Stories Never Die: an Interview with Horror Writer Clay McLeod Chapman
Surely clay would prefer a more somber and foreboding photo, but the dude is just so damned affable!
September 1, 2023 • Clay McLeod Chapman is the hardest-working man in the business. He’s an author, playwright, filmmaker, performer, screenwriter, and haberdasher.
Ok, not a haberdasher (though he does fill a suit nicely), but he’s all those other things and then some. He’s behind something like 12 books of fiction, eleventeen thousand short stories, monologues, and plays, a couple of critically acclaimed films, countless issues of comic books—and he still, somehow, shows up every damned fall with a new novel.
And, somehow, it’s always really damned good.
(Speaking of which, pre-order your copy of WHAT KIND OF MOTHER,
available September 13, 2023, by clicking here.)
We darkened Clay’s digital doorstep with a few Q’s and he responded in kind, by sharing 20+ years’ of horror-writing wisdom and wit, told in his inimitable style laced with subtly unsettling horror imagery and juicy metaphors squeezed dry.
We talk about horror as a healer, genre-gateway reads, punk rock T-shirts, and eight horror novels you probably haven’t read but definitely should.
Go ‘head, sink your fangs in.
Transom Bookshop: You’ve become a real fixture in the horror genre, so let’s start there. “Horror” means a lot of things to a lot of people, especially those who love it. Fans can be very specific—body horror, gothic fantasy, dark thriller, folk horror, haunted house, etc etc etc. Where in the horror spectrum do you fall? Is there a name for it?
Clay McLeod Chapman: Well, I’m glad it at least looks like I’m a fixture… Most days I feel like a faulty wiring.
I’m still trying to understand where, if anywhere, I land in horror. What I find so wonderful about the genre is that it’s a pretty big umbrella, you know? There’s a whole lotta space here in the shade. Whole lot of shadows. Most days, I don’t know how much control over where I end up on the spectrum. I feel like other people put you somewhere and you just have to be at peace with it. We’ll see where I end up. If anywhere. Within these last few years, I’ve had the good fortune of getting some new books out there on shelves, and my mindset has been to make each book feel a little different than the last. One is a ghost story, the next is psychological horror, and the next is body horror and the next is… well, we’ll see what the next is. It’s still my voice—I hope—still my storytelling, but there’s a different flavor for each book.
‘Cause I’ll say this—as a fan of the genre, as someone who really loves to dive in and imbibe horror, all those particular niches you mention feel like seasoning to me. Or different food types. Some nights I feel like something spicy. Other nights I just want junk food. Or vegan.
Horror’s a buffet. Your cravings differ depending on the day. You’re never going to just eat pizza all day, every day. Slashers are the same. I like to cook up a nice gothic fantasy when I want to impress someone, while if I’m by myself, I might just pop a dark thriller in the microwave. The mood changes what I’m hungry for. Horror has so many flavors to offer.
“Want to hear something funny? I’m STILL reading ‘Creepshow’ under the covers with a flashlight… but now I get to write for them, which is totally cool. ”
TBS: Horror seems to be having a renaissance thanks to a generation of writers who grew up on the pulpy, campy, fringe stuff, but then actually learned to write—you, Stephen Graham Jones, Cassandra Khaw, Grady Hendrix, et al. (Kinda like those turn-of-the-century hardcore punk bands who grew up on Black Flag, but went to Berklee.) How has horror changed for you—as a fan, as a reader, as a writer—since your days as a wee lad reading Creepshow under the covers with a flashlight?
CMC: Man…just to be uttered in the same breath as those others, Stephen Graham Jones in particular, is pretty amazing. The Only Good Indians still hasn’t left my system. I love that book.
Want to hear something funny? I’m STILL reading Creepshow under the covers with a flashlight… but now I get to write for them, too, which is totally cool.
It’s funny that you mention the punk bands that went to Berklee… This is a little off topic, but I always think of the moment when Kurt Cobain wore a Flipper t-shirt on MTV. Or a Daniel Johnston shirt. Kids everywhere, including me, saw those shirts and were all like, “Who’s that band? Who’s that singer?” And so we do a little digging and we find Flipper. Or The Vaselines.
I just think of the bands that influenced the bands that I loved. Nirvana is the gateway to Meat Puppets or even Leadbelly or you name it. Stephen King is the same way. He’s the gateway for some, for most, to Lovecraft. Blackwood. Jackson. Possibly even Poe. Kids who don’t have access to these authors—these punk rock bands—are suddenly aware of them, all thanks to the King wearing that t-shirt for Richard Matheson and they’re all like, “I wanna read that.”
(This is just me gunning for somebody to make a t-shirt outta me or one of my books one day.)
But to answer your question: Horror has changed me in the sense that it’s given me a language in which to speak about my own personal fears. I’ve always been a scared kid. Since, like, age six on, I’ve carried these fears with me that don’t really seem to want to let go… Reading spooky books and watching spooky movies throughout the years gave those fears a bit of a respite, a release valve, and that eventually led to an opportunity to craft—and release—a few spooky stories of my own. I learned I wanted to speak that language, too, and the way that I learned to speak it was through the Creepshows and Tales from the Crypts and all the Friday the 13ths. That’s how I talk myself how to speak the language of being afraid…and how to talk to others.
TBS: We enjoy a deluge of horror fans in October thanks to our proximity to Sleepy Hollow. The rest of the year, though, sales of the genre dip, and reader interest trends toward classics and contemporary thrillers. Do you find there is a “horror season” in the general market? Does this work for or against writers in your domain?
CMC: From what I’m aware of, there’s certainly a season for spooky stuff… and folks start ramping up to Halloween like their lives depended on it. I think these books are just as great on November 1st as they are on October 31st, but I get it. We’re all just trying to find our way on the bookshelves. I’d be curious, though: Do romance books get Valentine’s season? Political thrillers get… I don’t know. The 4th of July? Is horror the only genre that’s stuck with a holiday?
TBS: When people tell me they’re “not into horror,” I often remark (as kindly as possible) that they’ve just not read the right stuff. Especially with the genre permeating literary and general-interest fiction, there’s so much out there to love! What would you recommend to a self-described non-horror reader to gently introduce them to the genre?
CMC: I find Grady Hendrix has such heartfelt appeal. I think he’s a great gateway. I think there are those books or authors who get pinned as ‘horror-adjacent,’ running parallel to the genre… Riley Sager, for one. Or Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters sure could lure you in to more spooky stuff, if you’re not careful. Silvia Moreno-Garcia, too. Her writing is so wonderful, I feel like she attracts readers who tend to distance themselves from horror. Catriona Ward will bend your mind. Her books are wonderful entry points to delve into.
“Horror’s a buffet...[it] has so many flavors to offer. ”
TBS: A lot of your work was inspired by real events (like the Satanic Panic plot of Whisper Down the Lane), with some stories ripped directly from headlines (which you always credit). Aside from that, when you’re working on something, do you delve deeper into source material for inspiration, or stay away from it?
CMC: I delve. I got to delve. The world’s just such a scary place, you know? Horror almost becomes the salve for the real stuff that’s happening out there… Rub a bit of metaphor over our real-world wounds in hopes that’ll help us heal. How did horror become the healer?
TBS: The film/TV industry gets more of its ideas from books than ever before, thanks to the explosion of streaming services. You’ve produced dozens/hundreds/countless stories and novels, but you’ve also written for visual mediums like film, TV, and stage, as well as comic books and graphic novels. Can anything written be adapted or illustrated? Should it? Or do you feel there’s a type of story that’s uniquely textual, and why?
CMC: Oh, man… We’re just snakes eating our own tails these days. Stories never die. They just keep going and going and going. No story is sacred in this industry. Everything can be remade, or adapted, or recontextualized, or what have you. I think I am one of those “is nothing sacred?” types at the end of the day, but I got to say, I do find it fascinating that the parameters of “content”—sorry, stories—is so loose now, so ethereal, that pretty much anything can be made into something else. That feels like evolution to me. Resisting may be a bit futile. I don’t know.
But there are some wonderful examples that I love to consider… Did you ever see the limited series on Netflix called “Brand New Cherry Flavor?” Adapted by Nic Antosca? I loved that series. It came out on 2021. What’s crazier—to me, at least—is that it’s adapted from some ever-so-slightly obscure, long out of print novel by author Todd Grimson. That came out in 1996. Not to sound crass, but I don’t think anyone was clamoring to adapt that book into a limited series for Netflix, nearly twenty years after its initial release… except for Nic Antosca. Now more people know about the novel, who probably wouldn’t have before. If they’re so inclined, viewers who loved the show—such as myself—can now find the source material.
Books might fade away from the bookshelf, but every so often, they’re salvaged from obscurity. We should be so lucky for the Nic Antoscas of the world to save us from the remainder bin. Hell, I should be so lucky… But what doesn’t change is the story itself. Our books, our stories, remain intact. No adaptation is going to alter the source material. Regardless of what happens in any adaptation, readers/viewers can return to the original story and make a decision on what they like better, or see them as different entities that share the same narrative DNA. But the novel is always the evolutionary first step. The fish just about to crawl out from the primordial ooze and lose its lungs to crawl on dry land as a movie or show.
TBS: Who’s writing high-quality horror today but isn’t (yet) getting recognized and widely read?
CMC: I don’t know for sure how wide and unwide these authors are or aren’t getting read, but whenever I get a chance to recommend some books that truly blew my mind that I’ve read recently, I’ll go for…
BOYS IN THE VALLEY by Philip Fracassi
EDENVILLE by Sam Rebelein
Anything by Rachel Harrison but most definitely THE RETURN
THE INCONSOLABLES by Michael Wehunt
KNOCK KNOCK, OPEN WIDE by Neil Sharpson
JACKAL by Erin E. Adams
NESTLING by Nat Cassidy
TELL ME I’M WORTHLESS by Alison Rumfit
The list really can just go on and on and on…
Follow Clay on Instagram, find out more about him on his website, buy his books on Bookshop.org, and pre-order his latest novel below.
“What Kind of Mother mixes Southern Gothic, a missing child story, and body horror into an entertaining brew sure to inform your nightmares.”
- Paul Tremblay
