The Writers Chair

F**k Fear! Jack Ketchum's Two Words That Changed Everything with JONATHAN JANZ

Jonathan Janz didn't read a single book until he was 14. He'd convinced himself he wasn't smart enough. Then he picked up a Stephen King novel — one King himself doesn't particularly like — and was completely transported. He's now written over a dozen horror novels, been championed by Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum, and Joe Lansdale, and still pumps his fist alone in his office every time he writes something he's proud of. He encourages this in others. Jonathan Janz is the author of more than a dozen novels including The Siren and the Spectre, Children of the Dark, and Wolfland. His work has been championed by Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, and Brian Keene, and recognised by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. He's also a full-time teacher — and that dual life shapes everything about how he reads, how he writes, and how he thinks about other people. This is one of the most openly human conversations in the archive. Jonathan talks about self-doubt, mentorship, the mechanics of writing six hours a week during term time and going wild in the summer, and why the best advice he ever received was two words from a man who's no longer here to say them. 💀 What we get into: * How a cold letter to Brian Keene in 2010 or 2011 became one of the most important relationships of Jonathan's writing life * Jack Ketchum's two-word philosophy on fear — and why Jonathan returns to it every time he sits down to write * Joe Lansdale's 90-minute phone call: the gut-punch of honest mentorship and why you need someone who tells you the truth in a Texas twang * Why Jonathan still wakes up in the shower mentally cataloguing every mistake he's ever made — and what he does with that * The Tommy Knockers, Robert McCammon, and how Jonathan learned that beautiful prose and immersive storytelling aren't mutually exclusive * Writing six hours a week during the school year and still finishing a novel — the maths of constrained productivity * Why first drafts are train wrecks and editing takes three times as long as writing * Ryan Lewis, Josh Malerman, and the permission to celebrate the small wins without waiting for the big ones * Reading diversely as a craft decision — and why Jonathan is honest about how narrow his reading used to be * Using Marvel movies, Captain America, and Thor to have the conversations with his kids he doesn't know how to start otherwise Links & Resources: * Jonathan Janz's website: https://jonathanjanz.com * Jonathan Janz on Instagram: @jonathan.janz * Jonathan Janz on Twitter/X: @JonathanJanz * Brian Keene: briankeene.com * Joe R. Lansdale: https://joerlansdale.com * Robert McCammon: https://robertmccammon.com * Spin a Black Yarn (Malerman/Lewis): https://spinablackyarn.com * Scares That Care Convention: https://scaresthatcare.org Subscribe to The Writer's Chair If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow horror fan or writer. 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks 🎧 Listen on your favourite app: https://pod.link/1829723468 💬 Join the community: https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast 📚 About Jonathan Janz Jonathan Janz is the author of more than a dozen novels and numerous short stories. His work has been championed by authors like Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, and Brian Keene; he has also been lauded by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and School Library Journal. His ghost story The Siren and the Specter was selected as a Goodreads Choice nominee for Best Horror. Additionally, his novel Children of the Dark was chosen by Booklist as a Top Ten Horror Book of the Year. Jonathan’s main interests are his wonderful wife and his three amazing children. You can sign up for his newsletter, and you can follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Splatterpunk, Heavy Metal, and Women Who Are Not Ladylike with JULIE HINER

Julie Hiner emailed Daniel years ago to ask if she could read one of his short stories on YouTube — in full Gothic makeup, to her own audience, for free. That's how they met. Now they're co-writing a novel together. It's a pretty good case study in what happens when you just reach out to people you admire and lead with genuine enthusiasm rather than an ask. Julie Hiner is an author, storyteller, and self-proclaimed horror movie expert based in Calgary, Canada. She writes a fusion of heavy metal and horror fiction that is entirely her own — serial killers, demons, extreme violence, and the particular emotional logic of Black Label Society — and has built a fiercely loyal readership doing live events with actual bands. Her novel Infested won a Benjamin Franklin Silver Award. Her new novella Stella's Scream, published by Crystal Lake's Torrid Waters imprint, is out now. In this conversation, Dan and Julie cover the long arc of building an audience for aggressively niche work, what seven years of in-person events actually looks like logistically, why Julie thinks extreme horror is therapeutic (and what the science says), and how her writing has gotten progressively more unhinged — in the best possible way — as she's stopped being afraid of what's on the page. 💀 What we get into: * How Julie's first novel came out looking like 80s metal music videos — and why she decided to lean in rather than tone it down * The mechanics of running in-person author events that don't bleed money: venue partnerships, pre-sold packages, and bringing the world of the book alive * Why a dedicated niche readership shows up repeatedly and works its way through your entire catalogue * Stephen Graham Jones sat alone at a conference breakfast while Julie worked up the nerve to ask him about eyeballs * How music drives Julie's entire creative process — characters, scenes, and vibes all emerge from specific albums before a word is written * What splatterpunk actually means, why it's distinct from gore-for-gore's-sake, and the feminist argument running through Stella's Scream * Christopher Triana, Brian Bauer, Poppy Z. Brite, and Bridget Nelson — the authors shaping Julie's extreme horror education * The therapeutic science behind horror fiction and why writers of dark content are often the sunniest people in the room * Dan and Julie's long-gestating co-written wilderness horror novel — and the cover that existed before the book did Links & Resources: * Julie Hiner website: https://killersanddemons.com [https://killersanddemons.com] * Julie Hiner on the Great Writers Share podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7YeWlA0IT4 * Julie Hiner on the Activated Authors Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvvEb_28aDY&t=825s * Crystal Lake Publishing: crystallakepub.com * Hatching Season charity anthology submissions: devilsrockbooks.com/submissions * Daniel Willcocks author site: https://danielwillcocks.com Subscribe to The Writer's Chair If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow horror fan or writer. 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks [https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks]  🎧 Listen : https://pod.link/1829723468 [https://pod.link/1829723468]  💬 Join the community: https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast [https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast] 📚 About Julie Hiner Julie Hiner is an author, storyteller, and blogger. She loves classic horror movies, books, and live music. Her favorite album to this day is Appetite for Destruction. Her favorite movie is Jaws. Julie writes a unique blend of heavy metal and horror, weaving both psychological suspense and many types of rock and metal into a tapestry of musically infused storytelling. She has published an 80s/90s metal murder detective vs serial killer series, a 90s nostalgic serial killer novella, a death metal demon possession novella, and co-curated a horror anthology. Several of Julie's horror short stories have been published in anthologies. Julie also had a deep sea horror novella published by Torrid Waters, a pulp and extreme horror imprint of Crystal Lake Publishing. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

An Artist Is Someone Who Finishes with JOSH MALERMAN

What if the most important thing you ever do as a writer is something nobody else ever sees? Josh Malerman has 33 rough drafts sitting in a crate behind his desk. Nine are out in the world. The rest — finished novels, written and set aside — are what he considers the real work. Not the Netflix deal. Not the New York Times list. The crate. Josh Malerman is the author of Bird Box, Mallory, Goblin, Unburied Carol, and dozens more. His breakthrough novel was adapted into a Netflix feature starring Sandra Bullock, and he's racked up Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award nominations along the way. He's also one half of the songwriting duo behind Detroit rock band The High Strung, whose song The Luck You Got serves as the theme for Showtime's Shameless. In this conversation — originally recorded for Dan's earlier show and still one of the most resonant interviews in his nine years of podcasting — Josh talks about what it actually means to be an artist, why finishing is everything, how he wrote Bird Box in 26 days and Unburied Carol in 15, and why your body of work represents you far better than any single book ever could. 💀 What we get into: * Why an artist is simply someone who finishes — and what it took Josh a decade to understand that * The two-novel trick that finally broke Josh's finishing problem and produced his first completed manuscript * Writing 91,000 words by hand in 28 days, in an all-night coffee shop outside Detroit in December * Why Bird Box felt like his "flattest" novel — and what that tells us about the relationship between breakthrough work and personality * The case for 500 words a day — and the maths that makes it genuinely staggering over 10 months * How Josh wrote his 1,100-page novel Ghoul in the Cape at 1,000 words a day and why slowing down was the only way through * "No V's in art" — why Josh refuses to let external success validate his work, and what that looks like in practice * Why he gave away 60 free hardcovers of Bird Box at StokerCon — and why he thinks that was one of the best decisions he ever made * The canon over the single work — why your body of work represents you in ways no individual book can * What it was like to meet Sandra Bullock on set, under the lights, in full costume Links & Resources: * Josh Malerman's website: joshmalerman.com * Carpenter's Farm (free novel): joshmalerman.com * Bird Box (novel): available wherever books are sold * Mallory (sequel to Bird Box): available wherever books are sold * Goblin: available wherever books are sold * Unburied Carol: available wherever books are sold * Black Mad Wheel: available wherever books are sold * The High Strung (band): @thehighstrung * The Luck You Got — theme from Showtime's Shameless * This Is Horror Podcast (Bird Box/Mallory deep-dive with Michael David Wilson): thisishorror.co.uk * The Creative Pen Podcast with Joanna Penn (Dan's guest appearance): thecreativepenn.com Subscribe to The Writer's Chair If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow horror fan or writer. 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks [https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks]  🎧 Listen on your favourite app: https://pod.link/1829723468 [https://pod.link/1829723468]  💬 Join the community: https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast [https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast] 📚 About Josh Malerman Josh Malerman is a New York Times bestselling horror author best known for Bird Box, which was adapted into a Netflix feature film starring Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich. He's written over 30 novels — nine of which are out in the world — spanning cosmic dread, psychological horror, and deeply strange fiction that resists easy genre classification. His work has been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and James Herbert Awards. He's also a working musician: one half of the songwriting duo behind Detroit rock band The High Strung, whose music appears in Shameless. He writes prolifically, finishes everything, and keeps the rest in a crate. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Why Atmosphere Beats Gore: Writing Horror That Stays With You with C.M. Forest

KEY LINKS: Devil's Rock Books: https://devilsrockbooks.com Daniel Willcocks: https://danielwillcocks.com Twisted Tales Books: https://twistedtalesbooks.com SHOWNOTES In this episode, Daniel sits down with C.M. Forest — award-winning horror author, atmospheric storyteller, and creator of deeply unsettling, isolation-driven fiction. Together, they explore Christian’s unconventional path into writing, from studying animation and chasing a dream of comic art to discovering that storytelling—not drawing—was the real obsession. What followed was a decade-long journey into horror, experimentation, and ultimately finding his voice through short fiction and novels. They dig into the origins of his award-winning novel Infested, the unexpected impact of adopting a pen name, and how his short story collection The Roots Run Deep and Other Stories came together almost by accident—revealing recurring themes of loneliness, dread, and existential fear along the way. The conversation also dives into horror craft, from building atmosphere and sustaining tension to why slow-burn horror hits harder than shock value. Plus, Christian shares insights on the evolving horror landscape, the rise of indie creators, and why there’s never been a better time to be a horror writer. This is a grounded, honest conversation about finding your creative lane, embracing what scares you, and building a career in horror on your own terms. 💀 In this episode you’ll discover: • How writing in Tim Hortons became Christian’s creative routine • Why switching to a pen name changed everything for his publishing journey • The surprising origin of his short story collection and how it came together organically • Why isolation, loneliness, and existential dread keep appearing in his work • The importance of atmosphere and slow-burn tension in effective horror • How authors like Nick Cutter and Adam Nevill shaped his writing style • Why indie horror is thriving across books, film, and games right now • The challenge of structuring a short story collection for pacing and variety • His love of classic slashers like Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and what makes them work • Why atmosphere matters more than gore when it comes to lasting horror impact Links & Resources: • Official Website: https://christianlaforet.com/ • Explore The Roots Run Deep and Other Stories • Discover Infested Recommended in this episode: • The Troop by Nick Cutter • The Ritual by Adam Nevill • The Acolyte • Last Days • The Terror Subscribe to The Writer’s Chair If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow horror fan or writer. 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks 🎧 Listen on your favourite app: https://pod.link/1829723468 💬 Join the community: https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast 📚 About the Guest C.M. Forest (Christian Laforet) is a horror author based in Ontario, Canada. He is the author of the Benjamin Franklin Silver Award-winning novel Infested, the novella We All Fall Before the Harvest, and the short story collection The Roots Run Deep and Other Stories. His fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies across multiple genres, often exploring themes of isolation, dread, and the human psyche. A lifelong horror fan, he draws inspiration from film, literature, and the growing indie horror scene. When he’s not writing, he lives with his family—and his blanket-obsessed basset hound, Sully. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Writing the Algorithm: Social Media, Obsession, and Horror That Hits Home with Matt Serafini

In this episode, Daniel sits down with Matt Serafini — screenwriter, author, and one of horror's most compelling new voices, hailed by grandmaster Brian Keene as one of the best in the genre. Matt's books include Rites of Extinction, Feral, Under the Blade, and his brand new social media horror novel, Feeders. Together, they dig into the obsessive joy of tracking down obscure slasher films, the nostalgia of video store culture, and how the algorithm-driven doom loops of modern social media became the seed of Matt's most ambitious novel yet. They talk about growing up on King, F. Paul Wilson, and Bret Easton Ellis, writing a teenage protagonist you'd never expect, and why Matt refused to change the last hundred pages of Feeders — no matter who asked. The conversation also hits the pressure young people face online, the cynicism baked into performative outrage, AI slop flooding our feeds, and why Matt believes the best thing any writer can do is tell a story only they could tell. This is a sharp, funny, and genuinely insightful conversation about horror fiction, social media, storytelling, and what it means to write something that couldn't have come from anyone else. 💀 In this episode you'll discover: * Why Ogroff the Mad Butcher might be the most gloriously unhinged slasher film you've never seen * The joy and consequence of video store culture — and what streaming has quietly taken from us * How King, F. Paul Wilson, Michael Slade, and Bret Easton Ellis shaped Matt's voice as a writer * What it felt like to receive a blurb from Brian Keene — and why "validation" is a complicated word * Why Matt built MonoLife (the fictional dark web app at the heart of Feeders) from real frustrations with social media * How working with college-age interns gave Matt an authentic window into Kylie's world * The agent who told him to scrap the last hundred pages — and why he walked away * Why the climax of Feeders was the most fun Matt has ever had writing anything * What Matt hopes readers take away from the book (without prescribing the answer) * Why authenticity — not productivity — is the writer's best weapon against AI * A sneak peek at Matt's next project, which his agent called "couldn't be any more you" Links & Resources: Matt Serafini on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattserafini [https://www.instagram.com/mattserafini] Feeders by Matt Serafini: https://www.amazon.com/Feeders-Novel-Matt-Serafini/dp/1668060973 [https://www.amazon.com/Feeders-Novel-Matt-Serafini/dp/1668060973 ] Devil's Rock Community Discord: https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast [https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast] Subscribe to The Writer's Chair If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow horror fan or writer. 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks [https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks] 🎧 Listen on your favourite app: https://pod.link/1829723468 [https://pod.link/1829723468] 💬 Join the community: https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast [https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast] 📚 About the Guest Matt Serafini is a screenwriter and author of horror fiction based on the East Coast. His novels include Rites of Extinction, Feral, Under the Blade — called "one of the best slasher films you'll ever read" by Film Thrills — and Feeders, a dark social media horror novel published in 2024. He has been hailed as one of the best new voices in horror fiction by Brian Keene. Matt's short fiction has appeared in multiple anthology collections. His non-fiction writing on film and literature has been published at Dread Central, Shock Till You Drop, Fangoria, and Horror Hound. He has a background in marketing and spent years managing social media for a university — an experience that fed directly into the obsessions at the heart of Feeders. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.