16 Comments
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⚡Thalia The Comedy Muse⚡'s avatar

Soooooo Shaina, you don't think muses are real?

Someone's cruisin for a bruisin.

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John Ward's avatar

That’s right! She’s denying your very existence and your entire personhood.

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⚡Thalia The Comedy Muse⚡'s avatar

She's in the inspiration dog house now!

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Leanne Shawler's avatar

John! You picked the day my house guest is off visiting family! Hopefully I can listen to this before she gets back. I don’t like or write horror (ok, I do get macabre now and then) but I’m definitely succumbing to the clickbait about fantasy.

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John Ward's avatar

If it helps, there’s nothing scary in the episode.

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Shaina Read's avatar

You ask the best questions John! Thanks for having me on!

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Sean Thomas McDonnell's avatar

So much fun. I'd love to hear from other horror writers in the community!

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Garen Marie's avatar

This was so illuminating and inspiring! Thank you!

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John Ward's avatar

I’m glad you enjoyed it. I hope you’ll check out the other episodes as well. The one with Mills talks about Substack’s design philosophy and how they make decisions. The interview between S.E. Reid and Bridget Riley talks about serializing on Substack and the things they’ve learned.

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Garen Marie's avatar

Yes! They’re on my list.

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Jon T's avatar

I loved hearin' y'all talk about things. And seein' you too. Blink Blink

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Bridget Riley's avatar

I finally got a chance to listen to the whole interview! I’m not the biggest horror reader, but this interview, in addition to it currently being spooky season, are making me want to branch out. This was a fascinating interview!

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Charles E. Brown's avatar

Clive Barker is awesome in small doses but his repetitive "There Are Monsters But We Are Worse" message (which makes sense, given his youth as a gay male and such) does get tiresome in large doses. His non-horror stuff is excellent though.

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Charles E. Brown's avatar

The source of inspiration has to be both internal AND external. You are interpreting something that is a mix of internal and external stimuli, but the style and words are your own.

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Kevin M's avatar

I like the relaxed vibe you three had going right from the start.. so relaxed that Sean had to hear the first question again!

I feel that . Thanks to all for your insights .

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Charles E. Brown's avatar

As to what draws people to horror .. I think fairy tales. The fact that (in the "cleaned up European ones) all these horrible things happen to the heroes and yet they all live happily ever after with no scars or emotional damage... Always bugged me as a kid and is part of what made me want to do stories where the characters paid their for mistakes

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