Episode 352: Indigenous Horror with Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
/We’re joined by the editors of Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst. They talk about finding community online, what makes Native stories post-apocalyptic, and the expectation of writing horror.
You can pre-order Never Whistle at Night now!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of possession, colonialism, racism, gore, and tokenism.
Guests
Shane Hawk (enrolled Cheyenne-Arapaho, Hidatsa and Potawatomi descent) is a history teacher by day and a horror writer by night. Hawk is the author of Anoka: A Collection of Indigenous Horror and other short fiction featured in numerous anthologies.
Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (enrolled member, Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians) is the author of the novel Sacred Smokes, winner of the Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing, and Sacred City, winner of the Electa Quinney Award for Published Stories. His Pushcart-nominated fiction has been published in Southwest Review, Unnerving Magazine, Red Earth Review, The Journal of Working-Class Studies, Massachusetts Review, The Raven Chronicles, and Yellow Medicine Review, among others. He is a professor and chair of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends Safe and Sound by Mercury Stardust!
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editors: Brandon Grugle
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And we are so honored to be joined by the co-editors of Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, Shane Hawk, and Ted Van Alst. Welcome, guys.
SHANE: Hey, thanks for having us.
TED: Yeah, thanks for having us.
JULIA: It is absolutely our pleasure. We're so excited to get to promote the book and talk to y'all about the process in which it was made. And maybe some indigenous traditions that get highlighted in the book. How about to get us started, you could tell the listeners a little bit about what the anthology is all about?
SHANE: Sure. So it came about basically from Twitter, which no one really likes anymore, but it's where we all grew our careers, we made things happen on Twitter. But anyways, someone named Bear basically put out a awesome tweet that said, "Hey, when are we going to get a, you know, a native horror anthology?" And so Ted came across it first, and Ted actually had this idea brewing for years. And then he tagged me in it, and we just started getting the ball rolling. I think neither me or Ted were thinking that we were going to be at the helm of it. We were thinking, like, maybe we can help organize it, make it happen. And then just on a whim, I just started, I don't know, taking the reins, I guess. And I started private messaging established, you know, native authors, and saying, "Hey, would you be able to put in a horror story together?" We're reaching out to people that weren't really horror writers. You know, mostly in like literary circles. And everyone said yes. So it kept snowballing, and it was just amazing. Ted and I were originally thinking, you know, maybe a Kickstarter, GoFundMe something to kind of, you know, launch it. Then our— our buddy, Gabino Iglesias, was trying to help us out land an agent for this project. And maybe have an indie, you know, an indie publisher pick it up. And then I kept going around and getting more names on my list to, you know, try to write something for this thing. And I came across Cherie Dimaline, she was one of the only people that I had to speak to via an agent. Everyone else was just unprofessional DM. And her agent Rachel said, you know, "Cherie is, like, really down for this. She's excited. It sounds really cool. Do you guys have representation?" And by that time, I was like— like, "What does she mean by that? Like an agent or"— so we had a phone call, and then she was excited about the project after I tried to explain it, basically, half established names, half open call. And she was like, "Okay, let's go. Do you want to sign with me?" And then she became my literary agent, it's pretty crazy. And then from there, we wrote a proposal and shopped it out to Big Five. So, like, our minds were blowing. We're like, "What— there's— these big cats and, you know, New York and stuff." You know, we're— we're from the indie scene, really. And so it's all mind-blowing. We had crazy conference calls. I was substitute teaching at the time, and I was begging the principal, "Can I use your conference room? You know, some private space I can take these serious phone calls?" And, yeah, we landed with Penguin Random House. So three different inference, a global deal.
AMANDA: That's like the Big One of the Big Five.
SHANE: Right.
TED: Yeah.
SHANE: Yeah, it's the behemoth. And, yeah, we— we luckily landed with Anna Kaufman, who has been more than gracious during this whole process. Yeah, we love her so much, she's at Vintage. Yeah, it's— it all started from a tweet, and then now, we're, you know, on the precipice of releasing it in September and— yeah.
JULIA: The internet makes things happen.
SHANE: It does.
JULIA: Is what I've discovered talking to a bunch of authors, and— and editors, and stuff like that. It's like the internet just makes things happen because you can find community there that you might not be able to find elsewhere in the real world, so to speak, so—
SHANE: Yeah, really.
JULIA: That's amazing. That's so, so cool.
SHANE: A lot of us are signing up for Bluesky—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
SHANE: —if we can get an invite. You know, speaking of making things happen, where maybe couldn't in real life, we got our Anthology in the eyes— in front of the eyes of Neil Gaiman. He's like, "Whoa. Yeah, send me this. This sounds cool."
AMANDA: That's incredible.
SHANE: So we're going to send, you know, a copy to Neil Gaiman now. It's pretty neat.
JULIA: Amazing. Truly amazing. My dream, personally, is what you just said there.
AMANDA: Yeah. No, especially for all kinds of communities, and like queer and Jewish writers, I now have had the same experiences where people who would dismiss a query or a phone call as like, "Oh, well, the audience for that might be too niche." Or, "Oh, this might be, you know, too complex or not, quote, 'marketable.'" Which is a word people love to use in offices to, like, dismiss entire communities.
SHANE: Yeah.
AMANDA: You can say, "Um, actually, I have demonstrated interest, and there are whole communities that you can sell shit to, and who want to buy this kind of thing."
SHANE: Yeah, for sure.
JULIA: Now, Ted, for you, how is the experience of getting to work with all of these authors and reaching out, and everyone seemingly being so excited to be a part of it?
TED: It's been really wild to see this come together in this organic sort of way. I mean, the democratization of the internet can be wild at almost all times, and it can be ugly, and it can be beautiful, right? So this is one of those really good moments. I started thinking about this anthology— or started thinking about collecting this in some way. It was a long time ago, I was sitting there, and it was a native lit conference. And so we have lots of native folks and allied people, people in the discipline. And I noticed this thing over a couple of years, we'd be sitting in the hotel lobby, say, and just kind of telling stories, right? And when those folks went to bed, it was like just native people sitting around. We would tell the spooky stories or the story of this happened, and that happened. And I'm like, "There's something happened in here." So I'm like, "Let me try to do a little bit of research." And there was a— I don't know if it's still up or not, but on Facebook, right, because I'm old, I'm on Facebook for, like, 15 years.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
TED: There was a group, it was like Native Ghost Stories, and there are literally 10,000 plus of these stories in this Facebook group.
JULIA: Wow.
TED: So, you know, there are all kinds of different stories out there, and I'm like, "Man, we have so many cool stories." And I'm like— and every native story— you know, just by the fact of its existence is post-apocalyptic, right?
JULIA: Hmm.
TED: So we're living through some really wild stuff here. And so you have a sort of mix of traditional stories, new— so you can see where new influences will come into an older story, maybe, because, you know, they have a car or whatever happens, right? And so thinking about that— when I saw this— and Shane and I connected just on Twitter, because of horror and, you know, mutual interest and stuff like that, and then just started circling. I'm like, "Because— yes, we— I— we can do this, but is the time right, right? And so it just got this— and you could just see it sort of coming together. And like Shane said, everybody, I mean, we have like, big names, you know, who are like, "Oh, yeah, I'm down, I totally got a story. I could totally do this." And there are— you know, and looking at editing, because I— I edited a collection of Stephen Graham Jones work back in 2015, The Fast Red Road. And so thinking about how all these stories might come together, listening to people talking, there was this immediate response, and there are very few trunk stories. I think people were like Jazz, like, "Oh, yeah, this is the moment, right?" And maybe the story was trunk in their head or— or whatever. But, man, the stories have started coming, they started coming pretty quick. And Shane and I— and talking— and— and coming from, you know— and I mean, I publish with University Press. I have a couple of my own things out, but basically independent, like how this might look, we were really committed to having an open call portion, because we know there are so many writers, especially in our community that don't get looks from the Big Five, from big publishers, editors, agents. And so we thought this would be an opportunity to get some stories out there. And I've seen some reviews and three of the four— like these bangers, like three of those came from the open call.
AMANDA: It's incredible.
TED: So I know that we— you know, we did the right thing and doing this. And, you know, yeah, we got an advance and also— but we paid all the authors, like right up front. We just— we— you know, we got everybody paid, that was really important to do that. So to see it come together in this way and to gauge the interest thus far, and what the feedback has been from the press has been really satisfying.
SHANE: Yeah, definitely.
JULIA: We love to hear it.
TED: Yeah. It's great to see in those reviews and— I mean, my opinion is of all this— I love all the stories, but the opinion of other people, they're seeing this stuff. And now, the reviews are like— I've been introduced to writers that I really want to read now, right? And so this should give other folks momentum to get out there, and I— you know, I sent my novel off to Rachel, our agent on this and she's like, "Maybe not for me, but I know who might like this." So now I got an agent out of it, too. And I was like, "There goes all my indie cred." You know, a punk rocker from way back and always in my own promotion. So, it's been really shifting, like life-shifting in that way. I never ever thought I would have— be represented by an agent, like a cool agent, right? Who represents Geddy Lee too, right? So I mean, that's just wild for me. It's really cool. It's been a really good ride so far.
JULIA: Yeah. And like the amazing part is like— and we talk about this a lot in, like, publishing or in, like, any creative space. Like, getting the door open for yourself and then holding the door open for people behind you—
TED: Yes.
JULIA: —and this project, in general, feels like something of that spirit.
TED: Definitely.
SHANE: Yeah. It was really important for the open call, because— I don't know. Like, we were trying to do our market research, and I don't think it had been done at that level before. So, we were trying to make strides and changing things for natives all around. You know, natives in the whole publishing industry is like 1%, so we're trying to increase that. And just the open call portion of it, you know, we— we fielded calls where some editors were saying, like, "Hmm, you know, no name authors, it's really hard. You know, tough sell. So, let's reduce your number." You know, we're— we're originally aiming for, like, seven stories, I think it was. It was a soft number. And then I remember whenever phone calls, they were like, "Um, how about one or two?"
JULIA: That's it?
SHANE: So they wanted, like, all big names, and then maybe one or two smaller names, you know, emerging writers. And Ted and I, we're like, "Uh, yeah, I'm not sure about that." And then something that, you know, made our eyes go wide with Anna at Vintage was her question before we ended the phone call was, "Are you tied to that seven number? You know, how about 8, 9,10?"
AMANDA: There you go.
SHANE: And here we are with, you know, basically 50/50 of open call and established names, so it's all very cool.
JULIA: Amazing. A sign of a great agent, in that case. Yeah.
TED: She's the goods.
JULIA: Yeah, we'd love to see it.
SHANE: Yeah.
TED: She's the goods, for sure.
SHANE: Yeah.
JULIA: So I want to ask this question, because I feel like this is a good segue into why our listeners should pick up the book, besides the fact that it's featuring some wonderful native writers, but the title. Someone might look at that title and be like, "Never Whistle At Night, why would you not whistle at night?" Can you guys talk a little bit about the story of why you shouldn't whistle at night? At least maybe the story that you might have heard growing up? And then why in general, it is considered a bad thing to do?
SHANE: Yeah. I mean, my dad told me, I don't know, when I was maybe 7 or 8. I think we were fishing and the sun was going down. And he jokingly just said, you know, "Hey, I know you like to whistle to music and stuff, but don't be whistling out here." And I was like, "What are you talking about, dad?" And so he explained to me, "You know, if you ever"— you know, he heard this from his dad, basically Hidatsa, basically, you know, "If you hear a whistle, don't answer back with the whistle or just don't in general whistle because you might invite a spirit to latch on to you and bring it home, within the confines of your, you know, your home." So it was kind of like inviting it in. You know, sometimes he had stories of possession, you know, where the spirit can actually go inside you and control you and stuff. And so that always creeped me out. And actually my story within— you know, both Ted and I wrote a story for this anthology, too. And it's a possession story, basically, based on a family lore story from my dad and grandpa. So it's, you know, half fiction, half fact. When Ted and I were brainstorming a title, we chose an umbrella term dark fiction, right? Because we— you know, it's— you have to, sadly, put some marketing thought into there, instead of just kind of being punk rock, and, like, you know, "F it. Let's just name it what we want." But dark fiction, I think we chose that because it's softer than horror. Even though a lot of these stories are pretty hardcore. It kind of invites more readers to kind of delve into horror, because, you know, maybe they— they only know horror as Hostile or Saw.
AMANDA: Hmm.
SHANE: And then they don't know what, you know, horror can bring, so we went on with that umbrella term, and then thinking about Never Whistle At Night. Ted and I, we're really thinking about, "Okay, what's"— you know, we're trying to get stories from natives from all over.
AMANDA: Hmm.
SHANE: And our open call, you know, we didn't really have a ton of help. Vintage and Penguin, they couldn't help us with the open call portion. It was all on us because of some laws. And so, you know, our social media following was pretty small, but our— our reach was— we're trying to go for global Indigenous stories, you know, from all over.
AMANDA: Hmm.
SHANE: And we did receive some from all over. But in the end, I think the strongest stories ended up being— you know, those indigenous to the North America, above the imaginary border and, you know, down here. And we're trying to think of a universal kind of a— a warning title because that's some of our favorite titles in horror movies.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
SHANE: And so we're trying to think of— kind of— you know, we weren't trying to go for something like Pan-Indian, but something that really spoke to a lot of different peoples, you know, in the creepy kind of way. And, you know, both me and Ted definitely knew about whistling at night. And we're just kind of throwing ideas back and forth. I think it was just a text message. And I think Ted came up with Whistling At Night and then I kind of spun it with like the VHS horror title like—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
SHANE: —Never Whistle At Night.
TED: Yeah, yeah.
SHANE: Like a warning.
AMANDA: So good.
SHANE: Now all the stories go into this idea that, "Hey, what if what if we do whistle at night?" It's not, you know, a theme that where— it's just the title that we chose because it's kind of universal in a horror, creepy kind of way, like a warning.
TED: It's sort of never whistle at night or else, right?
SHANE: Yeah.
TED: And— and that's the implied part. And then you open the book, what happens? All these things kind of happen, right? And so I think we got it. And one of the things I wanted to add, when Shane was talking, we tried to go for as larger reach as possible. This book will be simultaneously released in the US and Canada, so there's—there are people involved on both sides of that border. And, you know, to have people like Waub Rice and Richard Bandcamp, and Cherie Dimaline, I'm really excited to see both the reception, but— but how it's doing. The first thing I got asked to do off this book is for the Toronto Public Library series.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
TED: So I'm really, really excited for that. And having people in our family that come from both sides of that border, that's really important to me. So, yeah, having lived up North for a long time, people like to read. I was like, "Don't sleep on Canada. Boy, those people like to read and they are dedicated to their books." So, I'm— I'm excited for— to come up there, too.
JULIA: That's fair. Not a lot to do in the wintertime when there's like three feet of snow outside—
TED: Exactly.
JULIA: —like you're— you're inside reading probably.
TED: Might as well read and not whistle.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I feel like a lot of times in— and this is an unfortunate thing, but in kind of the Western colonial mind, a lot of the stories of, like, native and indigenous people tend to be, like, squished together, like, "Oh, well, obviously, the stories of the— the Cherokee are going to be the same as the Algonquin, is the same as the Pueblo or something like that." And I think that this is a great way of, like, showing like, "No, these traditions are, in fact, like— while they're like might be somewhat of a throughline, like there's not necessarily like— these are not the same people sharing the same exact stories." Was that something that you wanted to highlight in choosing either how the stories were ordered or something in choosing the stories that you chose?
TED: You bring up a good point. Sort of for the over culture, there's this— yeah, and I always go back to like— remember the maps when we were little kids, right? There's all of North America, and there's like the mohicans and the wigwam, and there's this— there's this like— like the sparsely populated, and so why wouldn't it be the same? But we're the most diverse of the diverse groups, right, when you talk about diverse groups. What are we at, 576 federally recognized tribes, hundreds of state-recognized tribes? There's a lot of diversity there. And I— I think there wasn't an active, per se, choosing of, you know, like, geographic diversity or tribal diversity, it just happened pretty naturally in that way. And—
JULIA: Hmm.
TED: —for me, I'm a city kid, I'm an urban guy. I grew up in Chicago, so it's very important to me— you know, most folks live in urban areas now and so it was really important to me to show, "Okay, yeah, there's— this— this takes place in the city as well." So I wrote a very Chicago— even a Southside story. So, it was really important to me that we— that we have that. And I think we've shown, you know, from Alaska, down to the desert outside of Tucson, and you know, from the West Coast to the— I think we— we've covered really a large, large area within that, just sort of naturally happen that way, which was really exciting, too.
SHANE: Yeah. I mean, for story order, the most important thing wasn't really grouping, you know, ideas or concepts outside of tribes, and, you know, trying to make thematic sections. I think, because it's a horror anthology, we're concentrating mostly on, like, the roller coaster of emotions. And so the way we kind of structured it was, you know, hills and valleys, just like they amp up and they kind of calmed down a little bit.
AMANDA: Little relief, a little pause.
SHANE: Yeah. Different lengths. And so I think, basically, the final order is a really good selection of, you know, going up, down, up, down, and not trying to draw the reader with too much gross or too much, you know, slow burner. You know, so that's what we were trying to do with the story order.
TED: You got a little comic relief in there, too.
SHANE: Yeah. Yeah, natives are funny, man.
TED: Yeah, man. For real, for real.
SHANE: Yeah. There— there is, you know, this thing that we're trying to combat online, even in, you know, reviews of my own collection and OCA, is this idea of indigenous culture as like monolithic or Native American language. I— I come across these posts all the time that, "How do you say blah, blah, blah in Native American?"
AMANDA: What the hell?
SHANE: You know? Yeah.
AMANDA: Come on.
SHANE: Well, there's a lot of languages, bro.
TED: Yeah.
AMANDA: Do one Google?
TED: Yeah, right?
JULIA: One Google.
SHANE: Yeah. Seriously, I— I just came across a Quora post that said that.
AMANDA: Oh, boy.
SHANE: Or it's like, you know, people that just don't know. But I don't like preaching to people, but I— like, you know, through entertaining kind of teaching people, I guess. I'm a— you know, I'm a high school history teacher, so I guess I do like lecturing, but—
AMANDA: Only in a half-hour chunks.
TED: Yeah. Right.
SHANE: Yes. Well, my classes are two hours, it's a little tough.
JULIA: Oh. Oh.
TED: Woah.
SHANE: But— yeah, it's— so it's— it's weird, you got to sort of educate through your stories and make sure people don't think that there is one indigenous culture, which I keep seeing on Twitter and Facebook, and kind of everywhere, just this idea that, "Oh, it's all the same." You know, even down to the stories. And there is overlap in a lot of tribes, like all the tribes that I'm, you know, either enrolled or a descendant of, our plains tribes, and there's a lot of overlap with stories. You know, like with Arapaho, little people are very evil.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
SHANE: And some other tribes, you know, they're more mischievous. So there's definitely overlap, shared legends, shared, you know, beliefs, ideas, but it's important to not kind of paint all of us with one brushstroke, I guess. And hopefully, this antho shows it.
TED: I think one— one of the things, maybe for your listeners, that it's important to talk about here. When Shane's talking about educating and other things, it made me think of how— whether, you know, it's something in the popular realm, like smoke signals, or it's a book that everybody loves, or any other kind of media production. It's really important to not read those as ethnographies, right?
SHANE: Uh-hmm.
TED: People write fiction, people make movies. It's not a documentary, you know? And I teach literature and film, so I'm really cognizant of this thing. And that's the case here, too. Not all of these stories are based on legends. They're not always based on, you know, a traditional story. Some people just straight up writing fiction, right? They want to write a good story, something that, you know, is dark and— and has this— this nominal relation, like we talked about in this post-apocalyptic world. But the artistic and cultural production of native people is often taken as either utilitarian or ethnographic. And that's the wrong way to read that, you know? You have to— you have to experience people as human beings who are just trying to create something. And while people are embedded in their culture, it's really important to them, their— whether it's their spiritual traditions or whatever it happens to be. Not everything they produce for consumption is about that or telling about that. Sometimes it's just like— you know, it's for the aesthetic quality. We just want to create art.
SHANE: Uh-hmm.
TED: And— and, you know, you just want to be a good human and make good art some days. And— and it's not always about teaching, but if people learn something on the way, you're doing your job. So when you look at it that way, I think— I want readers and listeners to know these are— some of these are based, some of these are traditional, some of these are just straight up, like, "Let's get wild. Let's tell the story in this way." So, yeah, the cautionary piece is to not— not go, "Wow, all those Lipan Apaches are just like that." You know? No, it's just one person, one artist doing their thing. So, I think— I think that's an important part maybe to bring up.
SHANE: Hmm.
JULIA: Yeah. No, that 100% makes sense. And, you know, one person can only tell the story of themselves and their own experiences, and I— that's such a great point. Thank you so much for bringing that up, Ted.
SHANE: Yeah.
TED: No worries.
AMANDA: Yeah. And hopefully, a amount of creative freedom and relief provided to your authors when— you know, you're not the single indigenous story or the single Native American contributor to an anthology.
SHANE: Yeah.
AMANDA: You know, you’re in a good company among 20 plus other authors doing the same thing. And hopefully, the next, you know, 5, 10, 15 projects greenlit at other publishers after they see the strong sales record and great reception to Never Whistle At Night, means that you can have the different collections, intersections, different freedoms afforded to writers, besides that, like, oppressive weight of— of like tokenism or being the single representation in a given group.
TED: Yeah.
SHANE: Yeah, for sure.
JULIA: So many more questions that we want to ask you, guys, but first, we need to take a quick break and go grab a refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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AMANDA: Hello, hello, welcome to the refill. Welcome, most of all, to our newest patrons, Chris, Joey, and La Via Boheme. Now, La Via, you are not the person who corrected me in one of our patron-only features that I incorrectly did math based on there being 575,600 minutes in a year. In fact, it is 525,600 minutes in a year, that's on me. But thank you for reminding me by signing up for Patreon to listen to Rent, and I did spend the entire weekend listening to the soundtrack on repeat. So welcome to the Patreon, and welcome and thank you to all of you who have committed to supporting this independent podcast with your hard-earned human dollars. We can only do this because of the support that you give us on Patreon. So please, if you have an extra few bucks in your budget during the month, this is a great time. Help us finish the year strong and come on, go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Thanks to both our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Froody Chick, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And our legend-level patrons, Arianna, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. Now, I don't know if you remember, but Julia let you know last week that we do have new merch for sale if you go to spiritspodcast.com/merch. We have an updated logo T-shirt, five tarot card designs on a black T-shirt. I know some of you were like, "Love the tarot design, don't necessarily want a green shirt." There you go, you got a black T-shirt now and you can choose your design. It's amazing, go check it out. This week, I would like to recommend a book that I— I haven't been this excited to get a physical book in a very long time. I try very hard only to buy books that I know I'm going to want to reread, because two English majors live in my house and we have a lot of books. And I picked up Mercury Stardust's, Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair. Now, I'm a— a medium handy person. I grew up, you know, like hanging pictures and fixing stuff, and, you know, like making sure my door frames aren't squeaky and my hinges, et cetera. But Mercury does an incredible job of making lots of different kinds of home repair tasks, especially for renters, like me, incredibly easy to understand. I love her TikToks, I love her content, but her book is really, really something else. She is a New York Times bestseller now, I'm so proud of her. And there are definitely independent bookstores near you, or if not bookshop.org, where you can go ahead and pick up Safe and Sound. As always, all the books we recommend on the show and that are written by our guests are listed on spiritspodcast.com/books. Now, lots going over at Multitude as always. In this week, I'd love to tell you about Games and Feelings where I was just a guest on a live show in Manchester, England. My first live show outside the country and my first one in-person in quite a while. So it was so exciting, and I love that show. It's an advice podcast all about games of every kind, video games, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, all those kinds of things. And if you want compassionate advice, and some really interesting insights into the games industry, you got to go ahead and check it out. Go to gamesandfeelings.com or look for Games and Feelings in your podcast app. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. And I actually come and record these mid-rolls after therapy pretty often. And I was saying to my therapist today, how exciting it is to have someone to help me figure out goal setting. It's something that I don't always give a ton of attention to in my day-to-day life. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I got this. I know what I'm doing." It's easy to get overwhelmed with kind of the like day-to-day responsibilities and forget, but, you know, I got to think about like big-picture stuff every once in a while. And therapy is a really, really good place to talk about it. I know that until I was able to find a therapist who was affordable and taking new patients and I kind of got along with, who could see me in person here in New York City, which has, like, thousands of therapists. I couldn't for many years, and BetterHelp was super, super helpful during that time. So if you're thinking of starting therapy soon, if you can't safely access therapy in person where you are now, if you're looking for something to kind of bridge the gap, or you want to kind of dip your toe in and try it. Try BetterHelp, it's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Let therapy be your map with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/spirits today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits. We are also sponsored this week by Ravensburger. Now, this is a fabulous sponsor that I'm so excited to have on the show, and lots of you are as well. And you can go ahead and enjoy honestly the most high-quality jigsaw puzzles there are. They are kind of like the top names in jigsaw puzzles. You may not know their name necessarily, but if you look at the logo on the puzzle box, you're like, "Oh, yeah, those are like the good puzzles that I keep in the closet and don't like regift or donate, because they are really, really good." They date back to 1883, actually, and they've been a part of people's lives for generations, really. And if you want to, like me, kind of take a moment to, you know, listen to a podcast, or music, or maybe just clear your head and do something with your hands that you are going to feel really accomplished at the end of, a puzzle is incredible. They have puzzles from just like 9 or 10 pieces, all the way up to 40,000 pieces. Maybe one day I'll have a table big enough for that. But I know my grandma and I love to trade Ravensburger puzzles because we know they are high- quality, they're beautiful, and you're really going to enjoy it. So go ahead and check out Ravensburger puzzles on Amazon, at your local game or hobby store, or on their website. We have a link in the description. Again, that's Ravensburger Jigsaw Puzzles. And now, let's get back to the show.
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JULIA: We are back and what have you guys been enjoying lately in terms of drinks? Cocktails? Mocktails? What have you? Like, what's been your— your drink of choice lately?
TED: Then I was in this restaurant chain before we go back and— and I was with my bro and they— they don't drink alcohol at all, right? So he's like, "Can I get Arnold Palmer?" And the waiter is like, "How about a John Daly?" I'm like, "No, don't." He goes, "What's that?" I'm like, "Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't." He's like, "I think the Arnold Palmer is just they dump vodka in it."
AMANDA: Don't entice me.
TED: "You're gonna love it." I'm like, "No, don't do that, man. Don't do that."
JULIA: Oh, teenage Julia has had too many of those, I think.
AMANDA: Yeah.
TED: John Daly's.
SHANE: Yeah, it was funny. I recently went to Pittsburgh for StokerCon, and I'm from San Diego, so I grew up with— I don't really drink a lot, right? So I had a heavy drinking period from 21 to, like, 26, and I kind of just do it for celebratory reasons now. And I kind of wanted to get fucked up over there, so I asked them for AMF or Adios, Motherfucker. That's a very popular, well-known drink over here. And they're like, "What did you just say?"
AMANDA: Oh, no.
SHANE: "What are you asking for? Are you asking for a Blue Long Island Iced Tea?" And I was like, "I guess."
AMANDA: Oh, no.
SHANE: He made that for me, and I guess it was kind of like— kind of the same, so I was like— I was the only guy at the bar with a blue drink, but it was fun.
TED: Oh, man.
AMANDA: I went to Philadelphia and as my favorite thing to get out is like a beer shot combo. I just think they're really interesting. People do them different ways and like interesting combinations.
SHANE: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And in Philly, I was so excited to get the city-wide, like the Philly version of that. I went to three different bars and asked for one. They were like, "I don't know, man." And I was like, "I— I've been misled by culture. I— I don't know what I'm doing here."
SHANE: Someone on TikTok lied.
AMANDA: Yes.
TED: Right? Chicago's Boilermaker, that's the— just— you know, that's the standard—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Hmm.
TED: —you know, well whiskey drop in the—
SHANE: Hmm.
TED: —draft or whatever. But, man, I had— my— my daughter is an archaeologist and she had this conference here, and this Pawnee bro, this like nephew of mine, we're at— we're at this bar and I get this charged, like, on my card for an AMF. I'm like, "Dude, what are you doing, man?" He was just all— he Venmoed me the money and I sent it back to him, but I'm like, "Dude. Yeah, dude."
AMANDA: It's on him to make a good impression on you.
TED: Right.
SHANE: Yeah.
TED: What are you doing?
JULIA: Yeah.
TED: You want me to help with your dissertation. You should probably not charged drinks to my card. It's like— yeah.
JULIA: Amazing.
AMANDA: Something else I am really excited about in reading this anthology and recommending it to our listeners, and then I think they'll also be really jazzed about, is reminding nonnative readers that Native American histories are ongoing and cultures are present, vibrant, growing, and not a relic of the past, which is a, you know, narrative of colonialism that we, as a culture, don't do a great job of undoing. And so often, when we run into the presence of indigenous people in horror and in dark fiction, they may be a specter of the past. And so how did you guys approach kind of writing and editing a vibrant current contemporary anthology of horror involving Native Americans that is not a archaeological and historical relic of the past?
SHANE: I would say it was all on the writers' shoulders. They came at us with, you know, incredibly poignant, contemporary stories, you know? Another thing that we have to combat online, you know, on Goodreads, Twitter, et cetera, is the assumption that you're a native horror, you know, writer, why isn't there folklore in the story?
AMANDA: Hmm.
SHANE: Or where's the legend? Where's Thunderbird, you know? So, we had very loose guidelines because we don't want to restrict creativity. We just said, "Hey, you know, we know that you're not"— not all of them, but quite a few of the writers, you know, more literary, you know, outside of genre, to an extent. And we just said, "Hey, just write us a creepy, cool story. You get to choose the subject, you get to choose everything about it. Just make it creepy. Make it— sell it to us, make it really fun, engaging." We didn't say, "Hey, you have to— you know, you have to talk about treaties. You don't have to talk about blood quantum." They just kind of came up with things and we kind of, you know, hand-picked things that cover pretty much everything. It was just all on them, really. You know, including Ted and I, we have 26 stories, so 24 outside of this. And they're all just amazing, you know, wide-ranging, covering all sorts of things, boarding schools, blood quantum, Catholic church, just all sorts of things, even traditional stories. And sorry, I think that is my cat behind me, Poeso.
JULIA: Perfect.
TED: I think maybe— I'm trying to think of their historical and— and probably the oldest ones— mine is set in the '70s, the— because to me— I just missed the '70s, growing up in the '70s. And all the fun stuff happened there.
SHANE: Hey, mine is in the '70s.
TED: You— you missed a lot, man. I think— I think every one of them is pretty contemporary. They may draw on historical moments, but for the most part the settings are contemporary, and I think that was an unintended good thing, right? That people will be like, "Oh, it's not the myths and legends." And I— I think there's something that happens there and the desire for myths and legends. I think the over-culture desires native people to be myths and legends as well.
AMANDA: Yeah.
SHANE: Yeah.
TED: Like it— whether— whether assimilation, relocation, reservation, per— all of those things is to sort of push us into the past, right? It's always the— the— the dying Indian trope or whatever.
AMANDA: Exactly. Elsewhere a relic of the past.
TED: Yeah. Exactly.
AMANDA: Yeah. I think you can engage with— for thrill and jollies, like it's a gross impulse no matter how you slice it.
TED: One of my favorite directors, Jim Jarmusch, was like in an interview, he's like, "It was— it's a terrible thing." He goes, "But Americans see Indians like dinosaurs."
AMANDA: Hmm.
TED: Like, these are things of the past that don't exist, you know? And even though he made Dead Man set long ago, I think he— he's very— he's very aware of, you know, Gary Farmer and Ghost Dog and things like that. I mean, he's— he's one of those guys who gets it a little bit. So, it's nice to know that these are all very contemporary, for the most part.
SHANE: Yeah. Yeah. And speaking on that, just trying to combat the idea that, you know, like the Magical Negro trope, we have to deal with sort of that kind of thing and native circles as—well, not within native circles, but from outsiders, basically. Where's the medicine man? You know, where's— where's the curse?
TED: The wise elder?
SHANE: The burial grounds and all that? Yeah, like they— they did in Antlers.
TED: Yeah.
SHANE: Sort of.
TED: Oh, my God.
JULIA: In terms of horror, because you're both horror writers, what is it about that genre? I know that we— we talked about classifying this anthology in particular as dark fiction, but your background is horror. What is it about horror that drew you to it as a genre, as a whole?
SHANE: Well, I'm a latecomer for horror fiction, because I— I'm a late bloomer with reading. I read as a child, and then it just kind of died, and I became a movie buff. I guess it's lazier, it's more passive. But I didn't start reading untiI I was— well, seriously reading until I was 26 and going back to college, and trying to get my degree and stuff. But there was just a big kind of blank area where I just kind of read maybe one or two books. And I got into horror like— well, I've always been into horror movies. You know, let's get that straight, I guess.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
SHANE: I mean, my dad pranked me when Blair Witch came out on VHS and told me he found it at a garage sale.
AMANDA: No!
SHANE: He said, "Hey, let's"—he tore off the label and said, "Hey, let's, uh, let's watch this. I just bought it at this neighbor's garage sale. Let's see what's on it." And I think he fast forward it—
JULIA: That's so mean.
SHANE: —you know, past all the credits and all that and, like, just showed shaky cam.
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
SHANE: I was like— as a nine-year-old, I was like, "What the hell is this? This is the creepiest thing." And I was just haunted and then—
AMANDA: Shane, did your dad want a horror writer as a kid? Because it feels like—
TED: Horror writer.
AMANDA: —he kind of engineered this for you.
SHANE: It's possible, yeah. But, you know, upon growing up, I think we all— everyone in my family has inclination for horror or like horrific things. It's kind of weird. Like my— my aunt, she cleans bloody medical devices and stuff, like all the organs.
AMANDA: Wow.
SHANE: And— oh, I don't know. But I'm not sure if I could do that. But— I don't know. I've always been drawn to the dark stuff.
AMANDA: You— you can describe it.
SHANE: Yeah. And— yeah. I mean, he showed me Slashers as a kid. And then, you know, later on, I was 27, I think, 2017, my wife started to tell me to read these literary horror books like Brian Edmondson, Michael Wehunt. And I would say, "Okay. This is pretty rad. I kind of like this a lot." And so I started to do a deep dive into horror. Now, I still have a lot of catching up to do. But what really made me a horror writer was Stephen Graham Jones' Mapping the Interior. I read that in summer 2019, and it just kind of blew my mind. It felt like it was written for me. This is before I interacted with anyone on Twitter. You know, I was kind of like a loner, kind of like self-isolated, not really connecting with, you know, the writer world yet. So I didn't know who Stephen was. I didn't really delve into, you know, native fiction that much at that point, either. Just fiction in general, because I was trying to read the whole world. And it really spoke to me and I was like, "Man, this guy, he's Native American, and he's writing creepy stuff. And it blows your mind, and maybe I can try this too." Not saying I'm gonna be on his level ever, but I at least tried to take a stab at it, try to create my own kind of creepy stories. And that's what really pushed me. And then I became a teacher and went into that program to get a credential and that was hell. In a— in a way for, like, being busy, and so I didn't really write any short stories until summer 2020, and then that's when I put out my collection. And that's kind of where it all started with Stephen Graham Jones. And then it's weird to call him a friend now and, you know, have dinner with him. And— and, you know, book editors and stuff, it's crazy.
AMANDA: Amazing.
JULIA: That's amazing. What a journey.
SHANE: Yeah.
TED: Wild. I was an early reader, so I mean, I read The Decameron and I was like, eight or nine, I was one of those weirdo kids. And definitely through film— we were talking about this the other night. My youngest just graduated the film degree and really way into horror like— like— yeah. And I didn't do that. I didn't— I just— they saw everything that I saw and— and they made their own choices.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
TED: But the reading part, growing up— you know, reading Stephen King, reading Clive Barker, getting to meet Clive Barker, things like that, it just— those things kind of shape you and they sort of build that little world around you. But what I find really interesting, being a comp lit— having a Ph.D. in comp lit and literary theory, and all those kinds of things. And— and— and the question was a good one because I hadn't really thought about it before, was that— well, a lot of— particularly in the '80s, in— in that era, horror is really conservative.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
TED: This— this— you do this, this will happen to you X. You know, A plus B equals C. But in fiction, it's different. It doesn't— you don't have those same constraints. And those constraints of horror as a genre are transferable, right? And so when you look at just from a theoretical standpoint, we're gonna talk about native fiction as being like magical realism, and it's not. It—native fiction is just native fiction. It's just realism, right? And so the horror genre allows space for you to introduce things, right? That you would have to explain otherwise. But because folks know what you're writing, what you're talking about, of course, coyote appears in the story, because why wouldn't it? It's a coyote moment. So a coyote shows up and they're like, "Well, is that a metaphor?" "No, it's not a metaphor. It's like— it's like in Louise Erdrich's Tracks, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
TED: Does Pauline turn into an owl? Yeah. How else is she gonna sit on that branch like that? She's a big girl, she'd fall right out of the tree. So there's these kind of moments within that—within both literary fiction, but in horror in particular, that allow you to introduce worlds with far less explanation for the reader, right? The expectations are different. And I think— while maybe the film is conservative, the literature is totally liberating, and— and you can do so much more with it. So thanks for bringing that up. Now, I'm gonna have to nag my students and make them read more horror, so—
AMANDA: Yay.
JULIA: I'm always down for more students reading more horror, that's just me.
TED: Yes. Yes.
JULIA: The final question I wanted to ask y'all was, featuring a story that both of you wrote in the collection, how did you go about approaching kind of what sort of story you want to tell? Because I don't know, in the process, if you wrote your stories first, and then you did the editing of the collection, or if you looked at what stories were being submitted, and then decided, "Oh, brain blast. I'm going to write about this." So, how did you go about picking the story that you ended up telling?
SHANE: You know, just going into it, I definitely wanted to include, you know, a story from actual family, and including some— I guess what people call family lore. I originally wrote the story around the time that we were doing the open call, to kind of be respectful to the other writers, too. Kind of put myself on the same deadline. And then it was— I think I was talking to my grandma, yeah, and she was kind of, like, iffy about me including that, that particular story. So, you know, to be respectful for— to my grandma and my family, I think she just mostly didn't want it down in written word.
AMANDA: Hmm.
SHANE: And, you know, profitable and, you know, selling it.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
SHANE: So, I just went with a different story, you know, still from my dad, still about, you know, him and my grandpa out there hunting. That was the most important part, was— I think it's really cool being able to, you know, transport back to the '70s, something I never experienced. But just listening to my dad, sitting down with him, allowing him to describe how his childhood was. You know, he moved all over. He was, you know, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Colorado. And just him describing this small amount of time that he lived in Northeastern Utah, and describing the way everything looks, smelled, his dog, his dad. How it was hunting in the winter, all that kind of thing. It was just really cool for me, kind of as a tribute to my grandpa, to also write a story that includes— you know, it's horrific, right? It's a horror story, but also including indigenous joy and love in it.
AMANDA: Hmm.
SHANE: Because there's, you know, moments and there were— my dad gets to bond with his dad. And then upon, you know, sending my dad the drafts to read, he gets to kind of revisit those memories.
AMANDA: Oh.
SHANE: So that was really cool for us.
JULIA: Amazing.
TED: You know, I— I took it as an opportunity to— to do something different, but not too different, right? I— because I— I know when I'm in the space where I'm writing the best, right, and that's Chicago. But I want to do something different, so it's the first one set on the South Side, but I'm like— and I want to have fun with this, and the South Side is really different from the North Side, because South Side has this really apparent racism, where the North Side, it's a little more nuanced, right? But I wanted to set the story out South, I want it to be different, but I wanted a monster, right? I want to write a monster story, too. And I wanted to— to sort of deconstruct racism, but it's— it's not even— I don't know that we're ever going to deconstruct racism, but it's a good spot to make fun of it. So, haha, look what happened at these white people in this story, right? And there— that's it, they're not central to the story. You think they are, but they're not central at all. And so I got to write this really fun story and to make some commentary about things, about— about allyship, about a lot of different things that happened in this story, and so I was really excited. And, frankly, it took me longer to come up with a title for the story than to write it, because I'm really kind of agonizing on how do I do this, and I'm a big fan of, like, Pixar, who— who makes films for two audiences, right? For the kids, but also for the parents who take them, right?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
TED: So we're always sort of working, and I think that happens in native lit a lot. There's a lot of haha moments, right? Like, you watch Reservation Dogs, that's great. Hahaha. And then people write you, "How come they barred the owls' eyes, right?" Because— so there's two— there's two stories happening within that at once and I just— I like clever, I like smart, I like language, I like to do all those kinds of things, but— but that story, I wanted to tell— tell a good story, set it out South, challenged myself a little bit, and set it in a— in a different milieu, right, in a different sort of arena. And I really— I really liked that story a lot, something different for me. And so this— this whole project reminds me to keep challenging myself. "Yeah, do write what you know, but also write what maybe you don't or what— or, you know, what's different to you to push you to make you do that work." Because—
SHANE: Uh-hmm.
TED: —when you do that, the stories— and the stories start to tell themselves, some really wild stuff can happen. So, yeah, that— yeah. Our story just started as a little commentary, it was like, "Oh, no, it's a big monster story." So it's really exciting for me.
JULIA: Amazing. Well, Shane, Ted, thank you so much for joining us here on Spirits. People can pre-order Never Whistle At Night right now. And where can they find you both on the internet if they would like to continue to follow your work?
SHANE: Sure. Just my name, .com, so shanehawk.com. You know, it's hard to know— Twitter was my main platform, but who knows the dumpster fire if it's gonna be extinguished or just keep burning. Among different ones, it's really turning into a job—
JULIA: Yeah.
SHANE: —to check everything.
TED: Yeah.
SHANE: So just shanehawk.com.
TED: I'm gonna have to get a big boy website like that, the my name.com, but right now, I'm just tvayyyy. So T-V-A, and then just four Y's. So tvayyyy everywhere, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky. But, yeah, I pro— I— here, I'm gonna pledge right here. I will get a big boy website, so it's all good.
JULIA: Well, thank you so much again. And remember, listeners, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
TED: Yeah.
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