why he to an extent explains why he uh why he ran off. And I was sort of excited to get back to her because I didn't just like her, I didn't totally agree with that reasoning. As a father, you know, I was you you sort of have this instinct of I will die for these kids and I will protect them to the death. And as a mother, as as a parent, you feel this. And so I was kind of excited to get back to her uh after the whole story was done.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I'll say I'm glad you mentioned both of those because something that I'm particularly interested in right now with a toddler and one due in December. Uh, not I'm my wife is due in December, I'm not. Yeah, she's she's doing the hard work, uh, is parental horror in both directions. And they're different animals, but like same same animal, different species, I guess. You know, that was very cathartic with having a strained relationship with my personal, my father. That was so cathartic for me that that con that last conversation. And anything to do with protecting your kids just immediately unnerves me. And I'm sure that's you know, we write about what we're afraid of, what we're afraid of, we watch what we're afraid of. So I'm sure that is close to your heart as well. But yeah, I I really imp I really appreciated the parental horror in in both of those stories.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Um you know that that also it does kind of again. I haven't I have I'm just sort of realizing this because sometimes when you write these things, you don't intend to have a theme there, and then you see some connective tissue, but there is also a bit of a generational horror that goes into these stories, whereas and uh plays into the theme of of the generations that have lived on this land, and um and this is just the most this is the most recent generation who's now kind of having to pay for the sins of their fathers and and having to uh face what their parents wouldn't. And uh I think it with the exception of Boy in the Woods, um they're the other three really are kind of what are we doing to our kids and what world are we leaving them? And and uh is you know, is it the the whole point, I think, as a parent is you want them to be better than you, you want them to be even more open-minded and even more uh adventurous, and and and you want them to sort of all the hang-ups you had, you try to like don't give that to them, and and the things that you wish your parents hadn't given you, you sort of go, I'm not gonna do that to my kids. And yeah, in in some of these stories in this book, they do, you know, they have they it's the kids who finally uh, or in the um in the case of one half the child's face, um, the main character who is who's the mother of this of this girl and and is watching all these other families and how they're sort of like turning their kids into they're either ignoring them or they're turning them into clones of themselves, and they're and she's like, all I want to do is be with my daughter and who's with my ex-husband. And and uh so it is a bit of how do we break that cycle? How do we sort of make them better than us and and and and hopefully leave them a better world? But at the same time, like you pointed out, what are we doing with this land? We're building we're building buildings that are gonna fall down in 50 years because they're poorly constructed, there's no architecture to them, they're just stores. They're just here's a Starbucks, and here's the CVS, and here's another CVS, and here's another Starbucks, and they're you know, at the at the end of the day, this thing we thought was so valuable. What are we doing with it?

unknown 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Robbing the the design of a building, uh, you know, a fast food chain to make it more able to be sold after that they're done harvesting the people around it, like the taking personality out of the designs and oh yeah, you're hitting the nail on the head there. Even Tara has some generational, clearly has some generational trauma, but uh, you know, I think of the boy in the woods, and the the parents are delayed, they they leave him there.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yeah, they couldn't they don't seem to care, and that's that's I guess that is also they they have just sort of gone, oops, we can't make it, we got the date wrong. You have to spend another night at at camp.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

I can't imagine that. Uh, first of all, yeah, that was horrifying to me having gone to camp. I would I would be so traumatized, but uh on the flip side, as a parent, I can't imagine it. No. Um, I just really quickly, I know we're almost at time here. I have to ask, what is your favorite of the four? Can you pick one of them? Can you? It's a Sophie's choice, I'm sure, but do you have a favorite?

SPEAKER_01 42:43

It is. Uh, you know, I like I really like things about all of them. I will say that I think uh for me, Where Your Secret Like a Stone was really was was kind of to me, it was the most exciting because I actually did not know what that story was when I started writing it. The all the other ones I knew, I almost always know exactly where a story's gonna end. Sometimes I know the exact last line that I'm working towards. And when I write that last line, I feel like I I stuck the landing. It's a very good feeling with Where Your Secret Like a Stone. It was the last one I wrote. And I had some ideas. I had this idea of a hung a story about a hunger stone, and I had this idea about uh do right really kind of writing a shadow version of my hometown, um, which just a little uh it might be in the the afterword, but um my hometown is called Coffeville, and and when it was sort of back in the 1800s, uh there was a guy named Coffee and a guy named Blanton, and they flipped a coin to decide who got to name it, and Coffey won, and that's why it's called Coffeville. So in this story, Blanton won. So it's kind of like this fictitious version of that who was that guy, and what if he was maybe into some weird occult. Stuff and maybe he was not a great guy, and now this town he he sort of is named after him, and it's a little bit of a cursed town. So I think that story was really fun because for it was it was a story of discovery for me as much as it is the reader. Um I I I ultimately knew where it was going, but as I was writing it, I was just kind of having fun living in this small town and going, who did complain about her book and why didn't they want it there? And so that was one that I sort of had fun. It was a bit of a detective story for myself.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

I I would honestly be hard pressed to choose a favorite of these four. I really like them all quite a bit, but that might be my favorite only because there's an element of of surreal. It's the discovery that in it and what she's discovering is so more surreal at every turn. And yeah, yeah, I really it gets weirder and weirder. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, so these are some questions or some variations on questions we ask all of our guests. Um, and two of them are personalized for you, and uh one of them is just you know one that I like to ask. So there are a lot of music references in this in these novellas, uh, including references to some music that I grew up with. And my favorite band, Ghost, was name-dropped. So I have to ask, what kind of music are you into?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

If you want to give me a short rundown, uh, you know, I love a I love a lot of uh like kind of across the board, but I I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so I really love uh sort of 80s post punk. I love like the cure and I love uh Echo on the Bunnyman, I love um, you know, New Order and Joy Division and and uh Bauhaus and all that. And I also love 80s hair metal. I I'm the first concert, one of the first concerts I went to, I went so I saw Winger, and then I saw Motley Crue, and I saw Warrant, and I saw Poison, and so I really kind of grew up, and when I got Appetite for Destruction, it was just like mind-blowing. That was the first album I remember buying on tape, and I was just like, this is something special, this is amazing. Then of course, I went got really into grunge in the early 90s, and so I love I still you know love uh when when um when Ray is thinking about his girlfriend Angel and sort of her guitar and all the stickers on her guitar, the very 90s, and it's a story that's set in the 90s, and so you know, there's a screaming trees sticker on there, and I'm just like yes, you know, I still listen to that. And uh I I love nine-inch nails. I love, you know, like um uh I I really like sort of moodier, darker music, and obviously that's why like I reference Ghost and and um you know bands like that that are are a little newer but kind of still live in that really kind of creepy. Uh I I I like things are operatic, you know. It's just like it's it's fun when sort of rock like Queensrike or like uh Iron Maiden, you know, just gets so operatic.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Yes. Absolutely. I we we share a lot of the same taste, and I just want to shout out Jane's addiction and Veruca Salt of all people. I saw them open for Bush in like 1997 or something. It was awesome. I was like, yes, I was so pumped. Um, but it was like a laundry list of my favorite bands. I had to ask. Um, do you have a favorite ghost story novel or gothic novel? I'm gonna lump the, I'm gonna give you a wider palette to paint with here and lump those two subgenres together, although they're not identical.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

No, you know, I think I I really like Ghost Story by Peter Straub. I I I think that does sort of play into a got I think that's a gothic novel. It's it's very much about a secret that these men share that you know have they the a crime they committed um when they were younger, and now they're it's back and they're kind of paying the price for it. It it's also a very um again, it's it's uh in also in a Stephen King way, it's very much about uh an evil that's kind of infecting a town. And um I I'm trying to think, uh, you know, I had never read The House Next Door um until uh in Dance Macabre uh Stephen King mentions it and talks about it. And um and so I finally read that a few years ago, and that was amazing. It's if you've never read it, I've not, I'm gonna add that to my list. It's such it's such a unique haunted house story that that also pays off, and it's kind of almost like three little novellas that are connected, and then it totally pays off in the end. Just about this, but it's a haunted house story set in this very modern brand new house, and it in some ways is everything gothic isn't. Uh, it's it's this house should not be haunted. It's the things that are happening in this house should not be happening because it's new construction, it's you know, in this beautiful neighborhood. Uh, and there's it was one of the really only stories I've ever read like that, where it wasn't uh it was such a fascinating um way to tackle a haunted house story where your instinct, even when I wrote Kill Creek and stuff, is to go, what's the history of this house? It's been there a while and something bad happened. And here's a house that's just they just built, and you're the first people in it. And there shouldn't, it shouldn't be haunted. It's not built on anything weird. There's no reason for for it to be this way. Uh, and it's very surreal. It's very surreal. It's sort of things happen that that could be supernatural. You can also also argue that the whole book, there's nothing supernatural in it. Um, and I will say one of my all-time favorites is House of Leaves. Uh which House of Leaves was such a journey and such a fun puzzle. But and it was the only book, because very rarely does a movie or book scare me. And uh it it can I can really enjoy it, but but rarely do I go, oh my god, that was like really got under my skin. And for some reason, House of Leaves, where almost nothing is shown. I don't think anything is shown, it's sounds, it's the sense of like going down into a staircase into uh an endless abyss. And am I going to be able to get back? There it really got under my skin. It really creeped me out.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

House of Leaves is a weird book because every time I read it, I feel like it starts to seep off the page and into my life in some way. It's it feels like it infiltrates you. It's uh such a good book. Yeah, I love that. Those are three really great choices, and I don't think that I I mean Ghost Story, solid classic recommendation, but I uh House of Leaves was not on my radar for that answer, and I'm so glad you mentioned it because that is like one of my favorite all-time novels. Yeah. Speaking uh speaking of all-time favorites, since we do a lot of horror movie reviews as well as book reviews, but since we do a lot of horror movie reviews, what is your favorite horror movie of all time? And you can give me multiple, we're not limiting it to one, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

I'm gonna be pretty shallow in my picks because I I I can't argue with a classic, it just I love the shining. Um I my I showed that to my kids when they were a little too young to see the shining. They loved it, and it was so funny, they were like, that wasn't scary. And I was like, Are you kidding me? When I was a kid, it freaked me out. Um I love The Exorcist because it's just such a it's a really it's it's to for a movie about the devil, and it seems like when you're watching it, you're afraid that you're and that that you're allowing evil, you're inviting evil into your house, but it's really a story about faith. It's about store a story about faith reclaimed at the end, and and uh and the power of faith and the power of sacrifice. Uh it's a very uh profound movie um that most people only remember for head spinning and peace soup puking. And then another two movies that are just like when I saw them, they blew my mind. Evil Dead 2, obviously. I I when I saw that as a kid, I was like, I this must have been so much fun to make. This is move making movies must be fun. And then uh Texas Chainsaw Masker 2, Toby Hoover's Texas Chainsaw Masker 2, which which is just bonkers. And even though the original is a classic, it's amazing. It's one of those movies that you watch and it's different every time. The original you watch and it's horrifying, and then it's funny, and then it's like you realize the technical aspect of it and how incredible it is. It's just a different movie every time. But Texas Chainsaw Masker 2 is just like a fever dream, it's bonkers. I I mean Dennis Hopper with two chainsaws, and it's just it like it's such a great movie.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Uh Bill Mosley, yeah. No, hands down, fantastic film. And I'm always surprised. I'm so glad you mentioned uh Texas Chainsaw Masker, like the the how funny it is, because I'm always shocked when I re-watch it how much uh the cook is just unhinged and hilarious. Uh yeah, fantastic, fantastic choices. I I love Campy Horror as well. It's something we haven't talked about. I think you nailed it with Evil Dead 2 and Texas Chainsaw Masker 2. So as we wrap up here, where can people find you on social media if they want to stay abreast of your uh upcoming projects?

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Um I'm pretty bad at it. I uh no, I think I'm probably most active on Instagram, and it's uh it's Scott Thomas Cares About You, which um I didn't name. Uh my a friend of mine, Ben Schwartz, who we did uh a show, uh an animated show with back in the day. Um I had I had just gotten on Instagram and he was like, that's not a good name. And he took my phone and he named it Scott Thomas Cares About You. So that's that's it's still that. Uh and then um on Twitter it's uh Ninja Whenever, which is two of the shows that uh Disney shows actually that I the first two that I did, one was an animated show called Randy Cunningham Ninth Grade Ninja, and the other uh was called Best Friends Whenever, and so it's Ninja Whenever. Um, and then uh I think um there's a website uh that's Scott Thomas Wrights, and uh and so uh and then my books are yeah at Barnes and Noble, they're on Amazon, they're uh on my publisher's website, InkShares. So really you can kind of find them uh pretty much anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

That's awesome. We'll put all of that in the episode description so people can follow you and purchase these books, which we highly recommend here at Dread Alert Media. Honestly, Kill Creek was a wild ride and Midwestern Gothic. Like I've already gushed. So um were you working on? Are you working on anything next? Uh anything coming up?

SPEAKER_01 55:19

I am. I actually I just wrote a feature, uh spec feature that uh is uh um was sort of inspired by my kids when they were little. Um that I took one of their sort of childhood games and made it weird and awful. Uh and then uh and then I'm currently writing, I'm about 150 pages into a uh sequel to Kill Creek. And so that is supposed to come out next fall.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

I'm here for that for sure. That's that's fantastic. Scott, I can't thank you enough for your time. I know you're very busy. I know you have a number of different irons in the fire and uh a number of different projects you're working on. The fact that you spent some time with us today and we went over the time I promised you means the world to me and to our listeners. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

Yeah, thank you for having me. This was fantastic. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

As always, stay spooky, my friends.