LiteraryHype Podcast

74: STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES: Vampires and Native American Rage in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

• Stephanie the LiteraryHypewoman / Stephen Graham Jones • Season 2 • Episode 12

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00;00;03;10 - 00;00;23;29
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie here literary hype woman and today's author conversation is a little bit outside of my comfort zone. Because I don't read a lot of horror. If you've been around, you know, I don't read a lot of horror. But when you get the opportunity to talk to Stephen Graham Jones you take it, especially when his book has something to do with empires.

00;00;24;16 - 00;00;46;19
Speaker 1
So I braved the horror genre because Stephen Graham Jones on vampires. That's what happened. Stephen Graham Jones is the author of I Was the Teenage Slasher. The only good Indian's My Heart is Chainsaw. I have so many of his books and just hadn't got around to reading them because I am a chicken, I guess you could say. But his new book is called The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.

00;00;46;29 - 00;01;10;26
Speaker 1
And it does involve vampires so therefore, I was game to not only read this, but to talk to Stedman Graham Jones about writing. And this man is so funny, like buckle up because this is a good time so without any further ado, here's my conversation with Stephen Graham. John Well, welcome to the literary hype. It's exciting to have you on to talk about your brand new book, Buffalo Hunter.

00;01;10;26 - 00;01;18;10
Speaker 1
Hunter, that cover is so good. So before we get into the story, talk a little bit about the creation of this cover.

00;01;18;19 - 00;01;42;08
Speaker 2
I think our department got back to us with this. I want to say four covers, maybe I remember three of them anyways, and one of them was really Western and I like that Western one a lot. But this buffalo one, we often love with it immediately. And then it was just a matter of picking the right fight, mostly the font and the color, but they kept that Western font for my name.

00;01;42;08 - 00;01;55;06
Speaker 2
And for two of the buffaloes afterwards. It just works, you know? And I thought about it. What's the difference in the buffalo coming from one side and not the other side? It feels right. This side it's coming from and I don't know why it does.

00;01;55;17 - 00;02;10;19
Speaker 1
It was on the wall. It's against the New York Comic-Con, and so many people were sobbing like, What's that one? It took me a very long time to realize there was two hunters on there, though embarrassingly long. So for anybody who hasn't seen this book already, what's it about.

00;02;10;19 - 00;02;39;28
Speaker 2
In 2012? A diary is found in the wall of a crumbling parsonage that belonged to the ancestor of a Wyoming professor as she begins transcribing that diary, it turns out to be her ancestor was a Lutheran pastor who was visited every Sunday for a few weeks by a black guy who had a fantastic violent story to tell him.

00;02;39;28 - 00;02;59;07
Speaker 2
And so etsi this 12th character, this professor, is transcribing that up and getting not just the transcription of the black figure story, but the moments between where the pastor is questioning this story and poking and prodding at it and trying to find whether it's true.

00;02;59;14 - 00;03;01;27
Speaker 1
What was here initial spark for writing this.

00;03;01;27 - 00;03;20;27
Speaker 2
Story. My initial spark, I think it was outrage or maybe just plain rage. It was I always knew what happened to the buffalo. Of course, or what was attempted to happen to them to do to the buffalo, to eradicate them all, to make all those Indians go to the reservations because we wouldn't have food. So we had to be dependent on the government for rations.

00;03;21;09 - 00;03;42;16
Speaker 2
But for some reason it boiled over back in the last year, year and a half. For me, I think it was I saw a video I don't live on the reservation. I live in Colorado. I saw a video from a reservation of a lot of our buffalo herd being let loose, like beyond the fences and it made my heart bigger in L.A.

00;03;42;22 - 00;03;47;18
Speaker 2
But it also made me angry and angrier in a way that sort of always been like this.

00;03;47;25 - 00;03;55;15
Speaker 1
This is like historical blended with the horror as well. What kind of research process did you have in digging into 1912?

00;03;55;25 - 00;04;16;20
Speaker 2
I wish I could say that I was a good researcher. I don't think I am but I do have friends who are really good researchers. And so right at the very front of this project was writing essays. First chapter I emailed to people who are, you know, three people actually and said, give me everything you got. And so Ben immediately they had a lot and they sent me a lot and that's what I needed.

00;04;16;23 - 00;04;39;09
Speaker 2
And I worked perfectly. And one of the, one of the friends helped me immensely with all the language, like the Blackfoot terms. And I say Blackfoot because Blackfoot language where the Blackfeet was, where we used to be three different like units within the bigger Blackfoot, obviously, anyways. And then one of them is a history guy up in New York and he had written a book on the Blackfeet.

00;04;39;09 - 00;04;56;11
Speaker 2
So he knew all the like events and people and places. And another friend is a scholar, an English English scholar, and he had done a lot of research since all the newspaper clippings and letters and stuff. And so the three of them were exactly who I needed to write this book.

00;04;56;17 - 00;05;04;23
Speaker 1
You often hear about how Native American culture really details their histories, their stories. Were there any stories passed down to you that helped pull you into this?

00;05;04;27 - 00;05;24;28
Speaker 2
Not particularly, no. I grew up knowing about the massacre that happened in January of 1870. And let me think, any stories? There probably were some that are now in here that they're just so much part of me that I can't even think of, that I can't pull out anything particular now.

00;05;25;07 - 00;05;40;06
Speaker 1
So there's this little vampire guy. You write from his perspective a lot for a lot of this talk about crafting and getting into the mind of a vampire and like those cravings and feelings that he's having as he's feeding.

00;05;40;24 - 00;05;59;14
Speaker 2
You know, good stab, it was less about engaging his vampirism for me that just to me like engaging his vampirism is kind of like just imagining what if I were a leopard? What if our lion, what if I were a wolf? What if, you know, like civilization, like human civilization to me, it wasn't about art, culture, all that stuff.

00;05;59;14 - 00;06;20;16
Speaker 2
It was about there's some of my livestock, you know, that that's how you that's how you think like a vampire that's I think like how anyways. But making good steps voice work on the page meant he had to be period accurate. He had to be a product of the 19th century, which he didn't even think in centuries, you know.

00;06;20;17 - 00;07;02;01
Speaker 2
But so he was born in 1933 and he did not think in a way that Western people think which is very rigid and kind of comes out of scientific stuff. He thought in a way that lent truth and credence and like endowed ability is probably a better word than that to to spiritual matters and magical things like the, the there was our world and the supernatural world, there was no harsh line between those for him and that was the tricky part was getting that, getting my head working like that so I could then write in his voice.

00;07;02;10 - 00;07;06;13
Speaker 1
How did you approach deciding what pieces of vampire law you wanted to use.

00;07;06;21 - 00;07;42;09
Speaker 2
How decided that was? Which ones did I need to retain to make the vampire make sense? For me to write about something for 40, 50 pages, I need to believe in it enough that I can invest intellectually and emotionally and for me to do that, it has to make sense. I think over the centuries, all the retellings of the vampire stories, it's like the vampires, a snowball just rolling downhill from I mean, not just John Polidori, but from like Serbia, from Slovakia, all these all these places where we had different vampires popping up.

00;07;42;09 - 00;08;05;24
Speaker 2
Egypt, even all these dramatic conveniences like charming or flying or not being able to enter a door without invitation, all that stuff. I feel like those were dramatic conveniences and certain stories that then became characteristics. And I'm not saying that those are bad characteristics, but I'm saying they don't make sense altogether. As a single or from a single organism.

00;08;05;24 - 00;08;22;05
Speaker 2
And so I had to make this vampire make sense as an organism. And to do that at a destroy most of the conventional vampire traits, I think the vampire, I believe is a lot more like the vampires in the 1987 film The Dark than the Dracula.

00;08;22;16 - 00;08;37;28
Speaker 1
As the Twilight Girl. He grew up with the vampires with all kinds of different characteristics, but their kind of enemy was the Native Americans who were the werewolves and your big werewolves. And so why make this story vampires and werewolves?

00;08;38;08 - 00;08;58;02
Speaker 2
Because the big reason is I've done werewolves with long roles and I was thinking that if I did werewolves now, I would just like be forced. I like myself into a corner where I could only do werewolves that are Mongols, werewolves. I can't change that law anymore because people are going to say, I do not believe in those worlds anymore.

00;08;58;02 - 00;09;19;07
Speaker 2
That's what I fear. I don't think people would say that. But but the real reason is I wanted to come with the Buffalo Hunters, and I didn't want someone coming at them one by one when they're out there with their rifles. You know, three miles apart from each other. I wanted to come with a vampire. I thought the Buffalo Hunters at night when they're around their fire, and I think it's safe.

00;09;19;07 - 00;09;27;25
Speaker 2
And to me, it makes sense for a vampire to be that predator because the night is its natural place to be.

00;09;28;11 - 00;09;41;11
Speaker 1
So you wrote this in an epistolary format, which is gives it a whole different voice and unique kind of vibe. So talk a little bit about why you decided that format and what it was like for you to write in a different vibe.

00;09;42;05 - 00;10;08;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, I love Epistolary is my favorite like delivery method. I think my favorite actual voice or tone is second person present tense. But as far as like the shape of the text, I like it as a whole. I've done it twice before, I guess three times really. I was a teenage slasher as opposed to three as well. But, you know, it's just I guess I wanted an artifact is basically what it is.

00;10;08;21 - 00;10;30;26
Speaker 2
I wanted this whole story to be a remove and maybe even to remove. So I think that's why it's nice to twice. And I think I'm kind of I don't know, susceptible to like urban legends. Like everybody has a story about this happened to my cousin's roommate, you know, like when that when he gets like two or three moves or moves away then I think, oh, that's kind of true.

00;10;30;26 - 00;10;46;21
Speaker 2
And it's a ridiculous thing about us, you know, that we think like that. And so it's just a tactic to make it feel maybe possible and because vampires are hard to believe in. But if you mess them inside a couple other narratives, they're like a pearl you find in the center.

00;10;46;23 - 00;11;01;17
Speaker 1
I think you got three main voices throughout this story, and they're all so unique. How do you approach capturing these individual characters voices and making it clear on the page that without like a subtitle that this is who is talking?

00;11;01;29 - 00;11;29;21
Speaker 2
It was tricky. I mean, the first the first way is is the chapter headings, of course, but that doesn't that's not always enough. I also had to differentiate each of them with language, style and punctuation and like Etsy on the other side in 2012, she has access to everything she wants in parentheses and dashes, footnotes. So she wanted them textual effects.

00;11;29;21 - 00;12;03;01
Speaker 2
If she wants them section breaks, she's got everything. When you go one step in, you've got Arthur, he's got these big long dickens dashes of Victorian dashes, and he uses conjunctions according to conjunctions in a different way than he does. Because I want to distinguish. And he also kind of in crusts is writing with these baroque terms. He was, you know, he's educated in the Victorian era and he's been isolated in the West, and so his vocabulary has both decayed and then grown up again, not quite pure.

00;12;03;01 - 00;12;23;29
Speaker 2
So his words are not always totally right. He's kind of making things up out here where it's safe to always if I call him on it and then good stab in the middle. He gets so little, he doesn't have section breaks, he has very limited punctuation. He uses kind of literal translations of Blackboard Terms to get things across to other books.

00;12;24;04 - 00;12;39;00
Speaker 2
And he's telling his story or his confession to and I'm never in italics. Arthur doesn't in italics either, because I needed italics with handwriting and I can't figure that out. He could have had underlines, but I just it underlines and I was the case last year, so I didn't think I could do this again.

00;12;40;16 - 00;12;50;18
Speaker 1
And I mean, you can do whatever you want. So it's online that you have a background in hunting. How is that helped you with writing for novels?

00;12;50;19 - 00;13;06;27
Speaker 2
I've cut up in a whole lot of animals and I'm, you know, seen a lot of violence done. I mean, we like to pretend the hunting is just, you know, sportsmanship or getting meat, but it's a violent act for sure. But it's not it's no more violent than go into the grocery store and buy £2 of meat. But that's a violent act.

00;13;07;06 - 00;13;24;16
Speaker 2
You know, I think it's all the same. It's just whether you want to actually get your hands bloody or not. And I don't mean to say that it's better to get your hands bloody or anything like that, but different people have different ways of doing it. I think. So. Yeah, hunting has helped me a lot. I've held lots of organs in my hand.

00;13;24;16 - 00;13;44;13
Speaker 2
I've had to crawl inside of animals on the side of hills to possess their guts and lungs and stuff out of them. And I think I don't know when you when you've been enslaved in blood like that and you know, the smell of it and the taste of it. And and then you have to sit there on the dead animal and, you know, and turkey sandwich or something, you know, like, I don't know.

00;13;45;11 - 00;13;52;20
Speaker 2
I'm not saying I'm better or different or anything, but I do think it's given me a little access into Gore, maybe.

00;13;53;01 - 00;14;13;04
Speaker 1
Well, you don't have to say. And lots of other people have said very, very nice things about you one thing I saw online said that you're the new Stephen King. I saw something from NPR calling this your masterpiece. What's it like for you to hear all this kind of praise, especially since you've had such a long career that's just really blown up in the last few years?

00;14;13;13 - 00;14;40;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it's wonderful. It's when you get found, anytime you get found is great. I think it's actually better to get found later in your career than earlier. The people like if I would have been found earlier, then I wouldn't have had the freedom to experiment and play and discover who I was on the page. So like I had 15, 20 books probably where I could do the craziest, wildest, most least likely to be successful things.

00;14;40;27 - 00;14;56;08
Speaker 2
And people published it. Not big print runs, not big marketing distribution or any of that, but I learned who I was and what I could get away with and and not just like the boundaries of my abilities were, but how I could sneak over those boundaries. And that's been essential.

00;14;56;12 - 00;15;03;23
Speaker 1
I've published at least 35 books. Yeah. What is something that you have learned through this process that you wish you would have known back in book one?

00;15;04;03 - 00;15;25;09
Speaker 2
Be careful about who you assign rights to. Be careful what contract you sign. I've had a lot of books locked up and rights battles that people hold on to them. Just kind of for meanness sometimes or not just mean that's like neglect it feels like. And yes, I would if I had it to do again, I'd be a little bit more careful with the contracts I signed.

00;15;25;14 - 00;15;25;23
Speaker 1
And you're a.

00;15;25;23 - 00;15;26;11
Speaker 2
Teacher.

00;15;26;13 - 00;15;38;04
Speaker 1
I am lesser which is you've got like many interviews. You're very, very smart man. What have you learned from teaching writing that has helped you in your own writing process?

00;15;38;21 - 00;16;01;07
Speaker 2
You know, I hear myself like what I do as a writing teacher is I'm trying to infect my students with like a sense of narrative ethics. With a sense of obligation towards the stories and the writing both. And so I'll hear myself telling them this principle. This guideline is not really hard and fast rules, but there are things that tend to work more than others and the things you don't want to do.

00;16;01;25 - 00;16;17;27
Speaker 2
I hear myself saying that. And then 3 hours later, I'm in my office or at home writing a chapter or a story or something. And then I realize, Oh, man, I got to hold myself to that too. So I think it's made me better. So it's kept me honest.

00;16;18;07 - 00;16;27;10
Speaker 1
The Internet tells me you're a big slasher movie fan. What have you learned from watching Slash movies that has helped you create epic, shocking twists in your stories?

00;16;27;29 - 00;16;52;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, like when when it's a slasher boom like we had in the early eighties or we had again after Scream, and we're kind of having that. I wouldn't say it's a boom now, but it maybe is more interesting, right? Definitely growth in the. Yeah, yeah. What you get is competition where every next film is trying to escalate than at the last one with the most over the top development or surprise or twist they can stage.

00;16;53;02 - 00;17;10;27
Speaker 2
And so I think what I've learned from the Slasher is that's a wonderful game to play, but you've got a set of stuff up. You can't drop it out of anywhere because the films that persist that we watch over and over are the ones that set it up and allow it to have to organically come from the story, if that makes sense.

00;17;10;27 - 00;17;26;29
Speaker 2
Like like, you know, Jason popping out of the water at the end in front of their teeth I mean, I know that Sean Cunningham has don't of any didn't sign on for the second one does that it makes sense. It doesn't only make sense, but it kind of does because we know that Jason drowned in the lake so this is a slasher.

00;17;26;29 - 00;17;46;06
Speaker 2
It's a horror film. He can come back and that kind of stuff really is something I latch on to and try to use as much as I can because you're right, it's not just in today's marketplace. We have to be shocking and surprising and all that. I think it's always been that way with Earth. I mean, like, you know, Michelangelo Carbon David or whatever.

00;17;46;06 - 00;17;51;05
Speaker 2
I think he was trying to surprise people with how finally he could do these veins on the arm and all that stuff.

00;17;51;18 - 00;18;01;03
Speaker 1
So in perusing your Web site, you have a little tab for readers tattoos. What's your favorite tattoo that someone has gotten based on your books?

00;18;01;09 - 00;18;17;12
Speaker 2
Oh, man, it's hard to pick a favorite. I think he got a buffalo on his forearm and so did another person I know, Lauren Dearing. She got a buffalo, I believe, or. Yes, you got a buffalo. I'm it's cool seeing Buffalo. Seeing more and more buffalo in the world.

00;18;17;21 - 00;18;24;05
Speaker 1
Buffalo are known for not being the nicest of animals. Have you ever interacted with any No.

00;18;24;05 - 00;18;41;01
Speaker 2
I never have. I had a chance. Years ago, somebody called me up and said, Hey, man, this dude is letting people hunt buffalo on his property. And I look into it and I think it was for $500, you can shoot a buffalo. But all he did was he stood his fence and shot a buffalo that was even grass out there that didn't seem like hunting to me.

00;18;41;01 - 00;18;42;08
Speaker 2
So I didn't do it. You know.

00;18;43;01 - 00;18;55;29
Speaker 1
My sister used to work at a vet clinic that helps with a bison butchering like they were grown. They were raised for meat, and so it was done butchered. So she had to help with that. And like she brought me back a jawbone. So I had a buffalo job for a long time.

00;18;56;08 - 00;19;13;09
Speaker 2
I've got a good let's see, I've got one school. Yeah, I think I got well, I've got a big mountain book. Buffalo, buffalo bull on my wall. But I mean just the head in the cave. But I'm, I've got a big, big skull and I got it. One of my friends is also in that industry. He, his company sells bison meat.

00;19;13;28 - 00;19;38;04
Speaker 2
And I was in his office one day and he had a buffalo skull on the corner. I said, Man, always, he's one of those. And he said, Come with me. So we went up to his, like, warehouse area. I wasn't it was just a few stairs away, and there was a huge into area, you know, like, I don't know, a ton of yards, long yards wide and on the ground and even rows like stormtroopers were buffalo skulls stacked to the to the horizon.

00;19;38;04 - 00;19;42;23
Speaker 2
And then it was so Philly so big that everyone, you know, he let me have one that's very cool.

00;19;44;03 - 00;19;51;20
Speaker 1
People thought I was weird for having because I had a bison jawbone and a cow job on the job and they were like, why? And I don't know, I just like yeah, yeah.

00;19;52;08 - 00;19;53;26
Speaker 2
You can make weapons out of them, right?

00;19;54;00 - 00;20;01;18
Speaker 1
I definitely was not a child running around going like, siblings go away. No, I never, never threatened anybody with a job. What are you talking about?

00;20;01;18 - 00;20;09;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Isn't there some Bible story about somebody who slew an army of bad guys with a donkey jawbone or something?

00;20;10;04 - 00;20;13;02
Speaker 1
Something like there's definitely something that's.

00;20;13;02 - 00;20;16;01
Speaker 2
Stuck in my head because I was always, like, was nothing better than his.

00;20;16;10 - 00;20;29;17
Speaker 1
You know? I mean, maybe it was Bible times. They didn't have 40 sevens then. OK, job on the job. Just. Wow. So, you know, you could work a job on and the next one like.

00;20;30;25 - 00;20;31;24
Speaker 2
I do. I do.

00;20;32;14 - 00;20;47;11
Speaker 1
And another thing I noticed across your Web site was your humor that comes through like there's hints of it in the books. But when you're writing as yourself, it's entirely different and very funny. So talk a little bit about your personal brand of humor.

00;20;47;16 - 00;21;01;01
Speaker 2
Oh, my humor. I think it's mostly dad humor. That's what my kids tell me. They, like, groan when I say stuff. So so more and more when I'm at Mike's and I say something I think is funny, I'm just waiting for people to just, like, roll their eyes and look away embarrassed. The way, you know.

00;21;02;01 - 00;21;13;24
Speaker 1
I love is that there's like a why I write thing and it was, like, so heartfelt and and deep, but also very humorous to me. I love a good, like, dry, dry here with.

00;21;13;24 - 00;21;14;00
Speaker 2
You.

00;21;14;21 - 00;21;22;04
Speaker 1
But you have so many other things coming up, like, how do you how do you keep all of this going with all these books coming out?

00;21;22;29 - 00;21;39;02
Speaker 2
I just love to write. So it's to me, like, writing is going to research and getting to play and I don't like to do chores. I like to do work, but I like to play. So I think that's why I write. If I think if writing ever does become work, maybe I'll go do something else. You know?

00;21;39;10 - 00;21;49;19
Speaker 1
Well, we're glad you haven't gotten tired of it yet. You have a novella coming out with Kindle Unlimited. Talk a little bit about what that story is and how you got involved in that process.

00;21;49;29 - 00;22;10;25
Speaker 2
Oh, the Indigo Room. That's right. It's in a anthology. Shivers is it called Shivers might be called Shivers. But yeah. Who was in that Katrina war? Grady Hendrix. Joel on King. I think that's that's the roster. And they set us up and said, hey, you know, I read a scary story about like a scary place. And did it have to be a haunted house?

00;22;10;25 - 00;22;36;15
Speaker 2
It could be a hunter, and we could probably have been a shoe box, I don't know. And so I wrote one story and it this one actually wants to be a novella. It's probably 16,000 words right now. And it needs to be longer to actually work. I was trying to make it work in some sort of space, and so I gave up on that one and I said, you know, I must write a shorter thing so that I would have probably 11, 12,000 words.

00;22;36;24 - 00;22;49;00
Speaker 2
I want you call that a novel that I guess in about a meeting, a conference room on like the 13th floor of a building that is not a great place to be on a Friday afternoon.

00;22;49;04 - 00;23;00;22
Speaker 1
Dun dun dun. We've also got a rerelease of mapping the interior interior coming out. What's it like getting to have one of your old books brought back like this?

00;23;01;12 - 00;23;23;27
Speaker 2
It's been great. Like not fires. Bringing mapping back mapping with our God is the thing. So it's like getting new purchase of the new cover and a new, new, new place is really cool. And I'm getting to work with Kelly Johnson, who was my editor for Montrose back in 2016 I always like working with Kelly and but in the past year I've had a lot of open road is repairing a lot of my old titles.

00;23;24;10 - 00;23;34;25
Speaker 2
I can't even remember which of them and there's more coming this year as well and that thrills me you know and because those books were largely unavailable and now people are getting to find them and I like that a lot.

00;23;34;25 - 00;23;53;17
Speaker 1
It's really cool and like an author pops off and then they're back stock it's this whole big re and renaissance is not the right word, but that's the one that's coming to my mind. Just getting that big boost across the board. What's it like for you to see these books that because you've been writing about 20, 25 years?

00;23;53;28 - 00;23;58;00
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, my first story was published in 95 and 96 right around there.

00;23;58;04 - 00;24;08;08
Speaker 1
Yes. OK, 30 years I can math. Math is math is fine. I do words, not numbers. So was it like getting to see these older books of yours get new life?

00;24;08;22 - 00;24;28;10
Speaker 2
That's been really, really cool. It's but it's also scary because when I was first starting out writing, like I didn't know how to hide, I guess. And so I feel like I'm more exposed in those pieces. But that's how it's supposed to be with art. If you're not vulnerable, then are you really doing art?

00;24;28;23 - 00;24;32;10
Speaker 1
And then what should we know about Killer on the road coming out in July?

00;24;32;20 - 00;24;58;23
Speaker 2
Killer on the Road is set on Interstate 80 crossing Wyoming, going up and down both way. Well, one way from Laramie, anyways. Harper is a high school senior, had a big blow out fight with her mom, storms out of the house, so she's hitting the road. Does that end up finding some of her friends? They're making this big trek together and they run afoul of some things.

00;24;58;23 - 00;25;06;01
Speaker 2
Someone who has been preying upon people on the road. And it becomes a night of trying to survive.

00;25;06;09 - 00;25;19;10
Speaker 1
Dun dun dun. So many downtown towns. In order for someone who is just now starting to try to get into horror, they're interested in it because horror is seeing such a big boost right now. Where would you recommend they start?

00;25;19;28 - 00;25;47;00
Speaker 2
Start with themselves because what scares us, what has the potential to scare the reader? Is that what scares you? Like, don't consult a survey group or a statistical analysis that people are scared of spiders and they're scared of drowning. So therefore, I'm going to write a story about spiders that pull you under the water. You know, like that's if that doesn't terrify you, essentially, if that's not at the core of your terror, then it's hard to make it scary for the reader.

00;25;47;01 - 00;26;02;08
Speaker 2
I think I'm right about the anxieties, concerns, issues, nightmares, terrors that you suffer in your life, give them dramatic form and you have a chance of using them like the videotape in the ring and passing them on.

00;26;02;20 - 00;26;05;01
Speaker 1
So then what about Buffalo Hunter Hunters scares you?

00;26;05;26 - 00;26;31;27
Speaker 2
What about Buffalo Hunter? Hunter scares me. That's a good question. Haven't thought about that. Let me excuse me, Arthur there not be any buffalo anymore, but that's a that's a big, wide, wide, wide scare or concern. I think what scares me about Buffalo Hunter. Hunter is having to pay for something you did long ago, like five years ago, ten years ago, 30 years ago, that you're a different person now.

00;26;31;27 - 00;26;48;17
Speaker 2
You you may. Yeah, maybe you I'm I don't know. Maybe you ran over a sign 30 years ago. Is it fair that the person who had to rebuild that sign is now coming for you to punish you for running over that sign? Maybe it is. You know, I mean, it's just as much a crime as it was then as it is now.

00;26;48;29 - 00;26;55;13
Speaker 2
So that concerns me a lot that something I did when I was in junior high is going to come back to haunt me.

00;26;55;21 - 00;27;01;16
Speaker 1
I mean, everything that was social media of the year tweets from ten, 15 years ago ruining careers.

00;27;01;17 - 00;27;10;20
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, I've done some awkward social media stuff, but mostly it's just typos because I can't see those little letters you through.

00;27;10;20 - 00;27;14;14
Speaker 1
Worse things you could do than typos. Anything else you want to talk about?

00;27;15;09 - 00;27;35;00
Speaker 2
Oh, I'm just thankful. I'm thankful that people are reading this book and finding it. And like, I was so nervous that people weren't going to be able to engage the old timey language and that they were going to need a different kind of empire. But it seems like people are hooking into Gustav and hooking into Arthur Kahn's speech patterns and everything.

00;27;35;00 - 00;27;35;20
Speaker 2
So I'm thrilled.

00;27;36;03 - 00;27;44;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's a lot of five star readings on this one and a lot of them. Last question I always ask, because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about right now?

00;27;44;29 - 00;28;02;25
Speaker 2
I just read all about two months ago. Anyways, Virginia features this Victorian psycho, and that was nothing. But there's so much blood on the walls in that book. Short little book like Words to Blood. I think it has the highest, like, per capita. Is that something? It's a.

00;28;03;06 - 00;28;03;25
Speaker 1
Ratio.

00;28;03;27 - 00;28;28;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, ratio. That's a good one. I see no words. I just read Karen Russell's. The antidote was to me, maybe just because a buffalo had her eyes right now seem to be dealing with a lot of similar issues to Buffalo Hunter. Her I'm excited for Michael. We had October film Hot, which is a cult novel, and I usually don't engage cult novels that deeply, but his really is well done.

00;28;28;12 - 00;28;42;10
Speaker 2
And when I say well done, I mean amazingly written, and I'm excited to read. Paul Tremblay is Another, which is his middle grade horror novel I'm really interested to see what he does for the kids, and I suspect it's still going to scare me.

00;28;43;00 - 00;28;45;20
Speaker 1
Awesome. Thank you so much for hanging out with literary guys.

00;28;45;25 - 00;28;46;26
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me. It's great.

00;28;49;19 - 00;29;03;26
Speaker 1
Thanks to you, Steven, for hanging out with me while he was in Saint Louis for his book tour supporting the Buffalo Hunter. Hunter, if you would like to check out this book or some of his other books, those links are down in the description for you. So make sure you check those out and support literary hype when you shop.

00;29;04;03 - 00;29;13;27
Speaker 1
If you enjoy this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype podcast give us some stars and share with the friends. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.