The Horror Returns - THR Bonus Episode: Interview With Richard Chizmar Of Cemetery Dance Publications

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

For this very special interview with Stephen King collaborator and Editor of Cemetery Dance Publications, we are joined by Steven Boltz of the King Zone at the Super Network and The Knack Theatre. We talk to Richard about the brand new Gwendy Trilogy co-written with the one and only Stephen King, how he got his powerhouse publishing group off the ground, what it's like to write for the movies, and other stuff. Thanks for listening! The Horror Returns Website: https://thehorrorreturns.com THR Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thehorrorreturns THR Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehorrorreturns/ Join THR Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1056143707851246 THR Twitter: https://twitter.com/horror_returns?s=21&t=XKcrrOBZ7mzjwJY0ZJWrGA THR Instagram: https://instagram.com/thehorrorreturns?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= SK8ER Nez Podcast Network https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-p3n57-c4166 ESP Anchor Feed: https://anchor.fm/mac-nez E Society YouTube Channel https://youtube.com/channel/UCliC6x_a7p3kTV_0LC4S10A Music By: Steve Carleton Of The Geekz

victims for those of you delight and dread who fantasize about fear, who glorify and go. Welcome. You have found the place where the horror returns. Listeners beware. This podcast contains major plot spoilers and the foulest of language. Join us in celebrating the old and the new, the best, and the worst in horror. Greetings listeners, fellow horror returns and Super Network listeners. This is Lance,

and I've got Stephen Bolts with me, who co-hosts a little show called The King Zone over on the Super Network, as well as running a theater company, The NAC Theater. Tell us a little bit about what you guys got going on over there, Steve. We, well, the NAC, we're kind of, we follow the punk rock ethos, the DIY. My wife and I started it. We got sick of not being able to get our plays up with other groups.

So we just went, hey, you know what? Let's do our own. And I had one up last year called Lenore, which was inspired by Pose the Raven, and we're directing, currently directing one of my wife's plays right now for later in the year. Nice. All right. Well, we're both super, super excited because tonight we have with us, or today or whatever, Richard Chisholmarr, publisher of Cemetery Dance Publications. I'm sure you guys being horror fans have all heard of Cemetery Dance, but Richard is also a writer in his own right.

Thank you for joining us, Richard. Thanks for having me on, guys. So what's going on, man? I know there's a nice little box set of three books that you and a certain Mr. King wrote. What's up with that? I guess that's hitting sometime soon, right? Yeah, we've released the third book in the Gwendo, trilogy, Gwendy's final task earlier in the year, and then Simon O'Shoester put together a pretty

nifty looking box set, which will come out in October, I believe. So yeah, I just finished writing a book about three weeks ago, so I'm kind of resurfacing out of my cave and getting back to promoting both the third Gwendy book and chasing the boogey man are out and trade paperback this summer. So I'm kind of doing podcasts and hitting some bookstores to do. do some signings and yeah it'll be a busy fall very nice well we'll uh we'll get this interview on both networks and sends you all the links as usual but let's uh let's dive in we got a lot to ask so uh stephen i think you are going to go with the first question yeah thank you thank i'm excited to hear about the um the box set too by the way that's awesome all the books have come out in

different sizes here in australia and that just does my oCD and but i do have a um My first question is about Gwendy. It's just, man, how do you get to write a book with Stephen King? Man, on one hand, I say your guess is as good as mine. Because it still feels, you know, pretty much like a fever dream. But, no, I mean, Steve and I, you know, I've been sending them the magazine since way, way back in the, you know, the first issue came out in 88 and I sent him that, you know, up to Maine. And I'm sure with a fawning note that said, hey, you know, I'm your biggest fan.

And, you know, somehow overcame that, you know, those rough beginnings. And just over the years, I continued to send them, you know, each issue of the magazine, a copy of every book we published. And somewhere in there, you know, I found out that Steve's as much of a fan of all this stuff as, as anyone. He, you know, started dropping me postcards and nice notes and then eventually, you know, allowed me to publish short stories and limited editions of his books. So, yeah, over the course of a couple decades, you know, a business relationship turned

into a friendship, a lot of talking about baseball and dogs and family and that kind of thing. And, yeah, just in the middle of one of those, it was an email exchange. We weren't actually texting that day. We were talking about collaborations and round robin projects where you have, you know, six or seven or eight or ten different authors involved. And he mentioned this story, Gwendy, that he had never been able to finish. And the next day, it showed up in my email box. And it's something like, you know, I do with it as you wish. And so I remember I texted him back and said, I got the story.

You know, you want me to finish it? And he's like, if you can, go for it. And that's really how it happened. It was just this conversation about other things that connected and led to this opportunity. Sweet. Yeah, I know, Rich, I know you've worked with a lot of other writers. Like, we've got really good friend of the show. We've interviewed him several times, Joe Lansdale.

I think you've done some work with him. But hey, hey, man, take us back to the beginning. Like, what led you on the journey to create Cemetery Dance? publications you know i was i was a senior in college and i had just uh before that i was i played lacrosse i was an athlete and and played at a pretty high level in college and and and after numerous injuries i finally just decided to walk away so my senior year in college i was kind of kind of lost and kind of looking around those you know what's next and i'd always been interested in writing and had at earlier age had written stories and and always a huge

horror fan, Stephen King fan. So when it ended up being next was the book It came out in hardcover. And I read that over the course of a couple weeks. And by the time I was done, it kind of reminded me, you know, what I was supposed to be doing. And I started writing for the college newspaper. And then I started taking journalism classes and started writing fiction again and started submitting stories to the small press. And there was a magazine called The Horror Show that I really admired.

And I found out that it was done pretty much single-handedly by this guy named David Silva who lived in the mountains of Mount Shasta, California. And once I found that out, I was like, hey, man, if he can do this, I can do this. So that honestly was the moment. I just, I was like, you know, I want to do my own magazine. And so I started cemetery dancing. And learned everything the hard way. And just never stopped. I never went out and got a real job and just grinded through, you know,

those first 10 years where you're, you know, you're making literally pennies. Sure. But it didn't matter. It was very passionate about it, believed in it. And just never stopped. I'm curious because I've, looking over at Gwendy, I mean, you're, was it planned as a, as a, as a, trilogy? Or did that? Yeah, you did? No, no, not at all. No. That's the thing. Steve had,

you know, 25, 30 pages. You know, he swears to this day, you know, we've done a lot of joint interviews. And he always says it would still be sitting up in the corner of my, uh, of my, uh, you know, desktop of his monitor screen if I hadn't come along. And I always just shake my head and I always say, Steve, you would have finished it eventually. He's like, oh, I really wouldn't have. Which, which made me, I wonder how many other amazing pieces of fiction, you know, unfinished he has sitting up there in the corner of his monitor screen. Right. No doubt. Yeah.

But, but, yeah. So now, we, you know, when he said, you know, take a shot if you want, and I finished it, the funny thing was is we had never discussed what we were going to do with it or what length it should be anything. When I finished it, I remember I just sent it to him and I said, I hope you like it. And he said, I love it. And we both kind of looked at each other and we're like, okay, what now? So I ended up publishing it as a little hardcover because we had published a little book of his called Block 8 Billy years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We had a lot of fun with that.

So we said, let's just publish it in the same format. Okay. And that was pretty much going to be it. We never, never even, I never thought about a sequel. We never discussed a sequel until a lot of, again, a lot of people in interviews asked us after the first block came out. Will there be a sequel? And I remember my response was always a very careful, you know, I have no idea.

If Steve wanted to, I'm in. You know, I don't have an answer to that, you know, nothing is planned. And then I was the one who brought up the idea for Magic Feather. I just woke up one morning with it. And I emailed him and I said, hey, I think I know what Gwendy's been doing for the last 20 years. Cool. And I said it, and he just said, oh, you know, that's a great idea. You know, I'm busy with Holly Gibney right now.

He's writing one of those books. And he just said, you need to write it. And now, in my infinite wisdom, I took that as, you know, you need to write the first draft. And then I'll come on board and make you look good. I'm in the manuscript, and he's like, Rich, you know, if you want, I'll do an edit. But it's great. This is your story. It's all you.

And I was. I was like, wow, okay. I never would have like taken us back to, you know, the full town of Castle Rock and, you know, brought Castle Rock back from the grave after, after needful things like I did. But if I had known, I was going solo. I would not have had the balls to do that. So, yeah. And then the third one was his idea. What was interesting is once the second one came out, Simon Schuster said, look, there's a lot of marketing opportunities that exist.

you can say the book is a series or a trilogy. You know, are you guys okay with that? And I remember I said, Steve, and he's like, yeah, he goes, you know, we'll get around to do it in another story eventually. So it was actually Simon Schuster that was kind of the catalyst for that. And when they released number two, they were able to say it's going to be a series or a trilogy. And then Steve came to me with the idea for the third one and just, you know, my phone started lighten up with lighting up with text from him one Sunday afternoon, and it was all about. It was all about his idea to take Gwendy to space, and so, yeah, we just took off with it.

Oh, man. Well, you just, you actually kind of just answered one of the questions I was going to ask, but we'll get to that. But let me ask you this one, Rich. Out of all the, because I was kind of looking through some of the nominations and awards that you and the, you know, in Cemetery Dance have received over the years. But, you know, out of all those, you know, wins, nominations, accolades, things of that nature, what, what are you most proud of? Like, what's your proudest accomplishment, you know, that anything that you've done and been recognized for? Um, you know, there's a handful of books that that certainly would fall into that category. But honestly, it's, it's more than anything. It's just survival. Okay. It's just being here 30, almost 35 years later. Next year will be our 35th year. It's hard to do that, you know, it's hard to hang around for 10. Um, so to kind of still be out here kicking and, and, uh, you know, still screwing up left and right, making mistakes and, you know, being late. But at the same time, putting out some wonderful material and introducing people to new writers at the same time as you're giving them cool things like Blockade Billy, which, you know, no one knows until we did. So, but yeah, it's interesting. The awards, I always, you know, I always try to tell people, you know,

awards are a really personal thing. And to people, they're very meaningful. They don't mean it's squat to me, you know. they're just filler for the for the bias you know you put them on your in your because the publicists really want you to but I'm pretty sure that that not one single award we've ever won has made a lick of difference in anything and I've never I always say this is kind of a people are like is it a point of pride and I'm like no it's not a point of pride it's just it's a reinforcement for I mean what I'm saying because I've never been, I've never shown up anywhere in person to accept an award.

Gotcha. And with all that said, it's hard because it's like, I don't mean to be ungrateful and I don't want to come across that way, but that's probably why I haven't won one for the last 15 years because people know. Like, don't give any more, bitch, because he really truly doesn't give a damn. But yeah, I just, it's just never really registered for me. And I think, I think I learned really early on, um, if I win it. a few that I probably didn't deserve

that, you know, there are going to be years when you put out something. You know, I remember when I put at the Besta Cemetery Dance, that anthology. Okay. And I don't think that's one. I think that's one that didn't win anything. And I remember thinking, you know, it's kind of a cheat because I'm up against other anthologies that are, you know,

they published 15 or 20 stories that are, you know, from this past year. And I'm like, you know, my best of cemetery dance contains 50 stories from the first, you know, 30 issues of the magazine. So it should be good. It should be really good. And I remember thinking, you know, if there's ever a book that I, you know, that I was a part of that should have probably won a couple awards. That's one. And then there's other books that are up on the shelf that I've won awards for. I look at them kind of cross-eyed and I'm like, so yeah. I always want to, I always want to speak on them.

because because people really get wrapped up in them and have their feelings heard. Oh, yeah. They get really warped ideas of how important they are. But I never really do because I don't, you know, like I said, I don't want to come across as ungrateful. And I also don't want to come across as someone who is diminishing because I know there are people who win these things. And they're like in a place of honor.

And they're, you know, they're in tears as they're accepting. the award and things like that. And it's like, hey, man, that's absolutely, it's a personal thing. You know, I can be in tears when I get, you know, when I pulled a story out of an envelope that's from, you know, one of my idols, whether it was Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, or Stephen King. That's the stuff that really affected me and kind of made me think, you know, wow, how did I get here? Nice. Never about awards. So, say anyway, I'm a free. Yeah, very different answer than we normally get of that question.

So that's cool. Yeah, sorry. I did a little research the other day. And I noticed that you had co-written with Jonathan Sheck. A couple of screenplays. I'm looking at From a Buick 8 and Black House. What happened with those? They did not get made, man.

What's funny is, John's, you know, real quick, John and I grew up together like two blocks away from each other. In the middle of college, actually, he went on and, you know, became a big movie star out in Hollywood and did big movies with Tom Hanks and Gwyneth Paltrow and Harvey Kitell and just all these big stars. And then as he got older, you know, the starch started to fade a little bit because, you know, unless you're Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks or one of those guys, it always does. but he's still working still doing great work. But at some point in there, our paths crossed again, and we decided, hey, you know, we're both in these creative fields. We should try to do something together. So we did a short film together based on one of my stories that he really loved.

After that, we started writing full-length scripts together, you know, got a film agent for, you know, for the screenwriting. And we did really well. What's interesting is the highest profile things that we wrote together were the things that didn't get made. You know, we did an independent film on our Ed Gorman novel called The Poker Club that was made independently into a feature. We adapted Bentley and Peter Crowther and some other guys and for Masters of Horror and Fear itself on NBC. And I think we had three of those episodes made. We did some rewrites for some projects that, you know, I really, shouldn't talk about, but some very successful projects.

Actually, our first big produced thing was, and this is not one of those projects I was just bragging about. But Roadhouse 2, the sequel. Yes, sir. All right. Yes, sir. That was one that they offered John a lot of money to be in the movie as an actor, and then they offered us a pretty significant amount because it was our first rewrite gig,

to rewrite the script in 10 days. So we did that And it was just supposed to be a rewrite You don't get your name on it or anything like that But because John was acting in it They decided to put our name on it So that's how Roadhouse To be our first studio film

But anyway, to answer your question You know, one of the first books that we optioned was Stephen King's from a Buick gate And I just published The Limited Fell in love with the book It really corresponded with with a loss that I had recently suffered in my own life.

So it was a book I felt passionately about on a personal level. And Steve trusted us with it. And it was just this huge thing. And we came really close. We came really close to having that film made with some wonderful actors, various, you know, times over the course of three or four years. And then we finally decided, you know, we can't hold on to it any longer. Amen.

But we were developing. with Tom Hanks's production company. They were helping us. This was like in the third incarnation of it. But yeah, there were genre people attached to it. If different times Toby Hooper was going to direct at some point, then George Romero. Holy smoke.

I still have a rewrite of the script from George sitting in a closet that, you know, like maybe five people in the world have seen. And he did an awesome job. And then with Black House, Akiva Goldsman, who's an Academy Award-winning, He, one day I got a call. I was at the beach with my family and John's like, look, our agent just talked to Akiba and he's really interested in us adapting Black House. It's kind of a long shot because, you know, all of the red tape with the talisman. But, you know, do you want to do it? There's no guarantees. And I was like, hell, yes, I want to do it. Now, the funny thing is, I'd never read the books. my family and I are all over this tourist beach town the secondhand bookshop looking for a copy of Black House so I could read it

and we did we did man we hammered that mammoth book into a 125 page script really really proud of it and Akiva called us he was in Europe doing one of the Tom Hanks Dan Brown books like Inferno or with the painting one, the Da Vinci Code. And yeah, I never forget it. John was in Los Angeles on the phone. I was standing in the Cemetery Dance Warehouse. And Akiva said, guys, you know, he said, I read it on a train going across Spain or somewhere.

And he said, it felt like I was sitting next to Stephen King. And I was just like, oh, wow. Wow. That's wonderful. And then ultimately it never got made. Well, yeah. You never know. Anything can happen still.

Yeah, I think they've got other people, you know, just in the film business, it's nuts. You know what? I don't even care. We had the experience, and it was one of those things where you're going in and you're terrified, and then you kind of rise to the occasion, and we did as partners. And he feel, you know, I know John feels the same way. And that is like, you know, guess what? We spent a lot of time on it.

We did not make a lot of money on it. We did not get to see it up on the screen. but we know we did the book justice, and that's all that matters. That's awesome. That's a cool feeling. Well, like I said, I was going to ask you, what inspired you for the setting of the third book without given too much away? But let me ask you this, man.

What inspired you to come up with the magic feather? Tell us that story. Yeah, I was the kid who kind of believed, you know. I believed in Bigfoot. and if you ever pick up a copy of chasing the boogeyman, the initial opening section is a lot of autobiographical stuff about my childhood. And I talk about it in there. I'm like, man, I'm the one who wanted to do. I was a true believer, you know, Bigfoot, UFOs, the boogeyman, all that stuff, which is, you know, why it's wonderful.

I get to do what I get to do for a living. But somewhere at an early age, I remember this, we were. going on a family trip to Buffalo and only Buffalo because my Aunt Helen lived up there. And but, you know, the eight year old or whatever I was, Rich Chisholmary, it was a, it was a big deal. And I remember saving up my pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters so that I could have some, a nice stash to spend once I got up there to exotic Buffalo. And lots of hot wings. Yeah. Yeah.

And so we pack ourselves in a car, me, my three sisters. My older brother was off in the Army at the time. But yeah, we pull up in my aunt's driveway. Everybody's hugging out, you know, outside. They all go in to, you know, kind of get settled. I hang outside and there's a, you know, cluster of neighborhood kids. And they must have saw the greenhorn from Maryland right away because they proceeded to sell me.

what they claim was a magic feather for like oh i don't know like six bucks or eight bucks it was it represented like 75 percent of what i had saved and i remember i walked in and i'm like guys guess what i'm the luckiest guy in the world guess what you know and i didn't show them my magic feather my sisters just started belly laughing at me like you just got suckered i'm like you don't know that so so what's funny is after magic feather came out um I got to tell them who got the last laugh. I'm like, that feather might have been pretty damn magical last year. No, shit.

Yeah. So that's the story. That's where the magic feather came from. And it kind of thick windy because she, you know, she's got the innocence. Even with everything that's going on, she's kind of able to maintain the goodness and innocence inside of her. And she's a believer, you know, despite knowing how dark everything can be. And carrying that burden on her shoulder, she's,

she still believed in the good things and that's good that it was symbolic and i it when i started the book that thought was in was not in my mind but that's you know that's where it ended up straying to but uh yeah i still get a kick out of telling that story because i'm like you know i am never go you yeah i am not the guy you want to take to the car dealership with you when you're trying to work at a deal because they're like yeah and we'll throw in you know maybe you are no trust me and they'll be like and we'll throw in you know uh you know, floor mats. And I'm like, all right, sold.

So, yeah. But that's where the magic feather came from. And yeah, I love that story. I had another question or two about Gwendy, but you answered them sort of in the answers to the other questions, which was great. And I'm wondering, I'll just make one up quickly while I'm thinking of it.

So the first book, takes place in the early, early, like mid to late 70s. Yeah. In Castle Rock, right? I'm like 70, what is it? Like 75. Somewhere in there. Yeah.

Somewhere there. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff already set up in the, in the King universe with Castle Rock. So was there any, was there any danger of, of continuity or starting a multiverse? Like if you contradicted something or, yeah? Yeah, for sure. I mean, and that's where Bev Vincent came in for me. And actually, I can say for Steve, too, because Bev, I think, knows more about Castle Rock than Steve does.

But for sure. I remember, you know, Bev is, I don't really have, what are they called, the beta readers, you know. I don't really have a group that I do that with. but Bev has kind of become one of those early readers for me now because of the Gwindi books because yeah I know when I was finished I sent that bad boy to Bev and I'm like you know make sure I don't look stupid anywhere and he did a great job of that and yeah but there was always concerns and I mean and like I said when I went back and wrote Magic Feather in the time period that it was

according to the you know the already in place Stephen King you know timeline you know Castle Rock was gone for the most part it had pretty much gone away after needful things so I brought it back and I put the monument to the rebuilding of the town after the great fire

and all that stuff into Magic Feather and again I you know I felt like it was okay to do that because Steve's gonna you know piggyback and write some stuff himself. Those were all like some of the first thoughts when Steve said, no, this one's all you that came in my mind was, oh, shit. But he dug that, you know, he dug it quite a bit and was fine with it. But yeah, there was a lot of going back and forth and making sure, you know,

again, the magic feather I brought back the sheriff, you know, who was. The chairman. Yeah, who was the deputy back then. And I tried to, you know, make some things, you know, make sense in a timeline, you know, kind of way. But at the same time, there were, you know, some jumps you have to make and decisions you do yourself. But, but yeah, no, I mean, that was, that was part of the fun. I mean, I still remember when, you know, he sent the story that morning. It was a Friday morning that I opened my email and saw this thing.

And Gwendy's final, I mean, Gwendy's button box. And right in the first paragraph, it talks about. Castle Rock and I'm like okay not only am I you know co-writing this story with Stephen King I'm wrote here I'm co-writing a Castle Rock story which is why I was you know it was a mixture honestly of exhilaration and and pure terror that's the best yeah it was it was a cool thing because because I tell people I'm like look man I'm not even trying to be cool about it I'm like you know you talk about there's awards and I'm talking about being around for 35 years and we've been fortunate to have done a lot of really cool stuff and experience a lot of cool

stuff but at heart man i'm still the guy who who read salem's lot as a kid and it changed my life and then i read it when it came out and it definitely changed my life and and i'm still that guy you know i'm a constant reader so like i said i don't even try to play it cool um you know having an opportunity to do that is just a ridiculous thing and and of all the things things I dreamed that was not one of them because I would never have gone there. So, so yeah, it's, you know, I got a copy of, I'm going to brag about this. I'm not, I'm not bragging, but it's going to sound like it, so I'll say it, but I got a copy of fairy tale in the mail yesterday at the house. You know, Steve always sends me a very nice

ascribed copy. And then this one, he's like, he's like, I can't remember. He wrote something. And then he said, thanks for Gwendy and everything else. And I'm just like, what? What world do I live on? Wow. Yeah, right, man. You know. So, yeah, you're, you know, no matter what you think of me by the time you hang up, make sure that you, that you guys understand how fortunate I feel and how grateful I feel.

That's no doubt, man, no doubt. Yep, that's amazing. We touched on the TV and movie stuff a little bit earlier, but, and you talked about some of the, you know, obviously the frustrations, like when you put a lot of heart and soul. and it doesn't make it to screen. Right. But is there any story you can tell us about something that did make it to screen? Like, what was the extent of your involvement?

Was it kind of like hand over the writing and hands off? Or were you a big part of the whole process? How did that work? You know, it depends. In some cases, I was offered more of a role than I took just because I kind of was, you know, focused on other things. but that runs the gamut from, you know, when we did, we adapted a insane Bentley Little story called The Washingtonians for Season 2 of Masters of Horror. Yes. I just remember the short story was published in Cemetery Dance, which again made it even a cooler kind of experience for us.

But I remember being on set in Vancouver and just seeing these characters. And they actually asked me, do you want to get dressed up as one of the Washingtonians? storming this house. And I, you know, I was more interested in it was my first big movie set other than the short that we had made together. And I remember, I remember number one kind of being a greenhorn and being like, no. And then I also knew that craft services that there were so much great food. And I'm like, man, if I'm in all this makeup and I have to be worried about being in the front of the camera, then I can't eat all the food at the craft services.

So I told them no, and I regret that. Oh, no. Yeah. But other times, you know, I've been on board as a producer and, you know, I could have done more than I did. But again, I was helping raise my boys and was married. So I didn't want to be stuck on a movie set for six weeks. Ah, I dig it, man. I hear you.

Yeah. I mean, and that's eventually why I kind of step back from the film stuff is I just, you know, it is a lot of headache. It is a lot of hassle. And it's a lot of, a lot of kind of. you know giving in and which i'm not very good at yep yep um and i had two sons at home and i i always refused to like miss their games and everything so it just you know eventually i was like you know maybe eventually i'll get back into it but right now i just i'd rather be a dad and um and do my thing so but yeah now that's a good question because i've there have been times when i've been

asked to you know do things that i've just been like not interested in and uh you know we did the cool thing is we had a film made of Widow's Point, which is a novella that my son, Billy and I wrote together. And we got to go on the set for a week and Billy had a bit part, so I got to watch him in hair and makeup and get mic'd up and

be in front of the camera. I got to watch the monitor while his scene was filmed and we got to, you know, really, because that was our creation as opposed to us adapting someone else's work, that was a really cool experience to see

you know, things that came directly from our imagination onto the page and then onto the script, be spoken out loud and acted by good actors. And that was cool. And especially, you know, father-son experience, you kind of can't beat that. Steve, you had one more question? I do not, Lance. They have been answered, man. They have been answered.

I was going to ask about the process writing with King, because I know he and Straub did did the talus man over facts and King said, you know, after a while they couldn't tell who wrote what, you know. But you know, you went into that. You went and he talked about that. So, no, man. I think I'm done. You got it. It was impossible to tell who wrote what.

It's okay because I've kind of got a bonus question. Sort of a bone to pick with you, as a matter of fact, Rich. I don't know if it's you or Steve or Steve that I've got the bone to pick with, but which one of you motherfuckers made gravity's rainbows such a big part of it made me read that fucking thing? Well, what's funny is, better you than me. I haven't read it. Oh, Jesus. That's Steve, man.

He put it in the first one, right? Right, right. I brought it back for the second one. I'm the one who brought it back for Featherer because, again, you know, Steve, that's the one of, it's part of the magic of Steve is how, you know, everything's interconnected. So when I, I thought that would be a perfect thing. I can't remember. Didn't I have the security guy give that to her as a gift? Yes.

And I try to read 24 bucks every year. And after having plotted through all 1,200 pages of that, I've got a lot of catching up to do, man. Sorry, man. That's Steve. I don't even mind telling you that. Yeah, put that in the first one. I picked up with it in the second one. All right.

Oh, man. Richard Chisberer is Stephen King under the bus. Wow. I wouldn't say that. Now, come on. All right. Look, this is our big question that, that we like to ask everybody, Rich, before we sign out.

And this is, you know, you're talking about things being personal. This is very personal. So, you know, there's no right or wrong answer. And just kind of curious, you know, what you would have to say about it. But are there any special, you know, charities, causes, institutions, anything of that nature that are particularly near and dear to your heart for whatever reason? And if so, how could our listeners get involved? You know what? We usually do, we're usually, well, number one, we're softies.

So if, and, and I mean that only in like the context of, you know, we're those guys who, you know, you see a sad commercial come on in the middle of your mood at 11 o'clock at night. And we're like scribbling down the 800 number. And God help me if it's like dogs and animals and stuff. Oh, yeah. You know, I'm a two-time cancer survivor. We lost my dad to cancer. and obviously countless other relatives and friends. So, you know, whenever the opportunity arises, you know, we're always trying to do something for, you know,

whether it's the, you know, the Cancer Society, the big one here, or, or, you know, a smaller offshoot. You know, we always support what is the children's hospital for cancer patients here in the States. And, you know, we've done some literacy stuff here. You know, we live probably half an hour, 40 minutes outside of Baltimore and Maryland. Okay. And we've done, you know, a considerable amount for like some of the literacy charities for the inner city. You know, it breaks my heart when I talk to a lot of schools, you know, classrooms and all that. And yeah, I mean, it, it, there's no magic formula, man.

There's, it seems to, for the most part, if the parents have books in the house, the kids are exposed and they read. but there's so many of these kids who there's not a single book in their home. So, yeah, that's always something we're really interested in. But, yeah, we're kind of spread out, you know. Okay, cool. And children and literacy and animals, you know, we've got four dogs. So we're animal lovers and anything we can do in that regard to. Well, you're going to love reading fairy tale then, if you haven't already.

Oh, yeah, you know, I went way back and fell in love with it. I, you know, my blurb for the book, which wasn't a blurb, because Steve certainly doesn't need one from me. But the email I wrote back to him as I just said, Steve, this is the kind of book that made me fall in love with reading when I was little. It's that kind of imagination, stretching, wonder-filled thing where it was just like you finish it. And I remember the first thing, the second thing I told him, rather, after all that was it has to have illustrations when it's published. And he's like, yeah, that's the plan. Because I just, but yeah, I fell in love with it. And again, I'm a much bigger fan.

It took me a long time to give in and read the Dark Tower stuff because I was just like. Yeah. And that was weird because I love westerns and I love Stephen King. But it took a lot of people, you know, badgering me to finally read the series. And I loved it. But I'm a, you know, I was always a bigger fan of the scary Steve stuff. So, yeah, the first. fact that that fairy tale hit me as hard as it did. It's a tribute to his his storytelling at age

75, which is crazy. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, beautiful. We appreciate it. So before we log out, obviously, we want to, you know, thank you for joining us for the interview, man. This was great. And I guess two questions. Number one, where can everybody find you on social media? and where can people find your, you know, your publications on social media? And then, you know, secondly, hell, let's call a spade a spade. What do you have to pimp besides the upcoming? The stuff on, like I said, the stuff on pimping is the paperback of chasing the boogeyman and the third Gwendy book.

And then the box set comes out in October. Okay. Turned in the sequel to Chasing the Boogieman. So that'll be out sometime next year. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, I'm on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and do a lot of giveaways and contests and cool stuff. I really actually enjoy doing that. I don't leave much. I don't get out much. So the fact that I'm able to kind of really participate and meet readers online is a cool thing.

So, yeah, you can find me all these places. Any last minute questions you had, Stephen? No, no, sir. No, I don't. All right. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Yeah, looking forward to reading the next one. So, Chasing the Buggy Man is out now. Yeah, Chasing the Boogie Man came out.

Hardcover last August, paperback this June, or no, no, this July. So, yes, it's out there in all the stores now. And, yeah, I'll be out there, like I said, signing a bunch of copies in October. Good deal. All right. Take care. Take care, guys. Thanks again.

Thank you, appreciate.