Always dig being there. I mean, I know so many people there, it’s a lot like coming home. And—should have taken a picture—always cool to see my older books faced-out on the shelves, of course:
[here]
Anyway—remember how, in DC, I had the kind of maximum amount of knife-drama, getting into the building? For this book event, that is, the book event RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD FROM MY HOUSE, well: there was some truck drama:
And, actually, that’s from a couple of weeks ago, when this pretty-pretty truck that everywhere I go I get offers for broke down last time. This time? Same exact thing. But I think I know what it is now (an uninsulated spring that runs the choke is heating up on the manifold, without a shield). Not that knowing at all helped Richard Kadrey and me get to the gig. I should have posed us on the tailgate, asked some passing motorist to snap a pic, I suppose. But instead, I just ditched the key under the floormat, we hiked our bags on our shoulders, and we took off walking through the grass, couldn’t wait for the towtruck, as we had books to be talking about.
I should say, too: I forget where exactly I mined this pics, but I’d guess Dean Wyant. Whom it was cool seeing at this event as well. Dean: wherever there’s books and talk about books, that’s where he’ll be. Which is kind of automatically how you know someone’s a good person, yeah? Or, someone you want to hang around with, anyway.
And, was a cool talk. This night, we got onto the zombies/vampires track more, and how werewolves plugged into that. Y’all all know by now there’s also werewolves in Kadrey’s The Everything Box, right? They’re like this:
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Really, there’s in a van, throwing cans behind them, and it’s pretty beautiful. But I can’t seem to google-search that precise image up, so Wolf Cop and Teen Wolf will have to do.
Also, though this’ll be news to no one in the know, but Richard Kadrey, he knows a thing or two about horror, from cineplex to obscure and in different languages from 1954. Seriously, the dude’s a scholar and a resource. We argued on stage about whether Fulci or Argento co-released a cut of Dawn of the Dead in 78, and, honestly? I don’t want to look it up now, because my guess is he’s right (Argento).
Anyway, was great seeing old friends there, and making new ones after the talk, and having family there, including, for the second time, one of my sisters:
And, yeah, that’s Cherry Falls in my grubby mitt, thanks to couple of friends and ex-Boulder Bookstore runners, Kyle and Audra. Cherry Falls? I haven’t seen it since I was writing Demon Theory, I’m pretty sure, and back then it was on VHS, a 3/$.99 weekend deal, in Lubbock, Texas. I’m betting this blu is going to blow that transfer away, and completely re-ignite my never-gone-out fire for the slasher.
. . . which completes the wrap-up of the first week of Mongrels. Thanks for tuning in. Been so many reviews, interviews, a podcast, and there’s a TV-thing happening this weekend on NPR and New Mexico PBS, and before long here I swoop down to Texas for some cool bookstores (Murder by the Book, Wild Detectives, and I wouldn’t doubt if BookPeople ends up in the mix, as I usually go there). And look for me momentarily in the Dallas Morning-News. I hear there’s other media in the works as well.
Werewolves, man: they just never go away, do they?
Thank you all so much and so completely for giving this book a run.