Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtights.com, i'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and collectibles at 547 Hamley street in Bangor, Maine, or Galactic comics and collectibles.com this episode we welcome Keith Rosin to the podcast to discuss his duology, Fever House and the Devil by name, as well as touch on his upcoming book, Coffin Moon, coming out in September to a bookstore near you. We talked all kinds of things. His trip to Bangor to visit us with when we saw him back in October, his hanging out and discussion with Stephen King, and so much more. We also discussed a little bit about Fever House, a devil by name, but touched on horror books and so much more. You can pre order his book Coffin Moon right now at your local bookstore or wherever you buy books. But this episode is Keith Rosin chatting his duology as well as so much more right here on the Capes and Tights podcast. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. Keith, how are you today?
[00:01:04] Speaker B: I'm hanging in, man. Thanks so much for having me.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. It's one of those. I feel like nowadays in the world we live in anyway, if we're just hanging in there, I think we're doing well. I think we're. Yeah, I think we're getting, Getting by.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Lowering the bar every day, you know what I mean?
And taking solid food. So, hey, there we go.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: The world is not coming to an end. There's not a, you know, hand that's making us do evil. I think that's a. That's a good thing in the, like, slow burn.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: You know what I mean?
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Exactly. It does seem like a horror novel sometimes. I do feel like the fact that I'm like, wait, is this real? Is this, like. And someone goes, maybe we're living in a simulation. I'm like, maybe. I hope we wake up one day and I actually am in a simulation. This would be amazing. I'd be like, good one. I like it. That was. That was fun. Let's. Let's not do that again.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Really started breaking down there at the end. But other than that, great job. Yeah.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Good job.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Oh, wrong. Wrong tube. So, yeah, I mean, while we. We talked about. We met each other in person in. In the great Bangor, Maine, back in October, and I had just finished reading the Devil by Name and Fever House because I was, like, lucky enough to read them back to back.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Which is like not everybody's thing, but I talked about getting you on the podcast, and I'm like, oh, I. I know I learned a little bit about you at this. This meet and greet kind of thing, this. This discussion and signing the Briar Patch put on. But I thought, you know what? People who don't have it met you. Maybe a little bit of history on how you got into writing and how maybe how you got into horror writing just doesn't have to be super long, but it's something that. To get people to know who you are if they may not know who Keith Rosin is.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. And I love telling it because I think it's kind of a. Like, I think as writers, we have kind of a preconceived idea of like, what, quote, unquote, success looks like. You know what I mean? And so my route was very circuitous, you know, and I started out in, like, doing zines and like, the punk explosion in the 1990s, you know, with, like, fanzine culture and stuff, and really ran that until the 2000s, and did, like, 25 issues of a fanzine called A Vow.
A couple of those, they were. They were collected into a couple, like, omnibus issues, and that eventually started giving way. And I've always been like a voracious fiction reader, you know, starting, of course, with Stephen King and a lot of literary fiction and crime fiction and horror, and started writing short stories and then. And I took a stab a couple of times at writing novels, started getting my short stories published in my 30s.
And finally my first novel was published on a small press called Meerkat Press when I was 40. And that was a book called the Mercy of the Tide.
And Meerkat did my next four books, so three novels and a story collection. And then ultimately I had gotten a literary agent, you know, at the time, and he. And I just kind of couldn't quite agree on what my career was going to look like. And so I fired him, which was just a scary as shit thing to do, you know, And.
And I wrote. I think I wrote a sequel to the Mercy of the Tide that didn't go anywhere. And then I just started writing this book, Fever House, and finished it and then sent it out to a couple people. And within like, six or ten agents, my. My current agent picked me up, and we spent a week or two kind of cleaning it up, and then he sent it out. The plan was he was going to send Fever House out to six agents on a Thursday, and then on that next Monday, he was going to go Wider with it. But it was like, just. He wanted a couple, like, people to kind of get a. An early look. And Friday, my editor at random house, Caitlin McKenna, emailed him back and was like, is there a sequel? And so that seemed like a really good sign, you know what I mean? That she was stoked. And so she had her team rated over the weekend. And then on Monday, she's like, I want to set up a call with this guy.
Tuesday, she called me, and she prefaced the whole conversation with like, I don't talk to authors unless I'm willing to make an offer on their book. And that was just, like, mind blowing, you know?
And then they had an offer, a very nice offer on Wednesday. So it took less than a week to have a deal.
So, you know, and. But that was like, after, like, 20 years of grinding, you know what I mean? Of, like, writing constantly and putting stuff out constantly and being told no, constantly, you know? And then her two caveats were, would you add 30,000 words to fever House?
And would you write a seat? Are you interested in writing a sequel? And I was just like, I will write dog food ad copy for you if you want. You know, like, you just changed my life.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: So.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: You added 30, 000 words. That's insane.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it was crazy. And it's not common. You know what I mean?
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: I've since told that story, and my agent is. Or my editor was like, what the hell was I thinking? Oh, my God. You know, but it's cool. It was a lot of, like, once things really get cooking in the kind of Fever House in Portland, she wanted more story there. And so I was able to add more elements there and, like, you know, some padding, some backstory, which readers either think lends so much authenticity to the characters, or they loathe that. It's like, freighted down with this backstory of these characters, half. Because half of them wind up dying anyways. You know what I mean? So. But I love that.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: I can see both sides of it. I can understand it. Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. It'd be funny if it was just a hazing thing. They're just like, yeah, we did it. That's great. We were going to accept the Original. Original novel.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: 90,000 though, bud. Way to go. You can write on command. Well done.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Thank you. That's sweet. We're actually not going to take you on your offer.
You just wrote a bunch of words for no reason. No. It kind of reminds me of, you know, isn't that like, that's a Disney movie on a guy who like is like 45 years old, who starts to play baseball for first professionally, like, or like, it was like later on in his life where he like played like minor league baseball or like, or like semi pro baseball for his entire life and got. Got a call up and finally got a chance to play with like the Tampa Bay Rays or something like that. That's you. That's your life right there. It's like, you know, you work, you grind, you grind, you grind. And finally in your 40s, they're like, yeah, okay, you could finally play in the big league.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: It is like a Disney movie, except it's about severed hands and shit like that. You know what I mean? But absolutely.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Your literary agent also is the agent of C.J. lee, who, who, who in her book may fly has a happiest place in the world there. That's the kind of Disney story you have going on for you as well.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, right. There you go. Totally.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: It works. It works in both ways. But I mean, so writing is awesome. I think it's fun. I think it's off the wall a little bit. It's. It's a little extreme in. In times for some people it's different.
Some. I wrote. Someone wrote. A friend of mine who reviews on Goodreads was like, this is my kind of book. Was literally all the review was was just, this is my kind of book. And I'm like, that's. That's perfect. But yeah, you have a horror.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: You.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: These things are horrifying. Have you been. You touched on a little bit talking about your history in writing and stuff like that. But like, are you just a straight up horror fan right now, like horror movies or books?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: No.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: Are you doing care?
[00:08:34] Speaker B: That's the funny thing, man, is I tap out of like at least half the horror movies that I watch. You know, horror novels I can read, no problem. But for me, like, I can't suspend disbelief enough with horror movies that I'm like, oh, they're surrounded by people and there's a guy holding a boom mic and all this, you know, and they practice this a million times. I can't. It's too visceral for me, you know, and so I. It's so weird to be like a horror writer. But like, I can't. Half the shit that I watch, I can't finish, you know?
[00:09:07] Speaker A: I mean, it is that. I mean, if you could read horror, if you were just like, no, actually it's. I used to manage bands and I worked for a concert Promotion company when I was in my early 20s. And now that I'm 38 now it feels like forever ago, but there was this one band that literally played like metalcore music, but then they lit all of them listed like, listen to like club music. Like, none of them even like, listen to the music that they played. They just knew at the time in the venue they were in, in the space they were in. This is the title style of music that you play and they make money. And so finally they just decided one day to not do that anymore and play like club music, but kept the same band name. So like, you like, all of a sudden, I know where you like go on their Spotify now. And it's like metalcore, metalcore, metalcore. Like, like dance music. You're the hell just happened.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
Half poser. I'm not all poser. You know what I mean?
Yeah, it's like I. I do. I'm definitely a.
As far as what I read, it's a lot of crime fiction and literary fiction and horror stuff, kind of. Because that's the. That's the stuff that I read and it's the stuff that I write, you know, So a lot of times I'm still kind of trying to like, you got to keep yourself entertained, man, for a hundred thousand words and like countless visions.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yes, I can see that.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Well, it's one of those things. Like, even me, I'm a huge fan of horror as a genre, as a whole. But like, you know, I just read the Maid's Secret, which is Nita Prose's third book in the Molly the Maid series, which is like, not even any. Like, I don't think any of my closest friends are reading that book. But it was like I needed this like, mystery novel just to break up the. These severed heads and things like that. I mean, I'm rereading Clown in a Cornfield from Adam Caesar because the movie's coming up because I want to see that. And there's a bunch of people murdering each other in this book. And I'm like, I need something where someone's like kind of like soft and they're just looking for a mystery to be solved.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, there's like, I love a lot of like naval gazing literary stuff, you know, and like, I wish I could write that sort of stuff sometimes.
And I don't mean it disparagingly, you know what I mean? Like that, like real heavy on character kind of stuff. But like, I. I just inevitably will put a weird curse or you Know, a guy who turns into a slug or some.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: You know, so that'd be amazing. Just reading like half of a novel, all of a sudden I know you're like, this is great. And then all of a sudden just turns into a slug. You're like, ah, what happened here?
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Yeah, just like. Yeah, like magical realism starts creeping in, you know, Totally.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: It's. It's. That's awesome. But I mean, speaking of horror, you know, so you got a chance to come up here to Bangor. This is one of the cool things. We got an opportunity to. To meet each other. You got an opportunity to be town area and so on and so forth. So you're here for a couple of days. So in that time, obviously, I mean, you're in conversation was with the wonderful Joe Hill, who is a phenomenal author in Joe's own right. Like, I'm super. I have in my. Waiting in my Net galley queue to read is King Sorrow. So I'm super excited for that. I'm pumped about that.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Incredible. I'm. I'm in, in it now.
It's a. It's a phone book. It's a beast, you know, like, yeah, I had.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: I had to, like. I'm like hovering over the request button on NetGalley to see if I want. Because I'm like. I'm like. I'm wondering, like, do I just wait for it to come out Audiobook? Because I could just, like, listen to it. Because I mean that, like, to me, so I can get. I can crush an audiobook. Whereas, like, reading it takes a little bit longer. And so I'm like, I don't know. And I did a little calculation how many pages I can read in a day, and I'm like, that's like a month of me reading every single night. I'm like, I don't know. That's. That's insane. But I think the author. I know the author. Like, if it was an unknown author or an author hadn't read that much, then maybe I'd be like, I don't know if I could read that person's writing that much. But with, with Joe, I'm like, I've tackled the rest of his books.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Like, yeah, you know, you just. I personally, I just burn through it, you know, so it is a commitment. But also, like, once you get in the groove of it, it just flies, you know, That's.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: I'm looking forward to that one. That's, that's, that's, that's phenomenal to hear that. But you got a chance to Talk with them. You got a chance to chat with them. And also you get a chance to hang out with his dad and Stephen King, the king of horror here, here in Maine. I talk to a lot of people on the podcast about where I live and I'm always like, yeah, it' street. Like it's like my neighbor. Yeah, Stephen King. It's, it's a. He's a next door neighbor actually in high school and in middle school. He was actually like a block away from me when he was actually living there more often too. I mean he was up visiting the time that you were here, but he's not here that often anymore. But I mean, what was that experience like as a whole? Like it was a fun to be up here and to be in this area and get to, to hang out with the, the Kings.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: It was, it was amazing because it was like I was originally invited up for to do like some readings and stuff at the University of Maine with one of the English professors there, Jeremy John Parker, who is the editor of an amazing weird ass literary magazine called Outlook Springs, which is a tremendous magazine and everybody should buy copies of it and submit to it.
But he had me out for like a reading series and so I asked Joe to do. And one of the byproducts of that is they, they often do like readings at a bookstore, like at Briarbad. And so I asked Joe if you would do a Q A and he's like, yeah. And it just kind of snowballed from there, you know. And he's super nice and super generous and you know, has really been helpful with like blurbs and just like, like offering opportunities, you know what I mean? Which is amazing. And then when I got to meet Stephen King, it was just like kind of like freezing up a little bit. It's like, how do you let somebody know? Yeah, like you're as like a, you know, kid growing up in an abusive household your was my escape, you know what I mean? And you, your saved my bacon multiple times emotionally throughout the past, you know, 40 years, 35 years, and it's like you can't like do that, you know what I mean? So I, I kind of froze, I feel like, you know what I mean? And was just kind of like trying to make small talk and, and like failing at it, you know.
But it was great. He's a very generous, nice guy and got to meet the family and a bunch of family friends and it was cool.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it was cool to see because I feel like nowadays like when I was like, I was. I'm 38. When I. So I was in high school, middle school time, it was one of those things. You go to Fairmount Market, which is down the street from his house, and you're just like, he'd be in line waiting for a pizza. And people in the area wouldn't just not. They would care where. They'd be like, oh, Stephen, kid. But they wouldn't like it. It was like, we're a big. It's not big city, but big city for Maine, and there's a lot of people here. And so you would think that you wouldn't be able to go out of your house, which. With. With the fame that he has had over the years. But, yeah, no, people just see him walking on the street, they'd be like, hey, how's it going? They'd keep walking. No one's running up to him signing autographs. I think nowadays with. With the. The social media of it all and the publicity of it all and the many more books that he's written over the years, you know, fights he's gotten on Twitter and things like that, that, like, nowadays I feel like it's a lot harder for him. Plus, he's older. Let's. Let's admit he's not like he's just a spring chicken anymore, but I feel like there's so many people who are just willing to park on the side of the road and take pictures of his house that I can't.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It was a trip because we were like, hanging out and like, because we, you know, the two properties, and so we got to check out, like, the archives there and stuff. And then we're just kind of all chatting and there were just people standing there at the fence, like, watching as we were, like, talking, you know, and it was like, on one hand, I'm like, it felt weird, and I'm sure it's very weird to experience. On the other hand, I'm like, oh, I totally would have gotten at least a picture of the house when I was, you know, like, I wasn't.
I don't know if I would have stood and like, goggle eyed stared at people, you know, but who knows? I don't know.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: So you should have been like, hey, Stephen, they're here for me. Don't worry. They saw that I'm here in the area, that I was in the area. So, you know, I apologize for this. You know, the paparazzi is just fall.
That's how I found out that. So it's funny is like, my buddy's comic book store is right around the corner from there. So like, if you go down the road and to the right a little bit, it's like, it's literally like a five minute walk from, from Steven's house. And Charles Soule, you know, bestselling author, comic book writer, you know, does a lot of Star wars stuff and stuff like that. Happened to be visiting Bangor on a vacation and I was just scrolling through Instagram and saw that he took a picture in front of Stephen King's house. And I was like, wait a second. I'm like, is this an old photo? What' going on here? And he ended up stopping by my friend's comic book shop and buying some things and, and saying hi and stuff like that too. But it was like, it is funny. Even people who are like best selling authors are still sliding up in front of the house. I mean, they changed the front lawn like on the street now has cobblestone on it so people don't walk over the grass and kill the grass over and over again. They actually like modified the front of the house so people could actually take pictures in front of this house that he's 99.9% of the time not at anymore.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah, totally.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: It's just, it's great.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: It was cool that it worked out where it was like, you know, there's like a week out of the year or whatever. And it was neat. It was really neat.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: It was really cool to see him slide in into your conversation too. I mean, for a lot of those people there again, some people knew he was. Some people knew he was there. They see that packed room and just have him slide in, be able to do that and then leave again. That's the kind of experience we've gotten as Mainers in the Bangor area. Seeing this guy of such fame and such, you know, popularity to just be able to slide in there and slide out without being bombarded from people being like, could I have an autograph?
[00:18:39] Speaker B: You know, And I remember I had heard that. I think a couple people did ask him and he was just like, he. I think he politely declined and just said he was. He was just there to watch Joe, you know.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: And so like, they were both like, yeah, that family seems pretty tight.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: You know, it's pretty cool. I think it's. That's awesome. And then, you know, I've read a bunch of Owen stuff too, and Owen's pretty good too, so it's not, it doesn't fall far from the tree over there.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: A literary. What is his first One. His first novel is that double feature.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: I think so, yeah.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Love that one. Yeah. There's a guy that's a literary author that is just like. He's on point, man. He is. I haven't read this new one, but yeah, he's great.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: And I will say he does comics well too. I mean, he has self help just came out recently, which was phenomenal as well that he co wrote, which is also great. I mean, Joe again, comics. And my buddy Paul, who was at the, at your conversation, asked you about comics and if he would ever write comics. He was the one that asked that question that owns a bookshelf recently locally, so. But yeah, it was fun. So we got to hear about Fever House and people ask questions and these things are great. I think it's. They're well attended. But I will say that, I mean, I'm. I will. No offense, but I think Joe being there did help bring people in 1000%.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: I have done. I have done out of state readings. I've done in at home readings and there are three people there, so absolutely.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: You know, but to me it's great. I mean, why not bring a person that. From that area that draws more to get people? Because you saw that. You saw. But you have more people reading your books that way. People are now more, maybe more fans of yours. I know one person who was there who's in my. My graphic novel club bought Smoke City and it was like, like raving about it because Jaron had run out of Fever House books at the sightings. He was like, oh, crap. So. But yeah, so he bought Smoke City already. He's like, this is phenomenal. He loved the COVID Obviously you did the artwork for the COVID so he loved that part of it. And so yeah, you got fans off of the fact that he went to see Joe Hill and you. So which cool. I think that's. I think a lot of bookstores try to do that, to be honest with you. When you see someone, it's like a local author and then the touring author to do that so that you can get people to come in and see that. But again, if anybody knows that in the Bangor area, it's not like Joe is doing events every weekend. And so it was, it was a fun experience in that sense too. But I mean, people get to learn about Fever House and the Devil by name. You mentioned off the top, they asked if there was a sequel. Was there going to be a sequel? I forget.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: No, no, that. I mean, I don't want to give too much away. I Mean, it's been almost two years, a year and a half at this point. If you haven't read Fever House, you.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Know, shame on you.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. But the ending is quite the cliffhanger. And that was my plan originally because that kind of like, I think of like the cabin at the end of the world, right? Where it's like, it's so ambiguous, but so filled with dread and uncertainty, you know, how they. They just kind of walk off. That's the end of it, you know, that I. I like that kind of ambiguity and not knowing and not having definitive answers. As a reader, it drives me nuts. But it's. It's that kind of like, what if? And. And measuring and considering what's going to happen afterwards after you close the book. I love that. And so I had no plans for it, but again, I was like, holy, I'm going from Meerkat Press to Random House. And they are very excited about this. You know, I'm like, absolutely, I'll do it. You know. And so I wrote a.
A draft that kind of mirror. Tried to mirror the tone of it where it was kind of more like a crime, like post apocalyptic crime novel. And my editor was just like, man, it's just falling flat and it's like the pieces aren't gelling and stuff. And so that book, my. My editor is so good. And every goddamn book I have to rebuild from the ground up, you know, every single time. And I'm grateful for it, but man, it's. It's a lot of work, you know, and so I had to fully rewrite. There's maybe 10% of original material in the published version of Devil by Name that was in that first draft.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: That's gonna be so disappointing.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Oh, dude, it's rough. And I knew it. I knew a lot of it, you know, but. Oh, it was rough. Yeah, for sure.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: I mean, I'm a graphic designer by trade, so, you know, I find myself sometimes with. With design. Design beer labels by. By like my main job is designing beer labels in. And I sometimes if I don't get the direction that I want from ownership or something like that, and I do entire, I guess for weeks on designing a label and they're like, yeah, we were actually looking at thinking about going this way. And so like, it's a little bit different, but I'm saying, like, it's still a lot of time, energy and effort spent into something that they're like, nope. And then I like the name of the beer stays and then the rest of the label changes and I'm just like, oh, that's awesome.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: It's. It's really similar too, a lot of times. Because a lot of times my editor will be like, this isn't working. What about doing this? Or you could do this. But it's the worst when it's. And as a designer, it's happened to me too, where it's like, eh, we don't. It's not quite what we want, but they have no alternatives. You know what I mean?
[00:23:47] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Where it's like, oh, shoot me now, man. Like, give. If this doesn't work, tell me what way to go. You know, as a writer, a lot of times an editor can kind of nudge you in a direction, but also they're like, it's your book, man. I'm just telling you this isn't working.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Doesn't work.
It's like, yeah, but like, I just wrote all of this and I just give you a heads up so I don't do it again and have you go, yeah, it's still not working. I need something. Just give me a word. Be like trauma or something. I could run with it.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: We had multiple conversations, you know, and I was just like with, with the Devil by Name and especially with Coffin Moon, the one that's unrelated. But it. Afterwards, that again, was another massive rewrite where like, there's maybe 10% and I would just be like, man, all right, I don't know. I don't know how I'm gonna fix these problems, but I'll try. So. And then ultimately I did. But, man, it's like.
It's a lot of writing is, Is problem solving when you're not actually writing. You know, it's like thinking around corners and things.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: It's, it's. It's an intent. I mean, you lived in this world, this duology, for, For a period of time. Obviously, it's very intense. It's very twisted. It's that there's this. I don't know. Here's the deal. Here's what I've also related to. So. So Terminator, right? Terminator and Terminator 2. Terminator 2 is far better, in my opinion, than Terminator 1. I think it's consensus around the world, people, those films.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: I think I get where you're coming from.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: So I think that the Beaver House and the Devil by Name is in a similar situation. I think that's phenomenal, phenomenal. But I like the Devil by Name more. I feel like this. It's weird how, how you were able to get somehow more intense, more Bloodier, more cynical, but more. There's more of everything than the first book. But also one of those things that's like, Even with Terminator 1, Terminator 2, you can't have one without the other. Like, you mean, like, so, like, it has to have both. So, like, it's kind of hard to always say that the sequel is better than the original, because again, without the original, you wouldn't have the sequel. So, like, it's hard to say that if you just wrote the sequel, I don't know if it would stand on its own two feet. But I don't know. There's something about it. And I think that you lived in this world for a long period of time. Moving on to Coffin Moon. Are you happy to be out of this universe of Fever House?
[00:26:06] Speaker B: You know? Yeah. Well, that's okay. So the thing is, one, I. I hope there's a part of me that hopes that, like, they're trying to get a TV show going.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: And in the Fever House world. And like, part of me hopes that that happens and that I get to fill it out somehow as a trilogy because, like, I have ideas for it and all that. I don't know if it'll ever happen.
And so then I wrote Coffin Moon and I was like, this is going to be just like. Like simple and streamlined and fucking easy, and it's going to be 8, 000 words and blah, blah, and all these caveats. And then my editor was like, rewrite, you know, and so it used to become easy. And I wrote the first draft of Coffin Moon in like eight weeks while we were doing stuff with the Devil by name, you know, and it was like almost a pressure release of this big, giant, multi, tiered, interconnected world. And so I just wanted a straight line of a novel and of didn't work out that way, you know. And so right now I have. I. It's March 3rd right now, and I've got a.
A new book, a witch book, due in three days. And so I'm like editing that it again. And I haven't even. I'm sure my editor is going to be like, rewrite, you know, but. Yeah, you always hope, you know.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: It'll be the one where it's like, oh, minor rewrites is all we need.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: And so I keep thinking that they're going to be simple and they're not simple. You know, every book is exponentially harder to write.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: I bet you also had. So I feel like I said, you've been around for a little while. Doing stuff, but I feel like including myself, I wasn't really aware who you were until Fever House and the Devil My Name. And so like, you've also set this like a fan, but you had this level of people now who are like, oh, cool, you wrote Fever House. And so like, you almost have to top every book. It's not like you can't just write another Fever House, you have to top the book. And like, because if it's not, it's like, ah, wasn't as good.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: And that's a, that's a huge. I mean, I have like imposter syndrome constantly, you know what I mean? And it's like, it's Croft and Moon is a vampire novel, you know what I mean? And like, it's pretty straightforward in that way. And so they're. It's not as like expansive and like weird and trippy as Fever Houses. It's a vampire book, you know, and so that's either going to be more palatable for some people or they're gonna be like, oh man, he's a one shot. You know, that's the fear where it's like, oh, he had one cool creative idea and then he just did a vampire book. Weak, you know what I mean?
[00:28:44] Speaker A: And that's. And we find out, we believe in that within your next book after that is the third book in the original series that you did. So, yeah, I can't, I can't be rough with this. I'm just gonna be writing Fever House books for the rest of my life.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Well, I mean, this is giving you like, this, this vampire bug Coffin Moon is gonna be a lot like Twilight, right? That's what I've heard.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of romance in it and there's a balloon ride, believe it or not. And no, it's, it's predicated on pretty much the idea that like, to be a vampire is so brutal, inherently brutal, that like, very few people could actually flourish. Flourish doing it. And so those who do are pretty monstrous, you know.
And yeah, that's kind of the. One of the basic tenets of it and kind of exploring that.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: I told myself many times that I hated vampire books in general. I mean, the only one I've ever really kind of liked was Stott in that sense. But like, all of a sudden, I know in like the past three years, it just seems like there's hit after hit after hit with some of my favorite writers. And so like one of those things where I can't count them out now I can't be like, yeah, it's a vampire book. And then I read it, like, dude, that was freaking awesome. I can't imagine. I couldn't think of that. And so that's what I'm excited for in this sit is like liking your books and then being like, okay, I trust that this is going to be a good book. This is not going to be, again, a cheesy. A vampire book is going to have something to do with it. And I think that vampires are making a comeback. I don't know, it sounds weird to say, but. Because I don't feel like they ever went away. But like, in the horror genre, this is like a huge thing right now, which is awesome.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's one of those things also where like just kind of kicking away that idea of like having your finger on the pulse, like, I'm going to write what's hot, you know?
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: You know, just by the time you do, it's passed or it falls flat or whatever. And so, like, honestly, man, I, you know, I turned this book in in three days and like, I, I have some things that are like, some next projects that are like kind of half formed and I have, you know, 10,000, 15,000 words or whatever. I am so looking forward to just like going to the library and, and looking at books and like doing some free writing. And I have no idea what the next book is going to be, you know, and that's like, scary and also tremendously freeing, you know?
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: And I don't think I've been doing a lot of books where it's like a trope, like trying to turn a trope on its ear a little bit like Fever House and zombies. And the next book that comes out next year will be called Crone and that's a witch book, you know, and. And they're all kind of on that under that crime umbrella. And so, like, I don't know what the next book's gonna be, you know, I hope it's not something dumb like, I don't know, like mummies or I don't think romance novel.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: You need to give Emily Henry a run for her money or calling.
Well, I always talk to Daniel Krobs and I. He's been on the podcast a number of times. I'm always like, hey, man, I feel like you've written everything. I feel like it's like not a single genre that you can be like, oh, Daniel's a horror writer or he's a history. It's like he's written everything. And Everything. It's like, where's the romance? Romance book is like, I've got one. When someone wants me to write it, I've got it. I'm like, oh, God, I don't know if I could sit there and read it. I mean, you're one of my favorite authors, but I can't imagine reading a romance novel by you.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm stoked for his new one for sure.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: I just got the physical arc and I don't know, it's all one sentence. The entire book is one sentence. It's set up in paragraphs, I think, to help us. I think, I don't know how that it's a certain style of writing. I just have never read it before and it's literally all in one sentence. And I'm just like. My wife's like, I don't know if I could read this. This.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: I'm like, yeah, totally right.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Again, it has to do with who's behind the book too. I feel like if I pick this up on the shelf and I had no idea who this writer was, probably putting it back. But picking this up the shelf and seeing that Dino's name on it, I'm like, okay, I've read a number of his books. I love his books. Okay, I can probably handle this. This is probably going to be fine. But yeah, this week, like, Paul, Paul.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: Tremblay, dude is fearless messing around with form.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: And I feel like, what is. I can't remember the woman's name. Helen DeWitt and Ben Marcus are two literary writers that totally like dismantle language and weird ass ways, you know?
Yeah, they're both tremendous literary authors, but I think, like, Daniel and Paul do it in quote unquote, genre fiction, you know, and are very good at it. So.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: And again, I think part of it is not only they change. Like I said, like, you know, Whale follows one style and you have like his books that he does with. With George A. Romero or, you know, different style. And then you have like. I feel like he says to me, he said to me once, he's like, I also need to keep myself on my toes by changing genres because I just can't. I need to have that. And I can't just sit there and write horror because I'll get bored. I need to have something different to write. And so not only is he changing to something else in a slight genre change, he's also changing the style that he's writing it. And I wanted to say it's a cop out. He just, he forgot to Put a period in and just kept.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: He's like, oh, I guess this is what we're doing now. This is gonna be, you know, 304. Four pages of just one sentence. Let's. Let's make it happen. No, it's pretty cool. But I mean, like I said, everybody has their own thing. And I think that there is this. He has the ability, I think now with you, with the success of these two books, this duology, Feverhouse and the Devil My Name, I think a lot of us would take a chance and your editor and your publisher will take a chance on some, some more weird things because they know that you have a following of people who like this, you know, just off the wall. It could be nothing to do with these two, these two books that you put out that we're talking about.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: And still people will read it.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: It's always, it's always the, like, it's weird to be jumping from being on an indie press and writing whatever the hell you want to kind of like a major big five publisher being like, like, we would like you to bust out books within this kind of horror slash crime wheelhouse. Are you for that? You know, and, and that's amazing. And also like a trip, you know, because like a book like Smoke City is not a horror novel at all, you know, and so it's, it's a, it's a weird experience and fun in that it's still challenging, you know what I mean? But like, I also, like, I have a couple ideas of like, very weird books that aren't necessarily that are. That fall under a lot, like more like weird fiction or magical realism or whatever, you know, and sci fi and less horror. And so like, I don't know what the future holds as far as that goes, you know, if I'm going to be writing this in this wheelhouse forever.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: Either way, I think that there's myself and other people who are willing to see your name on a book and take a chance on you for sure. Not only take a chance on you because obviously we're used to what you've been writing, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's fun. And I do think that you have, that you do run the risk. I mean, you've been into music, you've done music industry stuff for a while too. Is, is that you run the risk of changing your style a little bit and losing a bunch of people and people being like, oh, I missed the old Keith, you know, that stuff. And then you, you can slide back into it afterwards and be like, okay, I understand, I'm sorry.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so weird. And then also like it's, you know, when I was a doing fanzine stuff, I did like my zine avow was this merging of like punk culture stuff and poetry, like publishing poetry of other people. And the poets hated the punk stuff and the punks hated poetry stuff. And so I'm like sitting in that weird little mid lane of horror and crime where it's like a lot of the crime people are like, oh, what's up with the zombies? And then zombie people are like, ah, it's to conspiracy theory government stuff, you know what I mean? So like no one's happy.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: No one's happy in the, in the far sides of things. But I think that in the middle, like I feel like to me I'm like seeing something like a straight ahead horror book that has a little bit of crime in it. You know, crime investigative work and stuff like that. Government conspiracies gives me go, oh, this is a little different. It's not the same as everything else. And I think that there's that side of it. And I don't know, I've read a couple of straight up crime novels and I'm like, they're good, but I was like, I was waiting for the ball to drop and like have some sort of crazy happen. And at the end of the thing I'm like, it was a CSI episode or you know, one of those random, you know, CBS TV shows. And so like, it was good, but it was just like, okay, I literally could. That's. You just wrote an episode of TV that you put onto a book. And a TV show for Fever House would be phenomenal, but it's not one of those things that we're going to see on cbs. I'm guessing, I'm guessing it's going to be on some sort of streaming thing where it's like, okay, we can go boss to the wall on it. And so like I feel like there's this. You. You have this, like I said the bloodier, crazier stuff that goes on that I think that I don't know if I was prepared for. I think I wrote that in my review for Fever House was like, I don't even know what I was expecting to get into when I got into this thing. And I was like, holy, this is crazy. Like it was the bad. It's a severed hand that makes you do crazy shit. And so I think that that's fun. I think it's a journey to go on. I think that. And then you again, I think you topped it with either Devil by Name. And so I'm excited for Coffin Moon to come out in September. Really excited for that and so on. I'm guessing you're going to get a paperback release of the Devil by name in 2025 or some point.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's actually coming out a week before Coffin Moon and hardback does, so early September.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: That's great for those people with those wallets. I feel like it's like nowadays with a book a year kind of thing, when you're coming out with a book in this fall, it's like it's going to happen because the paperback usually comes out a year later and so it's going to. It's going to end up falling that way. But yeah, that's kind of cool for that. But yeah, in the meantime, it's still available on hardback, but the Fever House is available on both as well as audiobook and then Devil Bunny.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Fever House actually is just in paperback now.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Oh, it is? Oh, yeah. Yep.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So paperback and audiobook and ebook and eventually I'm gonna do. I have a ton of them. And so I'm gonna be doing like a. A charity thing. Right.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: People can buy signed copies from me and then I'll be donating the money. You know, that's going to be probably a little bit closer to Coffin Moon coming out just to kind of like drum up awareness that I have a new book now and all that. And so luckily there will be no shortage of places that will need money. I'm sure.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: I'm sure you're not wrong about that. But I. I also think that's like one of those things I'm always like. Like I'm a big proponent to pre ordering. I have like 17 books that are preordered right now and a couple of places that will pre order it from that don't charge me until the day that it ships. So it's not like it's costing me any money right now anyway. And then the second thing is pre ordering it and ordering it and getting it right up against the release also means you won't miss a hardcover book cover either. If you're looking for a hardcover, especially in something that's like a duology or a trilogy, like, having one be paperback and one be hardcover would just drive me absolutely insane aesthetically.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: It sucks, man. Yeah, totally. I hear you.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: And so I think that you need to get that. But pre ordering is huge and I It's so much. I say easier. I deal with a lot of comic book people, too. And the world of comics is so much more difficult to figure out pre ordering because what's called foc dates are so screwed up. And, like, you know, some are three weeks, some are four weeks, and so on and so forth. And you don't know. It helps the comic book shop so much by pre ordering it. The same thing happens in here, but it's a lot easier in books because you announced Coffee Moon, the COVID release was happening. Now you can go to your local bookstore, wherever you buy books, and pre order it.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: Preorders are live.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: You can get it right now.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: It's such an important thing for me getting to continue to write because if Random House is like, oh, wow, okay. Yeah, you had a. Like, our.
Our new deal where we negotiate a new deal with Random House for more books is coming up this summer. And so I get to turn this in in three days and then start writing this new thing that I'm. I don't know what it is yet, and then present it part of it to Random House and be like you want, because they have, like, a first look at it, you know?
[00:40:43] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: And based off the strength of that and what pre orders are looking like for Coffin Moon, they could say yay or nay, you know? And so, like, it's really, like, helping me keep writing for a living. Pre orders are. You know what I mean? So, like, I hate to be that guy who's petitioning people, but. Petitioning people.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: I love it, though, because all I could think about, and then you said that, and you, like, have a date, kind of like a big. Oh, it's before July. It'd be great if pure orders come in. I think it's like a Georgia Stands on Seinfeld when he orders all the computers. He. It's an episode where he orders all the computers to prove the winner contest, and he just return tries to return them all afterwards.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Picture you being in, like, your cart on, like, bookshop.org like, pre ordering, like, a hundred copies of the book. And then, like, you have your meeting. They're like, yeah, cool. Sign the deal. You're like, return.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: Yeah, right?
He's the worst human. Oh, my gosh.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: I don't know. I feel like there would be, like, a. I think the Random House, like, that's ballsy, man. Okay. Keep working with you. That's a ballsy thing. No, it would be. It would be annoying because you have to attach it, you know, I think you don't have to attach it to a bookstore, but you usually probably do attach it to a local bookstore. They'd be like, oh, look at all these orders coming in. Then you just turn.
Such a dick move. But no, pre ordering is huge. So you go to. I, I always say to people, bookshop.org is huge. If you want to do it online because you can, you can support local bookstores by doing that. You can also support, like us at the podcast because we have an affiliate link. So if you order it through the link on our website for it, it, like on this episode, then we get a portion of it too, to help fund the podcast as well, which is really nice. So, and then like I said, local bookstores. And plus it's like an independently owned kind of thing. It's not this huge conglomerate. Go to your local bookstore and just say you want it. Because I think also I've talked many times on this podcast about if you go in there and say, hey, I want Keith's new book, you know, Coffin Moon, there's a good chance that that bookstore and goes, someone wants it. So someone else probably wants it and orders more than one copy on release date. So it's not one of those things. If you're like, wait, I waited for a vinyl record. I went into about bull most music in here in to get that vinyl. Like, oh, we didn't get it. I was like, oh, cool, can I pre order? Can I order it? And they ordered one more copy. Like, they ordered my copy. And so, like, if they were to pre order it, maybe they would have ordered two or three copies to put on the shelf and they would have, you know, so on and so forth. So pre ordering not only helps you get your saved copy and available on release day, but also potentially helps, you know, sell a few extra books, which then in turn lets Keith get another book out on the market. You can read. So it sounds so petty to have to like, like promote and push and save do these things. But no, the truth of the matter is, in the world we live in, if you don't, your books don't sell, Keith, you won't be able to continue writing. It's not just paying your bills. It's literally giving you the ability to write the next book we all want to read. So. Yeah, yeah, well, you do have bills to pay, but.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: Right. No, it's. It's really a win, win, win. And you know, the cool thing is if you do it, then you forget about it and you're like, holy, what is this?
[00:43:33] Speaker A: It is true. I mean, there's two sides of that. Like, oh, shit, my bank account just got charged and I only got to get the mail. No, it is really cool to see that and see that come in. It's so funny. My wife says I have a problem with books, and I probably do, but when they all come out, like, like I have like three, three or four books that come out March 18th and like, I know for a fact that, like, there's gonna be like three or four boxes on my, my, my steps. And she's like, you have a problem. Like, but I ordered them all, like, with span over the span of months. It wasn't just this week.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: But hey, it happens, right? I recommend reading Fever House. I recommend reading the Devil by name. You know, Smoke City is phenomenal as well. Any of your stuff is really great.
Reading anything by Keith here, but also Coffin Moon. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to, you know, reading it in advance at some point and then, yeah, I recommend pre ordering all of that stuff and grabbing at your local bookstores.
Keith, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and chatting books and so much more. We'll get you back on at some point. Maybe in the fall. Talk about Coffin Moon. I think that may be fun.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Yeah, right?
[00:44:33] Speaker A: We could focus on an actual book.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And I appreciate you having me, me and I'll absolutely get you, get you a copy.
[00:44:41] Speaker A: We'll work on that. That'd be great. But yeah, I appreciate you taking the time out of your day. You got busy schedule coming right up here with, with your books coming out and stuff like that. And so I appreciate you taking the time out to talk to us. But until next time, Keith, we'll. We'll see you soon. Okay.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: All right, no problem. Thank it.
