Full Transcript for Sarah Talks Bookish Stuff: David Scott Hay

He's like, well, you know, find out where he is, report back to me. And they don't. So he doesn't hear back from for, you know, six months or a year or whatever. So he orders that all children, all male children to and under be slaughtered. And I was like, What? And she goes, Yeah, it's in the book of Matthew. And so I looked it up and I was like, my gosh, like that's that's That's incredible. Like I had not heard that story. And a lot of people I've talked to that, you know, of faith or had done Sunday school was like, Yeah, they didn't teach us this in Sunday school. And and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah, they leave that out. DSH: my first thought like, great, it's it's the assassin come back to finish the job, right? So he was suspect number eight. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: And and then as I was kind of going through and filling out, you know, brainstorming on who would do what and what was where and the backstory and stuff, I was like, okay, where has he been for the last thirty years? Why is he here now? Did he Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: volunteer? Was he already a soldier in the ranks or was he conscripted? Because you know, at that time Russia and Ukraine, that was still relatively new, and we're talking about you know, people being conscripted in their ranks and fleeing the country. I was like, so he might have been conscripted. And I just had more and more questions. questions about him and then finally it dawned on me as like well idiot he's your book he's the book Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha. DSH: he's the book so I scrapped my outline, I scrapped everything and I just thought, okay, we're gonna concentrate on this guy and he's gonna hunt down Jesus but I can't have him go straight to Nazareth. So there's there's gonna be spoilers because I I don't want to talk around it. I just want to have a conversation. And and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Totally agree. DSH: I thought, well, okay, if we start with everybody that knows him, we'll start in Bethlehem where he was born and Then we'll end up in Jerusalem or Jericho, and then we'll end up in Nazareth because he hasn't been called. All this will take place before he has his calling. He's just he's in failure to launch mode, right? which was really fun to really fun to write. And you know, and that was it. That was the structure. I was like, okay, I'll I'll do I'll do kind of a prologue so we can kind of set the mission. And it's like apocalypse now, or heart of darkness. Here's our mission, and then we're just gonna go up. And I did I I didn't, I wasn't familiar with the layout of ancient Judea, so I I I bought my big book of maps and went through there and was like, okay, it's Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Nazareth. So it's like in a straight line, which is great. if it'd been a Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay, nice. DSH: triangle, it would have been so that that made things really easy. and the Nile is too far over, and I didn't want him to get the goat off and on the boat, and it just seemed like too much shoe leather, as they say. so the source Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha. DSH: became very clear. I was like, okay, I'll bookend it with an alpha and omega, and I'm gonna do a section for each chapter or a chapter, a section, a book, as I call it. in the book for each town. And so that that's I mean once I had the structure, then I figure everything else out. And that's usually how I work is I figure out I kinda out you I figure out the genre, I kinda kick around some ideas for theme. but structure, it's it's always a thing. When I was a playwright too, that Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: was always this thing, structure. Like, you know, what c what kind of house am I gonna build and then how do I go about building it. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, that was was gonna ask you about that actually. Like are you a pantser or a plotter or a little bit of both? Like I hear a lot of these terms come out of the world. I think mo personally, I think most people are a little weird combination of both, but like are you mo you're more of like you like to have things settled and then sit to write. DSH: No, for me th the joy of writing a lot of is the the the process of discovery. And that's the actually for me the fun part of writing. I mean I can do the research and sometimes you'll you'll find a couple of nuggets. but Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: I will do I'll do kind of a broad outline, like major beats. Like I knew in Bethlehem we would meet the midwife, right? Because Jesus, Joseph, and Mary have long gone. So I'm I wanted somebody to be there at the present, you know, at the birth of Christ. So I was like, okay, I'll invent a midwife, and then we'll hear her story. and so I'm like, you know, check, and then you know, I knew, you know, who we'd meet. So I have it's more like it's more like Larry David's Kerbier Enthusiasm. Like I've got a broad beat outline, but then I kind of improved. Off because I know where I'm going. And that lends itself Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: to discovery because I know some writers, especially screenwriters, will have the whole story mapped out. They'll have a whole treatment. The last thing they do is actually write the script. And for me, there's no there's no room for discovery. And occasionally Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: they can derail the story. and that's what happened with the butcher. and again, you know, spoilers, I didn't know I thought the youth would probably end up surviving the entire trip with him or if the youth passed, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: he would be kind of a spirit guide. And I just thought if I was reading a book and that happened, I would throw the book across the room. So I'm like, okay, that's not gonna happen. there won't be Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, too many people are afraid to make some someone die. Like I think death is so impermanent in media DSH: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: lately that

like it mean it means next to nothing now. So like adding an actual consequential death into a book I think is like I I I'm starting to prefer that even if it makes me sad. DSH: Yeah, in the The the thing of it is I know when I when I would teach writing, you teach screen writing and stuff like that that you know everybody had a clear idea of how their act one was gonna be and then had a cool idea for the ending. But then there would be like a straight line between act one and act three, and your story is actually act two, the middle of it, the messy middle, which is always the hardest to write because that's your story. That's your story. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: And I you know, when I was teaching, I'd tell them like, Hey look, cut that bridge between act one and two, let fall into the river below, how get swept out, how they survive and then where they end up, you know, you find a c you find A cool ending or find something that's inevitable in hindsight but unexpected as you're writing it and reading it, and then go back and retrofit act one and and make that step so it flows seamlessly. And a lot of people are hard to I mean, a lot of people are reluctant to do that, to to throw themselves a challenge where they actually have to figure out the puzzle. And Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: big spoiler here, the the midwife's baby in the chest was not in the original outline. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: cool. And is that like 'cause I kind of I write h for a hobby and like I kind of do something very similar where like i I let it write itself. You have enough major beats and then you like let it write itself. And is that like something that just kind of like as you're writing you were just as shocked as everyone else? DSH: Well, as I was I was like, Okay, so she's opening the chest, we knew their blanket in there from previous scene, and I was just like, she's got her and then I I stopped, I like, it'll be it'll be a dead baby. How the baby rotted? She'll have it mummified, that breaks a lot of, you know, Jewish laws and is kind of a sacrilege on its own part. Did the butcher take part Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: in that, right? So the kid would not, you know, thematically lean into it. And then I just stopped and I was like, shh, if I do this Then it's something I have to track all the way through to the end. and it was the deciding to go down that path. And that was a couple of walks with my wife, because she's also a writer, and just kind of gaming that out on what that would look like. And I hadn't seen that before. And I think it was unexpected. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: And I'm like, well, if it's unexpected for me, it's gonna be unexpected for the reader, yet inevitable. But also this this will add so much weight to the rest of the story. And I can't imagine I can Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: imagine what the book would look like without that element of of him Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I think it played into a lot of it and like it was his connec I I liked his connection with that her experience of the same loss. Like it mirrored the two of each the two characters. I like DSH: Right. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: that a lot. I thought that was really cool. DSH: Yeah, so it was so that was a surprise. But it like I said, in retrospect it's the the the book wouldn't be the book without that. And that's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: also like, you know, are people gonna think this is too weird? Is it too creepy? Is it too crazy? It's like, I like weird, creepy, and crazy. I mean, I want to read a book where I haven't read that book before, right? And you want people to have that Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Same. Yeah. DSH: tools of like, holy shit, right? where you're not just doing something for shock value, but you're doing something that's, you know, unexpected but fits the story. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And I think that's like it's one of those things that I think I really like weird books because they they make you become comfortable being uncomfortable. And I felt like Butcher did so much of that. It like it put you the way I described it in the review that I originally put up was like you it it's a brutal book, but you're with him. Like there's no sense of detachment from the butcher. You're like standing next to him as he's enduring this. And like it forces you, the reader, to sit with his own discomfort and it's like you're sharing that same burden together, which I really liked. I thought that was really interesting. And I like that you chose to do things like that and like just have these like moments of intensity. DSH: That that was probably the first pro other than like a play, of course, or excuse me, you know, a screenplay, that was probably the first book I wrote that was a close third person. Like we are with the butcher the whole time. There's no cutting to another you know, there's a couple of minor small flashbacks and occasionally you're in somebody else's point of view for just a hot minute. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: Until we switch over to Jesus' point of view, towards the end. But but keeping it close, like let the you you didn't really get a break from his tension, or the the trauma and the grief, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: belief. And you can ride that roller coaster of his his belief and his guilt and rage and then things working out and then things not working out and just it was just a roller coaster to to to be that close to him and experience that with him. And also makes for, you know, a much more complicated character to write, you know, 'cause there's there's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: there's v you know, there's a little bit of levity throughout. and you know, I don't do anything to be totally humorless, even if the humor's a little bit on the dry side. You know. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I'm a dry humored person. DSH: Yeah. Well the here's the

thing is like when I started okay, so I kinda did I did my outline, I did my beats, where we're gonna go, who we're gonna meet. you know and it and it opens up You know, it opens up with him having a little bit of the the fever drink, you what's going on in his mind, and then it opens up with him having his morning constitutional and then finding the the body of the merchant's son. And he doesn't he doesn't offer him aid, he just kicks the kid's foot to see if he's still alive, right? And then he doesn't really Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: offer to help him. He just gets rid of the scarf that he had borrowed so he doesn't get caught with it. And I just thought, th that's the first thing I wrote from the b from the butcher's point of view, and I thought this guy is gonna be interesting to write. You know, a little bit of a rogue. He's you know, he's he's on his mission from God. And so, you know, he's he's certainly he's certainly no saint or somebody that like, you know, wants to look after somebody, just sees like, okay, what's the opportunity here? And that was really fun Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: to write that kind of conniving without being slimy. You know, he's just operating at a different level. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it never felt malicious. Yeah. It didn't feel malicious. It felt like he was this guy who's like so lost in his mission that like there's a degree there's a point at which like being so lost in your mission becomes the antithetical to your mission, which is like really complicated to describe. But I felt like he as a character was DSH: Right. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: able to d like show you that really well. I thought you depicted that really, really well with him. DSH: Thank you. Yeah, it was, you know, and that's I did, you know, I was a theater producer and, you know, playwright for a number of years in Chicago. So, you know, you get around actors and you see unexpected choices and I think writers, you know, need to do too. They need to make the unexpected choice. you know, they they they talk out here, you know, with writing for TV and film, it's like, you know, can you can you jump to your fourth or fifth idea quicker as opposed to the first or second Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: thing that comes to your mind, which is usually something you've already seen or read before. So, you know, it's the conundrum is how do you find something familiar yet different, right? but that Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: was that that really intrigued me because it really was aga again for me, it was a journey of discovery about this character, the butcher. And I was really fascinated with him and his backstory and and then I I that allowed me to be free with the other characters as well, to make try to make them as fascinating. the the thief in book two, the Pharisee, I had somebody reach out Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: to me and go, yeah, the thief, he has his own great little mini arc.

Like that would be like a slam dunk role for an actor, right? And I was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: like, yeah, you're right. You're right. That's he has his own little thing. But that's the thing is like you get to add, you know, these side characters or somebody you just might bump into in a sidewalk end up becoming not that they're sidewalks in Judea, but you know what mean. end up being Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Probably not. DSH: this the story. And it's just it's fun to write that and if you're not if you're not having fun writing even if you're writing horror or drama if you're not having a little bit of gleefulness whether it's sadistic or not the reader can tell the reader can tell Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, you should be like, yeah, I feel like there's a there's a certain there's a certain level of like passion that you can sense. And like this is it it's just it's one of the most critical things I think that make it it makes writing such a human experience is like there's an injection of of I believe in magic like a little bit because there's like this injection of magic that happens when you're passionate about your product and it always comes out. Like if you're not if you're a screenwriter who's not passionate about the show, that's gonna come out. If you're a writer who's not passionate about the the material, it's gonna come out. Like people can always sense it. They pick up on what you're not passionate about. So it's important to love what you're doing. DSH: It is, and you know, and there's a you know, people talk about art and I remember reading this great quote that somebody said that art is just the manifestation of somebody mastering their craft. So it becomes it looks effortless. And I r and I really like that because there's so much craft involved with the story. And y you know, you can read writers that are promising and they're usually younger, but they haven't really studied the craft. They've read a lot of books, but they actually haven't studied how to put together a scene or characters Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: or how to, you know, how to make a leap of faith with something unexpected or a surprise that's gonna derail the plot line, right? and so there's you know there's I'm always thinking in terms of craft as I'm writing and I know with the butcher the last, you know, my second to last pass was going through there going, okay, is it clear what he's doing in every scene? Is it clear kind of clear what the stakes are, where it escalates, you know, are we not clear? Is this just, you know, is this just pretty riding at this moment, or is this a reflective moment that'll pay off later? Or what am I doing here, right? What is w how how does each of these scenes or chapters and it can just be character forward or it can just be a humor scene, but I needed to know I I went through and I did an outline after writing I did an outline beforehand, but I did a craft pass where I'm like, okay, this scene is more about a conversation. This scene is more Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: about action. This scene needs the choreography needs to be tight on this scene. This scene needs to get everybody's reaction. This scene is just, you know, basically a debate between, you know, between jail bars, you know. So So the craft is yeah, that's important. And also, if there's any young writers out there, buy yourself dryer's style guide to English. And it will give you first chapter. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Nice. Okay. DSH: It's first chapter will give you a list of like 20 junk words to cut. I hate when people use well Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: We could all use that. DSH: and a dial, well, I'm gonna do this. Like you can cut well, you can cut Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: so, you can cut indeed, or just it's just this. No, it is this. Right? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep. I'm so bad about that one. DSH: So I go through, you know, and I'm I'm I'm I'm guilty of it too, but I go through and I remove all those junk words so that's like what's on the page is clean and reads clean and it's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: not how people speak. Especially when you doing you're doing historical. you know, and I break the rule every every now Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: and then. It's and that again it's the la I my last pass is I I kill all those junk words. Or some. I mean, come on. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. Enough that you need to, like enough to make it land harder. Like all these rules, they're meant to be bent. They're meant to be the majority application, but there's instances of exception. So like I have a just problem and every time I go back and do a pass, I'm like, delete that. And if I'm using some modifier for the word it it precedes, I'm like, I could use a stronger word for that instead. And like clearly I need to be using a stronger word. Like it's DSH: Yeah. Yeah, something happened something did this, some some some some some is one of mine where I'm just like, Okay, that's out. That's out. And also people equip me, it's like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm. Somewhere, something, yeah. DSH: they're covering you it's like a CYA. Like it almost scared him. He almost fainted, he almost did this. It's like, well Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: why why are we all mosting? I don't wanna read about almost Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha. DSH: I wanna read about things happening, right? Let it have him knocking on his ass, right? I'm sorry. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, what did he do then? Like, yeah, what did he do then? He almost did this? Well, what did he actually do? DSH: Yeah, so it's so it's not again, that's that's people shying away from conflict or something where they're gonna have to resolve Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: it. So that's where you just kinda have to lean into the lean into a little bit of the chaos. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And I think like so with with Butcher,

you've got like the obvious being inspired by like religious and religio religious themes and like biblical themes, which I love that kind of thing. I think that that's so fascinating. but there's Because it like so you said it was a cozy mystery, which I just found I think that is hilarious. It starts as a cozy mystery. And like, did any of the inspiring or inspirational material that was originally gonna be part of like the cozy mystery, did that continue on into what it ca what it turned into, if that question makes any sense? So what did go into butcher outside of the obvious? DSH: Outside of the cozy mystery. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Outside of the like it's biblically inspired. There's like clearly biblical elements to it. So like outside of that, what other influences do you think really played into the story? Yeah. DSH: what influences was I'm a parent, an adopted parent. Well I guess my father adopted me, I adopted my son. so essentially estranged from my father now, which was been a long time coming. so it was just about relationships and how you communicate and fathers and sons Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: and and you know, breaking the chain of I don't say bad parenting, but just breaking that chain of you know, injecting more compassion and empathy. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, generational generational curses. DSH: You know, it yeah, the general you know, generational curse, which you know, you you don't know it's a curse until you become a parent and then, you know, your your mom makes a a a comment and you're just like, my god, I cannot I cannot do this like my dad did right. So, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: my wife and I have changed our our parenting styles probably half a dozen times, you know, as he's gotten a l Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: and one of those was, you know, we got we got a a a surprise diagnosis in the middle of the pandemic. So we completely switched our parenting styles. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: wow. DSH: And now, you know, he's a he's a junior in high school and we still have to really exercise patience and realize, you know, even though he's taller and outweighs me that he's still just a practice human, right? He's still just practicing It's his first time. He's practicing this, he's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep, it's his first time. Yep. DSH: practicing that. my wife asked me one time like how I was finding parenthood and I said, you know what? I'm really not used to dealing with unreasonable people. That's I Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha DSH: mean, I can reason, I can debate, I can lay my case. And with, you know, your kid, they're just like, Yeah, I don't care. You that's just a word salad that you're throwing at me and I still want what I want. So you're like, Okay, so I have to figure out some other tact. so really it was a fathers and sons, Full disclosure, I I had a baby brother when I was four who passed away after being a few months old. That's who the book is dedicated to. So, you know, even though I was young, I got you know, I saw my parents, you know, suffer the loss of a child and it was hard for me to comprehend, you know, I was at four and five and he only lived about three or four months. the good thing it came out that it was then they adopted my sister. So I have a I have a lovely sister now. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: nice. DSH: but you know, that starts playing around, you know, with with Herod's innocent, you know, Massacre of the Innocents, where he ordered all these, you know, children to and under to be slaughtered, males. And, you know, in my book it's like, yeah, we really didn't check. You know, we didn't stop to check the divers and see if they're Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Whoops. DSH: male or female. They, you know, we basically just kinda came through and did everything. so Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: and that really In in the investigation of that, that really surprised me that it's like four lines in the Bible. And I was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm. DSH: like, nobody's talking about There's a whole generation of children that haven't been born. Jesus survives and when they come back from Egypt there's no he has no peers. it's created Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: a birth of, you know, marriageable men about that same age. And then you have you have, you know, families and citizens that are jealous that Jesus survived somehow, that he was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: passed up. So, you know, there's also like, you know, is he cursed? What makes him so special? You know, I think I said So it was just kind of exploring that thing that's just barely touched on in the Bible that as a sociology experiment was fun to play with. But going back to your question, inspiration Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: was Yeah, strange you know, fathers and sons. Zealotry, you know, because the butcher's so Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: firm in his belief that finishing this job of killing Christ will save humanity because of all the visions he has of all these atrocities that, you know, are a matter of historical record, that are done in Jesus' name. Not that he's doing it or leading them, but they're done in Jesus' name. so He he just has this firm belief and he feels, you know, after having participated in the calling that he this is what it leads to and the culling couldn't have been for nothing. And so that he has saved so you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: have somebody that is firmly rooted that what they believe is absolute truth. And then, you know, we when we finally meet Jesus, he's like, Yeah, I haven't been called. They keep saying I'm going to. Like I said, he's stuck in fire to launch mode. He's like, I might get the call, I might not. I'm in love with Mary Magdalene. you know, I work occasionally. I you know, I tend to my bees, you know, I like honey. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: but, you know, I don't I don't there's nothing special

going on around me, you know, people like me well enough, you know, because I'm nice and I'm friendly, but you know, so you know there's a line in the book I keep coming back to and people ask me what it's about. And I said, well that's at its core. It's a about a number of things, but it's about what happens when two righteous men face off. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I loved that. DSH: You know, both of these you know both these men firmly believe what they believe and believe that there's been a divine calling at some point in their life that is setting them Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm. DSH: on this path. And that's not anything for debate or discussion. That's just the way it is and the time is coming for one of So that was really fun because the butcher to me, even though You could say he's an antihero or a villain is he's not. And the and the antagonist ends up being Christ, but Christ is not setting out to butcher people or murder or anything. He just wants to, you know, keep his bees and hang out with Mary. So yeah, so it was really kind of fun to explore that. There was no black and white. And for people to call Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: people have emailed me and DM's like, I was so rooting for the butcher and I'm like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I kinda was too. I was like, dang it. DSH: Like, I hope he doesn't. I hope he does it. And I was like, wow, that is which is a compliment that the character that the character's interesting enough and he's he's so committed to his mission that you're rooting for him, right? And Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Like you want things you it's not that you want him to like succeed in his mission of killing Jesus. It's that like you want him to succeed in his mission of finding closure, which is like such a hard DSH: Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: because but the closure is killing Jesus and it's like it's such a hard dichotomy to hold on to. DSH: Yeah, unt and and until it's not. And again with the and again spoilers Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: here. Having having the baby and then his mission changing from I'm going to kill this man to experiencing kind of the worst of humanity on his trip where he's like, Yeah, these knuckleheads are not worth saving. I'm not gonna kill this man. But man, if Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: he can resurrect this dead child, that would do it for me. I think everything can be worth Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, he got it. DSH: it and I can find my life and family again. So, you know, again, spoiler, he's looking to have this this baby resurrected. Right. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm. DSH: he he's heading to find a Jesus who is just like I keep bees and I eat honey. Like there's no Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha DSH: you know, there's no line out the door for miracles or anything like that. So So yeah, that was interesting. And also with the the thing I've learned, everybody has a different version of definite d of everybody has a different pfft, let's try that again. I've had so much conference. Everybody has Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. DSH: a different definition of horror. And some people say Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: this is true horror, it's not pure horror, it's quite a horror adjacent. And I'm like, look, my definition Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: of horror is having something you love being ripped away from you and being powerless to stop it. And by that definition, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. DSH: my definition, the butcher is pure horror. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Awesome, I actually was gonna ask what genre you would technically categorize it as. So yes, I'd I would agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. DSH: For me it's horror, you know, and that's part of that's also marketing, you know, is it historical fiction, is it literary, speculative? I mean, it's kind of you know, it is what you say it is, but but I love horror authors, I love that crowd, I love that community, they've been really, really welcoming. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: And you know, everybody the the spectrum of horror in its subgenres is so vast that like there's room for everybody to play. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Huge. Yeah. I I DSH: And so was like, Hey biblical horror, I'm in. That's gonna that'll that'll be where I play for a little bit, you know. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I love that stuff. I love I think horror to me is like one of the I referred to it as like the most human genre because of what it explores. And like I think horror is just it's such a deep exploration of what it is that makes us human and like what violates those rules that we all have of being human. And everyone's definition is so different, everyone's tolerance is so different. I just I find it like Especially in TV and movies, I think horror is such a good snapshot of shared sociocultural anxieties of the time. And like you can look back at seventies and eighties horror movies and see what everyone was afraid of. And like in books, I think because it's they're so much more timeless, it requires a slightly deeper layer of like exploration of our psyche of like what's something that is timelessly terrifying? Like what is a big core fear that I have, and like it's such a nice exploration DSH: Right. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: of like what that looks like and like how that could play out in a situation like with Butcher. And like It's I find it so endlessly interesting. DSH: Yeah, I mean the you know again it the the the subgenre is so big I was I was a Stoker juror for the short stories one year and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: cool. DSH: my number two story that I read was I end up doing I ended up doing an anthology of like the ones that didn't make it to the finals. I was like, these are too good. So I reprinted it. I should have brought it over here. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's awesome. DSH: but it was a it was it was about the horror was a kid goes basically he goes

cave exploring and gets stuck. And I'm a claustrophobic, certainly if I can't move or anything. And I had to there was a couple times in reading Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Healthy. DSH: that story, I was like, fuck this. And I got up and walked away. I had to come back and read it. I'm like, no, this is this is b like I you know, and the ending was fantastic. And I was just like, all right, that's my number two, and I'm never reading that again, right? And then, you know and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep, one and done. DSH: then you about, you know, a door dasher trying to make it through the apocalypse to deliver, you know, and he's messaging with the the customer. as the apocalypse is kinda happening. And it was it was one of the most hilarious things I've read. And I read it out loud. So it's just like that was my number one story actually for that year, because it was two different distinct voices. It was funny, it was original and you know and and kind of modern. So yeah horror c encompasses so much but yeah the you know there's phobias Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: There's, you know, but also like you were saying, the modern horror is always really good about reflecting, you know, the the concerns of the time. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: my previous book, NSFW, you know, came out a few years ago. There were an enough things came to pass in that book, 'cause it said in like, you know, the near future is like, you know, next week. None that came to pass. And again, I had I had a few people email. I like, hey, I saw the copyright on this date, but this thing's happened after the book was released. Like, how did all that happen? And I was like, Well, some of it's reading white papers and reading, you know, not mainstream news and finding out what's going on, kind of behind the scenes and just kind of extrapolating. And Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: then some of it, like there's a there's a Russian component and not safe for work that I wrote about before they invaded Ukraine. It was just Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: wow. DSH: like I grew up in the Cold War. So Russia was always the big bad. And I was like, and they're not on the main Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: stage right now, so I'm gonna use them. And then and you know, you know, and then it's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And you're like, no. DSH: and then it happens, you're like, wow, okay. I I was doing that. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: You have this moment of like, Did I do this? DSH: I didn't have any sports scores in there, which which Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: yeah, so that was so that was interesting. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. DSH: But the horror of that book for me was it concerned so much with like technology, devices, isolationism, that I knew from my next book I couldn't do anything cont in it with a contemporary setting. which was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, you need to like DSH: another which I think is why I pivoted to wanting to

do the cozy mystery. I went ahead and do something that was fun, you know, had you know had a tablespoon of blood in it, and it was just people, you know, snooping around and asking questions, right? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Whoops. DSH: Like a Western. That's what I love. You when I read Westerns or read Western horrors, is like you gotta have a horse to get somewhere or a wagon. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: Can't call anybody. You're waiting on letters that have been, you know, three weeks old, all the information's outdated. And to confront somebody, it has to be face to face. And there's no Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: holograms, nobody swiping. And I love that it's just, I mean, it's the conflict is kind of at its essence boiled down. And that's what that's one of the things I love about the butcher. It's like, yeah, if he wants to get to Nazareth, he's gotta hitch a cart to that big ass goat. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep, and make it work. And like DSH: And make it work. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: so one of the things you mentioned a little you touched on it a little bit, but I I specifically wanted to call it out to talk about it. your DSH: All right. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: depiction of Jesus of Nazareth. I thought that that was like one of my all time favorite books is Christopher Moore's Lamb. And like I because I like DSH: Okay. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: those in between years of like not the just the speculation on like the in between years, but like Taking this idyllic figure who's like the figurehead of like a global religion that's huge and being like, what if he was just extremely painfully human? How did that like what played into that decision of your depiction of him? DSH: Couple things. Well, one is people of the Catholic faith, which I am not Catholic, believe that Jesus is a hundred percent human. He's also the son of God, so I don't know how Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: the percentages work out, but he's human, right? And again, I've had people message me that were like, I was an altar boy for twelve years and I love how you lifted up reverence but kind of tamped down on what organized Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: religion can do, which is you know, which which is the whole point. as far as Jesus, I was like, okay, what happens To a person when they're told they're a child prodigy, but they never get a chance to play play the piano. Right? It's like the piano's coming soon. Yeah, I know you're eight. Hey, I know you're twelve. Hey, th yeah, you're in your twenties. I know the piano's coming soon. You're a prodigy and you're gonna be able to play the piano. We just we don't know when, right? So I was like, okay, so he doesn't know when, right? And he wants to move on with his life instead of being in this holding pattern. And then I was always doing more and more research 'cause, you know, You know, most research, you know, states or common knowledge or whatever, that the gospels were written about eighty years after after Christ, right? After the crucifixion. and there is a painting of Christ of the time when he was alive. And this nugget I found that I I absolutely was thrilled to read was that at the time that the Gospels were written, eighty years after Christ's death, beards were found. Fashionable. They were not fashionable at the time when Christ was alive. And I was like, that is great. I'm Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: cool. DSH: gonna have a kind of a scruffy, clean shaven, Christ. So like what else could he be different physically instead of the you know, the blue eyed Western long, you know, wavy, you know, locks and the beard Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. In great shape. DSH: in great shape and, you know, perfect teeth and a great nose and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: you know, that Western eye version that I grew up, you know, with in in churches and you'd see everywhere. It's almost like the same painting, right? But there's a there was a painting by painting or a a sketch by one that was that shows Jesus with his head back laughing. No, I think it's called Laughing Christ. And I saw that when Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: I was younger and it just like it pictures him as I think what the quote was like a mirthful revolutionary. And to see Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: that like he's having a human experience. He's laughing and he's enjoying something so I was like, I want to interject that kind of personality into my Jesus. I don't want to do the beard. What else can I do? I'm gonna make him You know, I'm gonna make him a bigger guy, right? He's out of shape, he doesn't work a lot. He's like, Hey, does he Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, a little soft. DSH: have a sweet tooth? People are is this fat shaming Jesus? I was No, he's got a sweet tooth. He keeps bees, which is a common Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: practice in the Middle East. And so it was just kind of like I didn't want to go, I didn't want to make him the dude, but that was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm. DSH: certainly, you know, a laid-back guy that just wants to, you know, deal with his honey, you know, instead of drinking, you know, white Russians, right? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: And I didn't, you know, I won't I won't talk about the end of the book, but I was just like, well, that's where I'm gonna start with Jesus and we'll just see where that goes. Again, that was part of the we'll just see where the story takes me. But writing him from that perspective where he had not gathered his disciples, had not gone into the desert yet, and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: you know, that one of the funnest things, because some of these scenes were not fun to write, right? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: The fun scene to Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I can imagine. DSH: write was when the butcher's at the you know the floor-mounted dinner table with Jesus, Jesus, Joseph, and Mother Mary. And that when the

tension of the family hits and the butcher's there and he can't get away and he doesn't know what to say, and there's a little bit of a squabble, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: We've all been there. DSH: which is so fun to write. And we all yeah, we've all been there. So it's relatable, right? It's not Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: like, well, if you could have six historical figures at your dinner party, who would it be? Well, it'd Jesus. Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, you know, so and so we'll throw so-and-so, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: What if they fight? DSH: what if they have you know different points of view? So that was that was fun to write. That was that was fun to write. but yeah, I just I wanted him to be approachable. I know some people are like, is this an edgelord blasphemous thing? And it's not like everybody is treated as real characters. You know, the people, you know, that are complicated, they have feelings and have mixed feelings about things and they get angry with one another, they repair. It's just human and it's just like I th the low hanging fruit of trying to make an you know, somebody's like, this is gonna one of those edge l edge lord kind of things, I was like, Yeah, I'm too old to be writing that shit. Like this is not And it's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And it's kinda boring. DSH: growing, it's so obvious, right? I mean, well where do you go from there if you if you can't explore, you know, these kind of characters which especially at this period in time because there's not a lot written about Jesus. pre-ministry, right? You got Bethlehem, there's a little bit of the you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. Yeah. DSH: know the temple and then you know and then it comes out of the desert and you know and here we go. Right? So there's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I feel like especially like you run into this issue where people forget that during this this is a real period of time where real people were real and really existed. And like we're so removed DSH: Right. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: that we we look back at this almost with like this idyllic storybook lens where we don't let them have these very human flaws. And sometimes the flaws are like indulgence and sometimes they are like when you're in a holding pattern, why would you be motivated to do anything other than sit around and wait? And like if that's your whole life and that's what you've been told, why would you do anything else or want anything else? Yeah. And I DSH: Yeah. Yeah. If you're like say you're gonna be a child you know, child you know, pr piano prodigy is like yeah, I'm not gonna work with my hands, these these things are gonna do something eventually, so you know, let me do something else. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, why would you want to risk it? Right. And I th I thought that was great. I really liked that. And like I love I I'm a big imagery person and like I actually have a a a degree in religious studies. And so like I think all the im so I dove into this like head first. But I l I DSH: Yeah, that's a perfect idea, yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. I felt like you captured a lot of the imagery that people overlook really well. And my one of my favorites is bees. And like specifically him, how did it come about that he's gonna specifically keep? bees and like how did they become part of this narrative and part of this like imagery and iconography in the book? DSH: Okay, a couple of things. you know, when you when you start on a project sometimes you you've had ideas kicking around for a long time that like, here's where I can bring something in. when the first or second Iraq war was going on, I remember reading an article about soldiers discovering that a lot of a lot of families kept bees. That's part of it. They they Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: cultivate bees, they get the honey, they trade honey, they sell. It's just what you do. it was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: very, very common. And I started a play called Basra Honey, and you know, it didn't go anywhere. I didn't have a really have a story for it, but it was in the back my mind that was that was a thing. I just thought, I'm gonna add some flavor to that, this story with you know having bees and So they just kind of and then it was also like, well, okay, if he's keeping bees and he likes honey, then it can lead into him, you know, being a little bit bigger because of the sweet tooth. So they just kind of that Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: kind of played into it. A lot of a lot of elements that I played with and I kind of gathered really clicked into place without a lot of without a lot of machinations and I feel really I feel really I don't say blessed, I feel really blessed that certain elements kind of came together and clicked and kind of revealed themselves to be of importance or as a misdirect or you know were able to help enlighten shine a little bit more light on some of the thematic elements. So bees were one of them. the goat was inspired by two things, Robert Eggger's The Witch. If you've seen that, you know, Black Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So good. I love it. DSH: Right, so spoiler like watching that movie I was like, It's the goat. It's the goat and then there's two scenes that reveal Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It makes sense. DSH: that it's not the goat and I was like, That seems like a studio note to me. If I was doing this for like this, it would be Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: the goat. And then of course, you know, all our devices are listening, so this this video popped up of a goat that had some weird disease and it was walking on its hind legs. And it's just walking across its and on its hind legs, and I went, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Nightmares. DSH: you know, I'll take that and put that in the stew and then we'll see where we go. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: No thank you. DSH: so yeah, it's just you know, you collect story you collect ideas and elements and

visuals and then, you know, if you need you pull in and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, but that that's where the inspiration for the goat came from. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay, awesome. And so with this there's a lot this project kind of like the the whole book I just have loved watching like the trajectory of it and everything. Like where with your writing specifically, so I know you've written two, so I tell correct me if I'm wrong, like two full books since N S N S F W and then The Butcher of Nazareth. What where do you see yourself going with your writing, specifically your novel writing? Is there like another project or anything you're working on or brainstorming right now? DSH: Well, I actually have three. I don't the other one's not out. The other were the The Butcher and Not Safe as the Fight Club. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Somewhere in here. Okay, yeah. DSH: I I wrote The Fountain and that was that was my first published novel, I guess you would say. But I had written Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. DSH: I've written, you know, dozens of screenplays and plays. I've been produced Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: both. I started off as a novelist in college. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: wow. DSH: That was gonna be my thing. I was gonna write crime fiction, right? So I had an unpublished crime fiction book. I think my first book I wrote was like a bad Stephen King kind of ripoff. And then Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Nice. DSH: and then and then I moved into theater, had an opportunity to write a play for a theater director, and then spent the next sixteen years writing pr and producing theater professionally in Chicago, which was great. My first play was called Killing Lucifer, right? So like you, I have a bit Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Hey. DSH: of fascination with religion and Christianity from a scholarly historical aspect. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: I didn't really take any classes, but I just, you know, I read God by Karen Armstrong. I think that's the woman that wrote that. The Origin of Satan, the rise of Christianity, you know, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, you know, everything on the Shroud Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love that stuff. DSH: of Turin. another book that I ended up self-publishing back in the day was called Cloning Christ. It was like, let's finding DNA off the Shroud of Turin, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: cool. DSH: right? So we're gonna clone Christ. that was more of a Michael Crichton kind of thriller. And then I kind of I kind of moved away from that. kind of a religious subject and then I wrote another book called Fall The Last Testament of Lucifer Morning Star, which is very Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Awesome. DSH: we we talked about terrain in hell Stephen Bruce Brust, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: I think, right? Was kind of inspired by that. and I self-published that and that book kind of took off actually in the early days Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Awesome. DSH: of Amazon Kindle. and then I moved into film and TV and was you know doing those things. I had a big T V you're gonna have fun editing all this stuff down into digestible bits. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. DSH: I had a very big T V deal blow up and like I need to go back to writing novels, something I can control that's just me, you know, I have Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: all the input, I'm not relying on anybody else. And so I was probably I I started working on kind of a YA trilogy. It's more like having all ages Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. DSH: sitting in an al it's called the Dark Circus set in an alternate Dust Bowl era where dust storms and herds of wild jackalopes run wild. and just kind of let my imagination go. And when I was in the middle of I think doing a revision on the first book, I think I'd started the second book, my novel, my master's thesis, the The Fountain got picked up by Whiskey Tit. And I was like, Yay, right? I'm a Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: cool. DSH: somebody else's publishing it, fitting it out, not me. And then Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, someone else's problem. DSH: Yeah, someone else's problem. But then I thought I I think I woke up in the middle of the night going, my god, what if she wants another book for me? What if this is the beginning of a real relationship with a publisher Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: and I can't go from, you know, metafictional art satire to a YA, right? That's just too much a whiplash, right? That'd be like starting over. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Abercrombie kinda did it. DSH: Yeah, you know, yeah, but I yeah, right. So I wrote NSFW in kind of a fever dream and that was my kind of my introduction to the horror community. And then I wrote a couple of screenplays with my wife and then, you know, when it came time to do another book I was gonna I had no idea so it was gonna be the cozy mystery and then that turned into The Butcher. So I've Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Then it evolved. DSH: i yeah, it evolves as you get older and you know different themes, you know, kinda get stuck in your head that you kinda want to explore. I'm Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: you know, I for me, if if a book isn't thematically rich, then why am I reading it, right? I want to be entertained, I want to be informed, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: educated, and enlightened, and I also want to read a philosophy. And Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. Me too. DSH: you know, if if I don't want that, I'll watch House of Dragons, right? But for me it has to there has to be something there that has to be that and religion is so rich in terms of I'm right, you're wrong, here's a here's a rigid set of codes, what happens if those get broken? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: you know, also the there's a hierarchy within every church. So it's that that kind of stuff is fun to explore. That's fun to explore. So for me, yeah, it's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I love that stuff. DSH: going

going back to novels. Yeah, which now it's like the butcher's doing well, so I'm like, my god, well my plan follow up that one Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha DSH: I was a little different, so what is you know what's gonna happen there? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, where do you take it from there? And like, do you have any current projects that you're working on? Or like are you kind of scattered between a couple and you're like, just pick one? DSH: that's a great question. I because you know, you know, 'cause you write as well and you're reading as well, like your your your brain rarely shuts off, right? You can be watching I watch the Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Never. DSH: Dodgers in the bottom of the ninth and you're like, I've got an idea. So I have you know, my notes app on my phone has, you know, a a running list of about, you know, I don't know, several projects that have links or clips or ideas or Just stuff you throw in a stew and then when it comes time you kind of look through and see if something sparks. so I've I've got one that I've kind of kind of zeroed in on that I think will be that I think will be the next one. the next thing. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay, the next thing. It's an infancy stage. It's a nascent book. DSH: The next thing. Yeah, no, I'm really excited about even even this morning actually I like I I had the like a central image idea that hadn't been in my forty pages of outline and notes and I was like, well I c how am I missing that scene, right? So building out from Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: that. That's you know, no announcement on that, but Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It's marinating. I get that. DSH: It's it's marinating. every now and then it's dirty, you and every now and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: some days it's just like a little pinch of salt and you move on, right? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It comes together. Like s for some reason it just clicks. I have my Google Doc with a hundred and seven tabs and they're all just either scenes, one single line that I don't remember writing. Like, yeah, it's just this hodgepodge mix of like it's gonna become Frankenstein's story at some point. DSH: Yeah. You know, some of the stuff surprised me and some stuff I go back and look at and I'm like, mm, I'm not really interested in writing that story. But Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: but the the the reaction to to the not writing a low hanging fruit edgelord biblical horror novel that does feature Christ and the flesh, I you know, I thought I'm not courting controversy, but mm Nobody's gonna wanna read this, right? Nobody's gonna want I I had so many agents and I had I had publishing houses like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Surprise. DSH: they're like nope and this is also the time in Around that time was, you know, the October seventh attack, right? Israel and Palestine. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Hm. Yeah. DSH: and so nobody wanted to come near anything that had to do with the king of the Jews, right? Just like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: they didn't you know, it's like good luck, you know, or or nothing really. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep, very hands off. DSH: Yeah, so so I've been I've been really fortunate that, you know, Miet at Whiskey Tit, you took it on. She loves it, you know, and and she's commercial viability is not one of her criteria. Right. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Just loves a good book. I've I respect that. I think that's awesome. DSH: Yeah, she does. You know, the thing was, you know, getting in the hands of you know, some horror readers and then, you know, finding on you on Instagram and getting you the book and then you you know, you're so of mine and you read such a a breadth of of subjects and books and also I I had no idea you had the religious studies background, so I I didn't even have to pitch I should just s I should be by the title. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. You didn't know. DSH: and and that finding that people like r are reading it and it's different enough that it's refreshing, but it's also got those moments Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: of horror that people expect and and honestly I'm I'm astounded at how many open-minded readers I've found where people are like yeah this isn't blasph blasphemous there was a moment or two of sacrilege I had woman one woman reach out she's got I've kind of a lapse Christian-ish but me and my husband have been discussing like the repercussions of the massacre of the innocents and been talking about that. I said I had I've had two altar boys former altar boys reach out to me and talk about you know their their experience in the church and reading the book and it so I somehow I've landed in I've landed on the right audience. and you know as it grows wider and wider I'm sure there'll be you know there'll be some you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. DSH: know beshaying and stuff like that but I've you know you've been you've been such a a blessing with your leading of the book and and people listen to you. You know Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I never shut up about it. DSH: well but But you know, but you shine a light on books in these indie you know, this is an indie book. I mean, you you know, a lot of a lot of book reviewers are reluctant to read indie books. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: and for good reason. I mean, and for good reason. There's there's a lot of young writers out there that books and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: are not they're not w ready for prime time or they think you know they're gonna self-publish their first book and think it's ready for prime time and it's not 'cause they haven't studied the craft, they haven't put their time in. And that's fine. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: I did I did the same thing. So, you know, it's it's hard Hard to approach and pitch somebody as an indie author or writer and you're like, here we go. But you know, they're always intrigued by the you know the headless

whiskey tit you know logo and name. but then you know people read it and there's something there that gets that that sparks something. I've had Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. It's just and I DSH: go ahead. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I thought like it's one of the things I really liked about it is how like intentional it was. And like there was no like I'm I'm personally not a religious person, but I am fascinated by religion, which is like a weird place to exist. and my mom was Irish Catholic, so like I got all the all that that goes along with DSH: Hmm. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: it. And like so trust me, if something was offensive, I would know. but like one of the things DSH: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I really liked is like there was really this sense of intentionality with the book down to like the paperweight and the font choices and like there's just so much that went into that that like I think personally it's it it's not I would never say something that has that much intention could ever be like upsetting or ruffling. It might make people think and question stuff. And I think that's good and healthy. DSH: You like shout out to Liam Callahan, whom I worked with designing the the cover, Sam Morea, who I licensed the the the goat horn the cover image from, and then we did the layout. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Nice. DSH: Dave Fitzgerald who wrote the great introduction. and then Dave McNamara I had got his contact information from a book I s a couple of books I saw at AWP years ago, and I was like, who designed this? And so I got his information and I'd reached out to him, talked to him about another project. Then when the butcher came around, I was I want see if I can I can work with this guy. And let me tell you, he's a font snob like I am. He is, you know, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Perfect. DSH: he researches classic text. Like we went back and forth on paperweight, on font, on margins, because the the margins are a little wider. At one point we had really Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: wide margins and a smaller gutter like you would get from the Folio Society, right? But Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: when I looked at it, I was like, it looks like we printed the book at 75%. So we but he's like, well it's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: a double ratio. And we have that I was like, yeah, I know, but This is supposed to be a shorter book for me and it's still bigger, even though there's not as much and we need to make it readable. So we kind of we found a compromise, but yeah, we that we went back and forth. I think we had probably 58 iterations going back and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Well. DSH: forth and then changing. it was so good. He was so good to work with. Because he's an artist, right? And this is this is why Yeah, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And we love them, but they are detailed. DSH: you know, I I assume that mantle occasionally, you know. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: especially in the

age and here we go, especially in the age of AI, like I paid six artists work on that book. you know, I licensed the artwork from a known artist. I paid someone to do the layout, he actually painted the back cover as well. That was Liam. Dave got paid to do the interior layout. Meg Ripley, who wrote Necrology, great book. Her second one's coming out soon. she used to be a commercial artist in a previous life and I approached her about doing some little bee illustrations because I made those stamps. So if you get a book and it doesn't Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: have bee illustrations, you didn't get it from my stash. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: You see me signing somewhere, I'll put the little stamps in there. And you know, she did that. She could come to find out. She also keeps bees. She's you know, I keep bees, right? I was I had no idea. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's so cool. DSH: So she's I love drawing bees. So so I paid her to do that. And and none of that stuff was done with AI. You know, I got to have conversations Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It's all human. DSH: and I have relationships with people. And I know just like You could put it pour the book into a template and it's like, what are we doing? Like if if I die tomorrow don't be like, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Then it loses its magic. DSH: hey, my AI design book survived. You know, it's not. It's like I you know, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Thank God. DSH: this is a project. Every every pre-order book came from my house, signed, hand stamped, I handled every book. stickers. So so for me it's just like when I when I take on a pr it is a project. And at a certain point, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: it's it's my project, but then it becomes a group project. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes, it expands to become everybody. DSH: And and and that's yeah, it expands become everybody and then and then you start, you know, getting the book out to readers. you you know, I mean again, you're so fantastic with the book. Kay West reads, love the book as well. She was in Canada. You know, I'm sure some people Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: are gonna be like, I'm not gonna ship a book to Canada. I was Yeah, it's expensive, but you know, where's the audience? You know, like s you know, spread the love. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: Kay did a a reel that went viral. And because of that, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: I I got a Spanish language deal in Argentina that we haven't announced yet. And Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's awesome. Surprise. DSH: you think that you think the cover is metal now, the the the cover sketches they sent from the one, I was like, Holy shit, this is fantastic. I want this. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: that's so exciting. DSH: and again, it's because I'm working with people that are excited about the book and they want to there. So with these Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I think I lost your voice. There you are. Okay, you came

back. You're back. DSH: these folks in Argentina, and we'll do an a a formal announcement at some you know soon this month, I think. They're excited about the book. They're got somebody doing the introduction, they've they've got an artist doing multiple illustrations, which was like the dream for me to have that done in an Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: edition. And, you know, why would you why would you go to the lap I mean why would you go to the laptop and plug in a prompt and have it spit out and just be like, yeah, there's no there's no investment. You know what I mean? There's no Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, there's no soul in it. And the soul's that's the point. DSH: There's no phone, there's no investment in it. And, you know, come to launch party, who are you gonna invite? You know? It's like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, who's gonna show up? Who's gonna care? DSH: hey, thanks for coming to my launch party. Here are the six laptops I used. and and I wish we could serve water, but Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, everyone please respect the laptops. Thank you. DSH: we'd use it all in creating the book cover. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, there's no water at this launch party, just out of respect. DSH: Yeah. Yeah, so f so for me in terms of art, the you know, the book is the artifact, like right. I want a physical book. We haven't the ebook will come soon. We're gonna be making an announcement about the audio book soon. which I'm super excited Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Nice. DSH: about. but I wanted the book to be a book and to stand on its own, you know, and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: I'm a Gen X physical media, right? The movies I want to watch in my old age I have on Blu-ray, right? you know, my son is much more of a digital, and I'm like, you know, those are all just licenses, those are gonna go away. And it finally happened. He had a game where they Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep. DSH: lost the license, the server went away, so we had to go to GameStop and buy the physical disc, and he's like, you know, this actually might be the disc I sold then. I'm like, yeah, it might be. But now you've got it. There's a reason. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep. Keep your physical media. DSH: There's there's a reason why because you're you'd you're not buying it, you're just licensing it. And that can go away Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: any time. So it's like, yeah, that's we gotta have the books the books needed a chance before we did the ebook or the audio book. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I agree with that. And I thought it I just thought it was awesome. I I really did think that it was it was just a super special book and it just it deserved a light and it just needed like just the right kind of light. And I'm just so glad that like the right light got shone on it. Now it's like everywhere and I'm like, Yes, more of this. DSH: Yeah, that that is that is nuts. I've had people who say hey in the wild, it's on Reddit, it's it's over here. And y you know, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's so cool. DSH: the when I was an undergrad, so my undergrad un my undergrad writing program was really pulp fiction, right? And I'm not I'm not saying Tarantino's pulp fiction, but talking about pulp fiction like, you know, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: scene, sequel, disaster, action, quandary, desi you know, cliffhanger, like propulsive, right? And then my undergrad or my grad school was a little bit more like on the literary side. So like I try to find that mix of like, can I add, you know, elevated prose and thematic elements while still keeping a a characters driving a plot where things happen and we're not just, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: you know, lamenting on the side of a cliff for thirty minutes, right? or thirty pages rather. and I've totally lost the thread. I don't have any idea what I was talking about. So yeah, so so it was about Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: No, that's totally fine. I was gonna ask, so I'll go for it. DSH: But they told me in undergrad they're like, yeah, writing, and this was, you know, decades ago. They're like, writing is only half of it, and then the half of it is marketing. And as a you know, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: late teens, early twenties student, I was like, What? No, no, no. See, I sell them the book and then they market and they send me around and I do this. And they were like, Yeah, that's not Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Nope. DSH: how it works. Like you gotta mark this is before social media was even around. So I was like, Well, how do you do that? Like, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It's even harder. DSH: well you have bookstores, book clubs, you got you know, this. So and that's that's been I've been marketing the book longer than it took me to write it. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: And and that has been spending and it's been, you know, a full not a full time job, but like, you know, five to six hours a day on Instagram, reaching out to people. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: Are they interested? Some people get back to you, some don't, you know, and then and then shipping out arcs, you know, signing them, stamping Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: them to the people there, sometimes, you know, typing up notes so it's personalized, you're just not feel you're just, you know, cutting and pasting the same text. And that takes time and it's an investment. And sometimes you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: never hear back from people you think you're gonna hear back from. and then sometimes somebody surprises you that like you, you just ready like, yeah, this is great, let's talk. you know, for nine months I was like, I'm delusional. I'm delusional. Like the cover is metal, people really like the cover. But I think Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: The cover was sick and that was my original I was like, cool. DSH: Are gonna read like a more blurry horror book about hunting Jesus? Like I

don't know. Like that might end up in the wrong hands. so it's just been it's just been thrilling to see it actually get some traction. and the publishers, you know, just like, my God, I ca I can't I can't believe it, you know. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha. DSH: that's great because, you know, she works hard as you know, works hard as well. So it's but that hustle is like, this is what it takes to break you have to know your craft, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's tough. DSH: you have to have a great idea. 'Cause I've had books that haven't gone anywhere. I've had screenplays that haven't gone anywhere. And it's just Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's the nature of writing. DSH: everything has to line up and then kind of pop and people take notice of it. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. And sometimes it just takes like luck is real and we don't like to talk about that, but sometimes it's just the right convergence of things. DSH: I mean, I'm out here in Hollywood and you saw I mean it is all it is all timing. I mean it's a little bit of can you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm. DSH: get the meeting when the and again it comes back to like are you prepared when you have the opportunity? Right? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: Are you prepared to have the opportunity and are you ready? You know, it's a series of marathons, right? You you finish that one marathon, you're like, jeez, I made it through the finish line. You're like, Wait, what? There's another marathon and I start in two hours? okay. You know, it's just Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, my reward is another one. DSH: Yeah, can't we can have a can have a glass of water and a Pop Tart, please? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah anything. DSH: because of social media and because of the bookstagrammers, I see a lot of people want to be writers. I see people that's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: like, hey, I'd like to be a writer, how do I start? Okay. Hey, I'm halfway through my first book. When should I start marketing it? It's like, let's finish the book first, let's rewrite it. You know, it's it's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Finished the draft, like, yep. DSH: It's clicking and downloading an album, which is great. but there's used to stuff in happening instantly that you know, to grow into a craft like there was the shortcuts, and that's the thing with generative AI. It's like, you know, it's not gatekeeping. It's you know, it's a shortcut to a craft you're not learning and you won't build a Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. DSH: family what what c what kind of Q and A are you gonna do if you use AI to produce your book? Like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, who's gonna what am I gonna ask someone in interview? Like, I love the process. What's the process? DSH: Nothing. Yeah, but you can say, you know what? Like twenty props to get it right, you know. Yeah, it's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It took like four sentences to get it right. Like DSH: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And like, I don't know, it's just I think there's it's I am just a huge believer that like it will all AI will always fall short 'cause of that like attention to detail and the requirement of the human element of the craft. And like even that that slog of the marketing is such a human element to it that like it needs to be human beings sharing this and communicating this, like that it's not replaceable, I think. That's just me. DSH: Yeah. I i I you know, I I killed my Twitter account. Over a decade ago, 'cause at one point I got on Twitter, I was I'd self published some books, so I was following people that self-published their books. I had a software program Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: where I would I would time, you know, I'd have ten or twelve tweets for the week, you know, two a day, I would have them time to send out. And then you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: know, people that I was following, if they tweeted, I did an automatic retweet. And then at one point you realize it's just bots talking to bots. Like there was you know, I engaged with like maybe three people Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, you're not like in it. DSH: the entire time I was on there. You have the same amount of followers as the people you're following because it's just everybody does the tit for tat, which is which is fine. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's the dead internet. DSH: But yeah right Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: what is it the where are we at now on the dead it's like it's more than 50 now right it's like 80 more than 90 percent of traffic is Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's crazy. It's like it's so much. DSH: bots and ai slop well double the the back when I was writing about it it was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. DSH: Doubling every year, every eighteen months it was doubling. I think exponential but I think Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ugh. That's crazy. DSH: I think I think that's I think that's accelerated now. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Probably. Like it's just gotten easier. yeah. So I don't wanna like I don't wanna take up too much more of your time. This is a subject that I could unfortunately talk about for hours and hours. so one of the DSH: We got time. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: one thing that I wanna make sure is like especially being indie, I wanna make sure people know where they can find you and where they can purchase your book that to the most to the best efficacy for you. So like where are you at? What's your handle? Where can they find you? Where can they buy book? Books plural. DSH: Okay. I'm at David dot Scott dot hey dot com. That's no, that's not right. I'm at David Scott Hay Official with little periods between all on Instagram. my publisher is Whiskey Tit, with an E. so you can just plug in whisky tit.com. you will go to a book site store, not another store. That might be dealing with something else. and just look in the book, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha. DSH: just go through the

books or plug in butcher into the search engine, it'll pop up. That's the best way to do it is to buy direct. Those get shipped directly from the publisher. Or if you're want to buy a bunch of indie books from different publishers, you can go to asterism.com. They've taken over the small press distribution. So you can go to their storefront and buy books from several small presses and then just pay one shipping. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Cool. awesome. DSH: Which is which is great. so yeah, so whiskey tip dot com or asterism dot com would be the best places and those benefit the publisher, the writers and you know, and the smaller businesses opposed to other places Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. DSH: where you go where, you know, they they make more money than you do. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep. And we want to make sure that we're putting money in the hands of artists as often as possible. It's my my personal belief. Well, thank you. I DSH: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: really appreciate you being my first victim for my long format. And honestly, like it's just been it's been so nice. DSH: Yeah, it's great. I I have a t I have a tendency to talk in essays, so I'm trying to get the answer shorter and shorter because I know you're Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. DSH: interested in the subject I can just like I can download on you. I need a I need this little egg timer. I love watching your videos 'cause you just like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I have the same problem. That's why I started on Instagram. DSH: I'm like, Yes, all of it Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I talk so fast and I'm like, I'm like, come on, just make your point. It's forced me to be concise, which is I I need that. But I've I've really just DSH: Yeah. I've I need to work on that. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: it's it's tough. It's a skill. But honestly, like this has been so much fun. I've really loved getting the chance to talk to you. I hope we get to talk again later, especially after you've had some announcements and we can talk a little bit more about what that's entailed. Cause I have now I have a whole new slate of questions to ask you. So well, thank you so much. I DSH: Yes, yes, yes, you'll do. Yes, yes, yes, yes. no, this is fantastic. Been fantastic, Sarah. You've been glory. And again, thank you so much for your support on this book. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Course. DSH: it's just it's you know, you hope something pops and then you're on to the next one and this one is popping and I'm enjoying I'm enjoying the moments of it, but I'm also like, and I also have to write the next one. There's always the next one. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Well, I look forward to what it is. There's always an it never stops. Like you you're done and then continue on. But I'm looking forward to the next one. And so I hope that we get a chance to know a little bit more about it next time we get the chance to talk. But thank you for DSH: Absolutely. Absolutely. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: thank you for your time and popping on and being Sarah's very first episode of Sarah Talks Bookish Stuff. DSH: Thanks for letting me do the first guest. Thanks, Tara.