Category: Uncategorized

Last Wednesday was my first public reading from Memento Mori: The Fathomless Shadows. It was held at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, California and hosted by Ross Lockhart, my publisher at Word Horde. I’ve done a lot of “readings” before in the form of academic conferences, so you might say that I have a particular set of skills. And yet, it’s different when you’re reading from your own novel, or reading your own poetry.

This reading came together fortuitously, because my partner and I were vacationing nearby with a couple of our friends. The four of us showed up at the book store after a nice dinner in Petaluma and were immediately greeted by Ross and shown around the store. I grew up with a mix of corporate (B. Dalton and Waldenbooks) and independent booksellers (Thackeray’s in Toledo, OH), and my heart has always been with the independents. Copperfield’s is obviously the kind of place that can engender that kind of love and loyalty. I would proudly shop there regularly, if we lived nearby. If you get a chance to stop in, I would highly recommend making sure you head into the basement (Copperfield’s Underground) for the used and rare book experience.

Right at 7:00pm, we gathered at the back of the shop, which was already set up with podium and table for the book signing that would come after. A few people were already seated, and a few more came and filled in seats as Ross introduced me and then I stepped up to the mic.

And it went well! Of course, I had hemmed and hawed for a while about what to read. A reading like this shoots for 10-15 minutes, which is maybe six or seven pages of this book. That makes it tricky. I chose an early scene from C.C. Waite’s memoir of Tina Mori, which only required a minimum of exposition to set up. I was sort of surprised that the piece read so well, but the audience was there for it and reacted just as I hoped they would.

The Q&A afterward was lively and interesting. It was a mix of people who had read the novel and those who had not, so we all did our best not to get into the weeds or spoil anything. Luckily, some great questions allowed me the opportunity to get philosophical and talk about the weird and the numinous and the symphony of horror and Robert W. Chambers. I was a happy author!

The book signing portion was a bit mind-boggling, honestly. It was a wonderful out of body experience that was simultaneously terrifying and glorious. Those excellent questions kept coming from the very thoughtful listeners and readers who had come that evening.

As I said, we were out there primarily because we were on vacation, so let me share the Alfred Hitchcock double feature section of our vacation from a couple days after the reading. First, we drove to Point Reyes Station and then headed up the coast to Bodega Bay, where The Birds takes place. We didn’t stop, but we did get out a little further on at Dillon Beach. There were actually more people on the sand that day than this photo seems to indicate, and the birds were not at all aggressive. Yet.

From Dillon Beach, we pressed on to the Armstrong Redwood Forest (reminiscent of the redwood scene from Vertigo), where I took this picture. I honestly don’t even know what’s going on here, but I love it and don’t feel a need to question it too closely. We made it out of the forest and eventually made it home to Lewisburg. Or did we?

Now that we’re home, we’re able to take advantage of a real treat here in Lewisburg. In the summers, the gorgeously restored art deco Campus Theater runs a free Hitchcock program. Tonight is Psycho, and you can bet we’ll be there.

I have something amazing to share with you, but it has to wait just a little bit longer. I know, I probably shouldn’t tease you like this. I can’t help it, though. You’ll see another post in a couple of days, and I guarantee you it will be worth the wait…

Memento Mori is a book I would not have written if we had not moved to Potsdam, New York in 2012. As I wrote in the real acknowledgments for the novel, the story came partially as a result of delving into Wes Craven’s history in Potsdam while he taught at Clarkson College of Technology, before he became a filmmaker. But it’s also true that the geography and architecture of the North Country were key to the development of the novel.

Many, many locations from the North Country found their way into Tina Mori’s tale. Potsdam became Red Stone, a reference to the Potsdam red sandstone that, along with timber, drove the early economy of the town. I want to share with you the inspirations for some of the locations in the novel. If you’ve read the book, I’m sure you have images of these places in your head, and I don’t want to displace those at all, so I hope you’ll take these in the spirit they are intended.

The impressive cemetery gatehouse where Tina and C.C. go to meet with Dr. Holly is actually the Bayside Cemetery gatehouse in Potsdam. It was built in 1901 entirely of local red sandstone from a design by Edgar Josselyn and currently is listed on the National Historic Register. I fell in love with this building the moment I saw it. Not long after we moved to town, Clarkson University took over a long-term lease of the building and started casting about for possible uses. I wanted very much for it to be used as housing for an artist-in-residence program, but admittedly this isn’t really Clarkson’s bag (it’s a well-regarded STEM school). The small rounded door to the right of the photo is the door through which Tina and C.C. enter the house.

The North Country has a lot of great places to visit, as long as you don’t mind road trips (90 minutes to Lake Placid, 90 minutes to Ottawa, two hours to Montreal, about three hours to Burlington, VT). On our way to Burlington, the bridge between New York and Vermont over Lake Champlain at Rouses Point sports a view of the early Federal fortification of Ft. Montgomery (or Fort Blunder) north of the bridge on the western shore. This is the fort where Tina and C.C. witness the ritual that becomes so key to the overall story. The fort is currently private property (it’s for sale, if you’re interested), so I haven’t been in it, and I think that actually adds to its mystique for me.

Tina Mori’s arc in the novel is bookended by two barn parties. At the first, she sees several films by Maya Deren that convince her that what she really wants to do is direct. The second, in the same barn, is where she premieres her masterpiece, The Dragon’s Teeth. The North Country is dotted with barns in various states of repair and use. You’ll find collapsed barns, rugged old barns mostly in use for occasional storage, and brand new barns (usually Amish) being put to their full range of uses. Barn parties are still a thing in St.Lawrence County, whether for weddings or Halloween parties or whatever. I got the idea for it in the novel from the party that was thrown after the successful screenings of the student film that Wes Craven helped to make at Clarkson in 1968. This isn’t that barn, but you get the idea.

Additionally, one of my astute readers has pointed out to me what he thought were fictional references to the Java Barn, a local music venue on the campus of St. Lawrence University. Though the echoes seem to be spot on, I had to admit that I had never heard of the Java Barn prior to him mentioning it. Synchronicity.

One of Tina’s films, The Stairs, takes place at Barnum Pond in the Adirondack Park, not far from Saranac Lake. Barnum pond is one of those pristinely gorgeous spots that came to characterize the Adirondacks for me. As you take a wide curve in NY State Route 30, the trees fall away and this lovely pond stretches away toward two low peaks beyond the western shore.

This last location is more of an inspiration. It doesn’t show up in a thinly veiled way, like these other locations. The Dilly Wagon was an early-1960s drive-in restaurant that was the creation of Charles Weinstein of Potsdam. The restaurant had two things that set it apart: its signature Dilly Sauce and its Conestoga wagon design. When I stumbled across this bit of Potsdam historical lore, it stuck with me. I have a soft spot for diners and drive-ins and these post-war hold-overs. However, instead of going with the wagon, I chose to create the Barnstormers aviation-themed restaurant where Tina gets a part-time job. It’s the same general idea, a gimmicky greasy spoon, though Barnstormers is an eat-in roadhouse.

Those are some of the locations in the novel inspired by real-life spots in Northern New York. Were they a whole lot different than you imagined them to be?

The Acknowledgments at the end of Memento Mori: The Fathomless Shadows are true, in the sense that they are true to the story, but they are not real. They are diegetic acknowledgments; they live within the fiction. Now that the book is out there in the world, I want to publish the actual Acknowledgments to calm my conscience and recognize the support of some amazing people.

This book would not have happened without Wes Craven, Ken Lyon, John Heneage, and Adam Paul. Adam founded the St. Lawrence International Film Festival in 2015 to bring some more cinematic culture to the St. Lawrence Valley. He approached me, as a film studies professor at Clarkson University, about hosting a screening of Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). In the late 1960s, Craven taught in my department after completing his masters at Johns Hopkins. It was there that Wes helped Ken and John make a 45-minute student film titled Pandora Experimentia with his own 16mm movie camera. This is the film that convinced Wes that he wanted to make movies professionally. The research I did into amateur/underground film, Wes Craven, and Potsdam, NY in the late-1960s (a lot of it fueled by long conversations with Ken) became the basis for the story that would grow into Memento Mori.

I’m very thankful to a wealth of friends who helped me hash out some of my ideas and who were willing to listen to elevator pitches and give me their feedback. Many thanks to Andy Vogel, Christen Taylor, Doug Swarts, Steven Stannish, Stephen Casper, Karen Buckle, Mariko McDonald, Elizabeth Smith, Felicity Palmer, Michael Goldenberg, Katie Comer, and Chris Lindemann.

I’m at the very least indirectly indebted to many currently working authors who deign to live some of their writerly lives on social media. Among these are Caitlín Kiernan, Laird Barron, Scott Nicolay, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Joseph S. Pulver Sr., Michael Griffin, Gemma Files, John Langan, Nick Mamatas, Molly Tanzer, Nathan Ballingrud, Nadia Bulkin, Chuck Wendig, and Jeff VanderMeer. Their presence in my digital life has been a continual source of advice, inspiration, and example. Though the words were rarely if ever directed at me, I was listening, and I am grateful.

Alongside social media, the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon has been a creative touchstone for me since the first year I attended in 2003. Thanks here go out to the examples and inspirations of Andrew Migliore, Brian Callahan, Gwen Callahan, Aaron Vanek, and Adam Scott Glancy, who are so integral to my memories and experience of the HPLFF. This is also where I met Ross E. Lockhart of Word Horde in 2017, who took a chance on this book and guided it into the world. Thank you, Ross.

I’m grateful every day for my family: Russ and Patti, who taught me the value of books early on; Kurt, who is one of the most continually inspiring people I know; and Ellen, the best retired librarian/mother-in-law a man could ask for. I also share my writing space every day with tiny ninjas in furry suits. Over the course of this project–from notes to galley proofs–Random, Nibbler, and Madeleine Albright have each made their opinions known and reminded me of what is truly important (i.e., their food).

My most profound gratitude is reserved for Christina Xydias, my partner and sharer of ice cream. You make everything better.