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Keith Rosson is a living testament to how hard work and taking the long road can pay off. He’s the author of several novels, and the award-winning short story collection, Folk Songs For Trauma Surgeons, all published through Meerkat Press. His latest novels, Fever House and The Devil By Name, are published through Random House. And he got an endorsement from Stephen King! No big deal, right?
Though this recent duology is in the horror genre, these novels are character-driven and contain crime thriller elements and punk rock vibes, leaving them almost undefinable. Genre-defying, some may say.
Keith talks to Jeniffer and Chad about his rise into the world of the Big Five and the differences between working with a huge publisher vs a small press. They discuss negotiations, marketing, and the work that goes into all of it. He tells them about how he developed his characters and his writing process, and how punk rock and the city of Portland shaped his vision.
If you like horror, crime fiction, punk rock, or just a good success story, you’ll love this episode.
You can find out more about Keith and buy his books through the links below.
Keith’s Website: https://www.keithrosson.com/
Instagram: @rossonkeith
Twitter/X: @keith_rosson
Creators & Guests
Host
Producer
Chad Thompson
Chad Thompson, co-founder of Monkey C Media, offers professional photography and videography services. He has an eye for detail and a command of lighting that gives him the ability to show his subjects at their very best. You can count on seeing Chad around South Park on his bicycle with a camera slung over his shoulder. If he has never taken a picture of you, chances are good you have never met him.
What is The Premise?
Here on The Premise Jeniffer and Chad Thompson talk to storytellers of all types. From authors to musicians, poets, screenwriters, and comedians we get down to the tiny grain of sand that becomes a pearl—getting to the story behind the storyteller.
>> Jeniffer: Hello and welcome to the premise. I'm Jennifer
Thompson.
>> Chad Thompson: And I'm Chad Thompson.
>> Jeniffer: And I've got a little bit of a scratchy throat here today, folks. But bear with
me. It's going to be an awesome interview. In fact,
we're interviewing Keith Rozin for the second time. We
had him for his book Road seven, which was phenomenal.
Go get it. And that was episode 19, I
believe. Wow.
>> Chad Thompson: And then we skipped a book with him.
>> Jeniffer: We did.
>> Chad Thompson: And now we're onto this one.
>> Jeniffer: Well, two books, I think. Is that right? How many
books have you written since road seven, Keith?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, I did. I did the, story collection.
That's right. Trauma surgeons. And then I did fever
house.
>> Jeniffer: That's right.
>> Chad Thompson: Last year.
>> Jeniffer: Okay. That's right. That's right.
>> Chad Thompson: And this is every book. Nobody
expects that.
>> Jeniffer: You know, I totally would. Keith, we love you. We are huge
fans, and we would absolutely interview you for every
single book. You'd be like, mm m, I've done that
one.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, the premise again.
>> Jeniffer: those people.
>> Chad Thompson: Right.
>> Jeniffer: So for our listeners, let's just tell them a little bit about Keith. Keith
Rozin is the author of the novels the devil by
name, which we're going to talk about today. Fever House,
smoke City, Road seven, and the Mercy of the
Tide, as well as the Shirley Jackson award
winning story collection, folk songs for trauma
surgeons. Short fiction has appeared
in Southwest Review, Nightmare, Cream City
Review, Pink, Redivider, December,
and more. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Keith Rozin, thank you so much for
joining us here on the premise.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, I'm so excited. I really appreciate it. I had
so much fun last time, even though I
believe my laptop kind of
exploded and died the last time. We tried to do this a couple years
ago. So, it totally.
>> Jeniffer: It was like, yeah, for me, it was like one of the best
interviews we'd ever done. We were just having so much fun with you and laughing
and all this great stuff, and then your computer
literally died. It didn't. So, listeners, it didn't, like, the battery
didn't go dead. Like, the computer died
and we lost it.
>> Chad Thompson: I had to get another one.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. M so we're rescheduled. And they were like, wait, did we talk about
this already today or last time?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, but it was still just arc, you know,
still good work was just.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, it's like, yeah, you just can't get it back. But you know what
we did, it was a great interview. And, I
love telling people about you. I love your writing.
And today we're talking about really, we're talking about two
books, because this is a duology. The devil by name is
the second book in the series with Fever House being the
first. And,
Stephen King recommended your book, which
is amazing. Tell us about
this.
>> Chad Thompson: You know, we. One of the crazy things
is, like, I did four books on an indie publisher,
Meerkat Press.
>> Chad Thompson: And the woman who runs Meerkat,
Trisha reeks. She and I pretty much
did everything together as far as, like,
design, editing,
promotion and all this stuff. And like,
she does 99% of that stuff all by herself,
you know?
>> Jeniffer: Wow.
>> Chad Thompson: And the wild thing about jumping to random House
is that they have teams worth of
people where it's their job to get your book
in front of people. And we tried and
tried and tried to get, fever house
in front of Stephen King and like, it just didn't
quite land and didn't happen for whatever reason.
But the nice thing is that it happened really organically.
Cause Joe Hill, his son, who's a tremendous
horror writer as well, read a copy of
it and really just has done
so much to boost the book, you know, that's
cool, that closeness. Stephen King
saw it. Saw, that, like, oh, I gotta get my hands on that
copy. And like, random house, of course, was ready to
go with that. So they got a copy in front of him and he
loved it.
>> Jeniffer: Nice.
>> Chad Thompson: And he has just pushed the hell out of it ever since.
Like, PBS did a thing where he was asked
books that he likes and he listed it and he's tweeted about
it multiple times. And I just. Tremendously
fortunate.
>> Jeniffer: It's so awesome. And you deserve it, man.
You're.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, thank you so much.
>> Jeniffer: And that's the crazy thing is, you know, you do everything right
and it just takes that one thing that suddenly, like, tips it
over the edge, and now all of a sudden, it's taken on a
life of its own.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, it's so cool because, like, you know, with
the duology with the devil by name being out,
you know, the book fever house, they have a little bit of a longer
shelf life, you know, which is
great. But like, fever House is still going really
strong, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And, it's just, it's so cool to see a book have legs
like that, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Absolutely. Well, and you know what's funny
is I knew that it was
the second book, but I didn't know you had to really needed to read
fever house. At least I think so.
>> Chad Thompson: So I. Yeah, it's pretty. You will be
better served by reading fever house first, for sure.
>> Jeniffer: I mean, there was, there were things you did that, like, get the reader up
to speed if you didn't read fever House. But you are really
short changing yourself if you don't read that book first, because.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, totally.
>> Jeniffer: And I read them back to back. So I've been reading
horror for, like, the last two weekends and
evenings.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: I was like, okay, I'm doing this right before I go to bed.
It's the perfect time to read a horror book.
I love them both. And I, you know, we gotta be really
careful because there's so much I want to talk about, but I don't want to
give anything away to our listeners because
as it's, as it's revealed, it's like, so
fun. And so we, I'm not gonna take that away from our listeners. So we're gonna, like,
dance around some of the things that happen in this book.
>> Chad Thompson: And we also have the magic of editing we can work with, too.
>> Jeniffer: Oh. If we say things we shouldn't say.
>> Chad Thompson: Haha.
>> Jeniffer: Haha. Well, I gotta say, take that, listener,
right? You won't even know.
this is. So today is actually September 10,
which is your pub date, so
congratulations.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, thank you so much. It's such a,
it's so weird, like, where it's
starting to feel a little bit old hat, which is just
absolutely insane to think about.
>> Jeniffer: Totally. That's awesome.
>> Chad Thompson: All this kind of emotional buildup for months and months and months,
right? And then it happens and it's like, oh, I
still am walking my kids to school, and the dog still
did what the dog did on the. You know what I mean?
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Chad Thompson: Like a human.
>> Jeniffer: Like, no one, no one knows. You're waving,
dear neighbors.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, right. It's cool. But it's not that big of a
deal all told, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Well, I mean, for those who don't know yet.
Yeah, exactly.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: But I'm curious, like, how does
random house differ to meerkat? Which was awesome.
I remember you saying her praises and that whole process.
But in terms of, like, them giving you information
about what's happening with the book, like, are they pretty communicative
about that?
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, absolutely. And there's this very dorky
thing, like an author portal where you. It's
updated, like, every single day
where you can go in and see, like, sales and all that
stuff. Like, And it's. It lags, like, maybe a week
behind, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Okay. Okay.
>> Chad Thompson: It's amazing. How was, how was that Stephen King
bump?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, it was very helpful. It was the
bit like the PBS thing. And Jason
Pargan also did like, a TikTok video the
same day.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: and so, he's an author, right?
Yeah. Like, John dies at the end.
>> Jeniffer: Something about spiders.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, exactly. it was the best
sales week since first week.
>> Jeniffer: Wow.
>> Chad Thompson: So it did really well. Yeah. so I can't
remember where I was going with that, but, Oh, yeah. So as far
as random house goes, there, it's almost
like I have moments of, like,
not necessarily guilt, but like, trying to turn it into
gratitude because you recognize how
fortunate you are to be there to have this, like,
group of people who it's their
job to get your book in front of people, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And just how, fortunate you
are to be in that position, you know?
and they're like, it's a
little tricky because publicity,
all the publicity folks are rad and they
will approve about
20% of my ideas. You know what I
mean? Hey, let's try this. And they're like, yeah. Ah, I don't.
Yeah, Keith, we've run the numbers and, you know, it's not going to work.
Mandy, that's interesting.
>> Jeniffer: Can you give us an example? Yeah, I'm curious.
don't mean to put you on a slut.
Like what book?
>> Chad Thompson: events.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Chad Thompson: Like book tours and things like that.
post Covid, book of
tours have never really, they haven't really recovered.
and so logistically,
it makes more sense for a big publisher to use
the money that they would spend on, like, flying somebody
out on like a ten date tour.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Chad Thompson: doing like, Amazon ads
and things like that, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: where it's just kind of, it gets the book
more in front of people. More. Cause even if you
sell 20 copies at every bookstore,
you know, numbers wise,
it just doesn't quite pan out. But, you know, a lot of times
they'll do things, I think it's called like, author appreciation
or something, where they'll be like, ah, ah, let's send them on
a five day thing just to kind of, kind of
appease them a little bit, you know what I mean?
Feel good and all that. Yeah. So,
yeah, they. But again, like, they
have done this for so long that they know
what works, right. You know? So occasionally we
will politely butt heads about, like, I think this would be
cool. And, sometimes they'll say
yes, you know, like we get to do
devil, by name t shirts this time around to send out
to people for, like, in like, promo packages. And stuff,
you know, which was something
that I, had broached last
time. and so this time they're like, hell, yeah, we'll do
that.
>> Jeniffer: You know what I love the most are the zines and the
guitar picks.
>> Chad Thompson: I know. That was so fun. Again, it's. It's like
little, just little ideas. Those were both,
random house ideas, too. So, the zine
is full of little auxiliary things, that kind
of correlate to devil by name and fever house.
And the guitar picks are for a
band called the blank letters, which is a band that features pretty
prominently in the first book.
And so it's just neat little things like that, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. In fact, Chad and I want to get our hands
on those two items.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, you know, I have sent all of them out.
I want to see what I can.
>> Jeniffer: Okay. Yeah, well, I saw it on, I
think it was on your instagram. And I was like, oh, my God, that's such a great
idea. And one of my questions, too, was, you know, I have the arc,
so I don't know what the final book looks like. And when we're looking at
the reports, like the government, top secret reports, the
zine makes them look really cool. Did
you. Does that same design land in the
final product?
>> Chad Thompson: No, it's very much like typeset. In the same
manner that fever house is where it's, like, it's
more functional readability.
the zine was really a cool way to just get.
Cause I'm a designer, too. and so I was able to
just get really dorky with top secret
layouts.
>> Jeniffer: Totally. I saw you all over that.
Well, that was gonna be one of my questions, is, you designed
your book covers for your past books. You had to relinquish that
over to random house. And how was that?
>> Chad Thompson: It was really hard.
and then they sent, the first version
of fever house over the first cover
with the devil hand doing the kind
of devil horns or whatever with the big claws at the
end. And I had a lot of
reservations about it because I felt like it was kind
of, like, making light of a lot of stuff in the book.
and then, like, we, you know, I talked about it,
and I showed people, and, my agent,
showed people and everything. And eventually, like, pretty
quickly, I changed my tune because it's so
the typography and the
design is so eye catching and immediate.
that, like, you see it amidst 20 books,
and it's like, that's the one your eye gravitates to. You know, you
see it across the room 100%.
>> Jeniffer: Like, yellow and red are the first two colors
that the eye sees when you walk into a room, and your books
are yellow and red.
>> Chad Thompson: Right. And so they. The designer really just
switched the colors for the devil by
name, but it's still very much the same, like,
design, you know, layout and structure with
the, type going,
down, going down, up and down versus
horizontal, you know. And, yeah, it was, this woman,
Ella Latham, who also did stuff
like, the only good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, yeah, that's a great cover.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, she is a tremendous designer, and she just killed
it.
>> Jeniffer: It's funny because that is also that author, I believe
is from Portland, or in the Pacific Northwest, isn't
hedgest?
>> Chad Thompson: No, I think he's in, Colorado, maybe Denver.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, I got that totally wrong. Well, maybe it just reminded me
of home when I said people in all the
trees, because, listeners, I lived in Portland, Oregon.
I'm from the Pacific Northwest myself, and, of course, that's where Keith
is. So let's. Okay, let's
dive in.
Let's talk about these books. I read a
reviewer say that this was, like, a new genre that you've
pretty much penned, punk rock thrillers. And I
feel like that was kind of apt. That was on Goodreads.
There's. I love. I know that you love punk rock, and,
you know, your books are often steeped in that, but, man, did you
nail that in fever house. And it just is so great.
And so I have a couple questions. Number one,
is Catherine Moriarty? Is
she. Did you get her name
from, the gits from Steve
Moriarty?
>> Chad Thompson: I think subconsciously I did. And I hope Steve,
doesn't, you know, take me to court over
that. Yeah, I think so. Because I think, I think
the gits, bands like the gits and bikini kill
and a lot of, like, bands who lived through
the kind of nineties, major label
feeding frenzy of punk
were a big influence, you know?
and so, you know, there's a. There's a thing
where, like, I think names are so interesting
because once you get to a certain point, you realize, oh,
I used Nick last book. I gotta come up with a different
name.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
>> Chad Thompson: And I realized that, one of
the characters, in the book that's coming
out after the devil by name, that's coming out next year,
the bad guy, is the name of an author of
a book I've read, like, ten years ago.
>> Jeniffer: That's fascinating.
>> Chad Thompson: Straight up lifted from it.
Subconsciously, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Right. Yeah, I love that.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. So, like, names, are they,
like, they seep in. In a way that's like, it's
really hard to, hard to manage sometimes, but, yeah, I
think it's. I think totally, like, Steve and the gits and all
that, like, definitely played a part. Well, Moriarty is also
the villain, in Sherlock Holmes.
>> Chad Thompson: That is not intentional. So I'm
just saying, if you need, like, a legal wiggle room
in case. After you.
Yeah, yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Well, and I feel like you really
presented the punk rock world in such a great
way, like, total reality, you know, based
on your love of punk. And. And
I just wonder, too, if, you know, the paper letters
or the blank letters. My bad. isn't based on the
gits a little bit too? You know, just we've got the three guys and
the lead singer whose voice is just, like,
so powerful. Right.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. You know, I think, like I said, I think
they're a kind of amalgam of
the Gitz, bikini kill, a bunch of other
bands, but it's all kind of,
like, subconscious and run through the
colander of, like, my own. What's
going to hold my interest as a writer, you know, so, like,
doing, like, Gitz, you know,
a veiled Gitz biography or whatever would not
have been interesting to me as a writer.
>> Jeniffer: Right, of course. Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And it wouldn't have worked for this story, but there are
definitely elements of it, you know, and again, like,
just nineties punk stuff, you
know, is super threaded
throughout and prevalent,
>> Jeniffer: In the book and done so well. And you're,
you know, if I were to. I was trying to tell someone
recently, like, a couple days ago, you got to read these books. They're so good.
You're gonna love them. And I said, you know, it's really, it's,
it's horror, but it's so much more than that because the character development
is so good, your writing style.
>> Chad Thompson: Right. It's like,
distill a 450 page
book with, like, six main characters.
Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: You know, did you struggle with, like, the backstory,
you know, revealing too much or going too deep or, like, was.
>> Chad Thompson: That, you know, I.
So here's two little fun factoids
about fever House was one. I
had no plan to write a sequel to.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, my God. That was my next question. Really?
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, yeah. It was going to end with Cath or. Sorry. it was going to
end where it ended.
>> Jeniffer: Good job. Good job.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, totally. And, it was going to end where it
ended on somewhat of a
cliffhanger. And
when my agent. So the cool story
is on a Thursday,
my, agent and I had worked on the book, and he's like,
I'm going to send this out to, like, six editors. And
then we will, that was on a Wednesday. And then we
will send it out big on Monday to, like, you know,
25 other people or whatever. And so the
next day we get this. He gets an email
from the editor at Random House who says, oh, my God, is
there a sequel? And then the day
after that, yeah, that was a Thursday. The day after that, she has her
team read it over the weekend, and then on Monday, she
emails. My agent is like, I want to set up a call with this
guy. Tuesday,
she calls me, and she prefaces the call with
like, I don't have this conversation with people unless I'm really
willing to make an offer. Which is just like, that
just blew my mind, you know, because it was, like, life
changing.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: and then she's like, two questions. One, are you
willing to write a sequel? and I was like, I
will write cat food copy for you.
and I had kicked around the idea of a sequel, you know, but
it wasn't like, it was like, if it had just stayed at fever house, I would
have been okay with that, honestly. M.
And then, the other thing is, she's like, would you
add, like, 30,000 words
to it, including a lot of, character backstory?
And then what happens in Portland
once things really accelerate? And so it's
very rare to get so rare.
Add another 25% to this book, for
sure.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Usually you have to cut it. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. And so a lot, that's where a lot of that, like, kind of
backstory and stuff came from, was like,
my editor, asking for more
versus less, and she sensed, what the hell
was I thinking? Why did I do that? You know? But did she
really? Oh, yeah. Well, she was just, I think
30,000 is a lot, you know?
>> Chad Thompson: I think she, she would have, in
retrospect, probably been like 15, maybe. You know what I
mean?
>> Jeniffer: Did you find that challenging to, like, did it feel like
you were adding fluff or did it come pretty easily?
>> Chad Thompson: No, it was great. It was, you
know, the thing with, with,
my agent, my editor is she's
tremendously good and
smart, and she makes me rewrite
books, which is such a
drag sometimes. So, like, in the
two books following Fever House, she's essentially said, like,
this isn't quite working. And I had
to go back and essentially rewrite I had
to rewrite the devil by name. Kept maybe
10% of the original material in it.
>> Jeniffer: Holy shit. Wow.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. And the vampire book that's coming out after
that next year had to go back and
rewrite that with maybe 10% of it.
And so with fever house, it was like,
just the idea of, like, building scaffolding and
adding more to the world was not hard. That was
fun.
>> Jeniffer: That's cool. It felt like you were having fun
with this book. I've, you know, I read road seven. I haven't
read all of your books, but. And I loved that book,
but this one just felt like, I don't know, like you were really in your
element, in your groove. It just. And I don't know, maybe that's, like,
the editing process and going back and polishing it, but it
felt so spot on to
me.
>> Chad Thompson: You know, it's weird. I wrote fever house.
A lot of it, like, during COVID
during, lockdown and
during, George Floyd
protests, you know,
and my kids were finally able
to start going to, like, preschool
and kindergarten and all that stuff, like, in very short bursts
because we were still, like, pretty, you know, cautious
with, like, schools were very reluctant to open up full
time at the time and everything. And so I had
little windows of time where I was able to
write. And, it was just like, I just wanted to write
something propulsive and fast as
hell and joy, you know what I mean? Joyous in my way, in the sense of
just, like, fun, making it fun for me.
>> Jeniffer: Okay, so here's something interesting. I've never
read horror before. I've never read Stephen King's fiction,
and I've always wanted to, but I've been, like, really afraid to do it.
And my sister, who, you know, Lily,
she was like, this is gonna scare the hell out of you. And I was
like, oh, really? I was like, oh, no.
So I really had to challenge myself to read these
books and 800 pages.
>> Chad Thompson: So your sister read it first, and she was like, it's gonna freak you
out.
>> Jeniffer: Totally. Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, that's great. Right on.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. She's like, it's gonna scare the hell out of you. In a good way.
And, it didn't, it didn't scare the hell out of
me. I found it to me to be exciting and super
fun. And, like, the parts that scared
me were, I mean, if you think about horror,
it's based on the ridiculous and the supernatural and things that,
like, aren't going to happen in the real world. You
know, I mean, good versus evil. But, like, this
book, specifically the devil by name, I feel like
these things could happen. Like, it. It
reflects on greed and
the government and the defense contractors and
all these things that could actually happen,
and just another pandemic could wipe out
humanity. I feel like you captured
that really well, and that scared me. But the horror
piece of it, I just found it to be really fun. And I'm like, oh, my God, maybe I
love horror and I have to read more horror.
>> Chad Thompson: You know, for one, I think you should give Stephen
King a shot, for one, because he does
this thing where the dude is just like,
it's not stream of consciousness, but it's so
easy to just plow through the pages
because his style is so
affable, you know? And
then he slips the, dread and
unease among that affability. And so you're
just plowing along and you're like, oh, I'm starting to get freaked out here a little
bit. Characters are so friendly, and, you know, he's written them
so well, and, so, yeah, and then I
guess, as far as the devil by name goes, like,
yeah, I don't think that the. I don't
think they're necessarily horror in the sense of, like,
I think they're more gruesome. Like, there's a lot of gore in
it, you know, moments of,
like, profound violence in it.
but I. Yeah, as far as. And, you
know, there are monsters and shit ultimately in it.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. For me, it's like, it fits
in more in that nexus of, like,
yes, horror and supernatural stuff, but also, like,
crime and post apocalyptic stuff.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Chad Thompson: And, like, that's the stuff that I personally
like. You know, I'll always, like, dip a toe in
horror, but, like, I love crime fiction, and I
love, like, literary fiction. And so it's
really, like a kind of combination of all
of those things.
>> Jeniffer: I think it totally is, which is probably why I like it so much
too.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Because I'm.
>> Chad Thompson: And it's fun to write. It's entertaining. You know?
>> Jeniffer: You're entertaining yourself. Yeah,
go ahead.
>> Chad Thompson: Like, that's the thing, is, I've tried to write, like,
straight crime fiction 5 million times.
And one of the main characters, two of the main
characters, Hutch Holtz and Tim Reed from
Fever House, they started out
as main characters in this, a number
of crime novels that I've tried to write over the past couple
years.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, wow.
>> Chad Thompson: It just, like the first 25 pages of Fever House
until they find the hand in the freezer
straight lifted from another novel.
>> Jeniffer: Wow, really? That's great. Now,
I love those characters. Hutch in particular. I was
so fond of Hutch, and I love the fact that he was such a
reader. You know, like we, when we start to get into his
character, like, here are these two goons, essentially, who are,
like, doing mob boss work and, you know, they're
killers. They fuck people up for money. Right.
And yet I felt like, oh, I really had a
soft spot for Hutch. Where did. Yeah,
what was his journey initially? Like, where were
you taking him, do you think? Or do you know?
>> Chad Thompson: I mean, very similar. He also, like his, and
I earlier books, like, his father is like a Vietnam
veteran who, is like, succumbing to
dementia. And, so he's like, kind of staying at
home, taking care of him while
all these other events are going on in his life. But that's an old
book. so, yeah, he's just, he's one of those
guys where it's like, he just. And he's in
short stories and he just would
not leave me alone. And it sounds dorky
where when writers say, like, the characters tell
me what to do.
>> Jeniffer: No, they don't.
>> Chad Thompson: But he just loved me
so much and I kept coming back to him, and
finally I found a place for
him to shine.
>> Jeniffer: Nice. I love that.
Let's talk about the point of view in this book, because it's written in third
person omniscient. So we get the
perspective, the inside voice of the character
through the God voice,
if you will. And I really loved how much
we got, like, perspective on who that person
was as an individual, what they're thinking, their
snarkiness. so talk to us about how
you decided to choose that point of view. And
was that always where you were headed, or did you work on
that?
>> Chad Thompson: No, I think that's my natural
inclination out of, I've
written six books now. And, apart from short
stories, not one of them comes from a single
pov. So all of my books are like multiple
characters, even if it's just two. Like in road seven,
you know?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And, I think for
me, that kind of like open
air, ability, world building
ability, ah. In third person just
works better, you know? one of
my challenges as a writer is I absolutely want to write
one goddamn character in a book. You know,
like, I want to put some novel out where it's just one
person from
page one to page, whatever. You mean like first?
>> Jeniffer: You mean like first person? You know, I mean, like, you only have one character
one character, like, really.
>> Chad Thompson: The same character that starts the book, ends the
book. And there's no, like, we're gonna bounce from this person to this
person to this person.
>> Jeniffer: Got it. Okay. Got it. So there's other people. It's just we're
following this guy. Right?
>> Chad Thompson: Just like. Yeah. yeah, sorry. Not one character, but from one
character's point of view.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right. Well, it gives you so much
more, I don't know, power to, like,
create emotions and that
sense of dread. I think you do it so
well.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. And that's like, again, I have to
entertain myself, and
it's, for me,
sustaining the narrative with any sense of
velocity to it. You gotta bounce around a little bit.
>> Jeniffer: Right. Well, in this book in particular,
when we're talking about the
supernatural elements and the
characters, it's really important for us to know as
readers what they are planning.
Also, as I was reading it, it bounces
around sometimes even in the timeline. We'll go back a little bit
and get someone else's perspective of something we saw other
people go through. And I just.
I was thinking to myself, what the hell does his writing
area look like? How do you keep track of this timeline and what
you have revealed and haven't? What needs to be revealed? And,
like, do you have a process for that? Or how
do you do that?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I love questions like this of getting into
the dorky minutiae of, like, how do
you write a. yeah, so I
keep. So I have the. It's all in
word, you know what I mean? But, like, I write, the
draft, whatever, 1st, 2nd,
fifth, and then I'll keep another document open that's
just notes, and it's like, people name places,
things to remember as far as, like, oh, this is a
motivation, or this guy only has three bullets left in his
gun. Remember that. All those details, you
know, and that can span,
like, a lot of pages. And then
I'll also dump, like, if I have to cut something, I'll just put it
in that document so I can refer back to it.
so it's pretty much this, just those two documents that I'm jumping
back and forth among. And then I'll do a
lot of, like, handwritten journal
writing, and just kind of freestyling about the
characters. And I found a lot of ways that,
a lot of times that will kind of loosen up,
the structure for me. And I can come up with ideas that
way that I normally wouldn't. Just typing things on a
computer.
>> Jeniffer: That is fascinating. I have heard this before, that writing
with a pen. Well, I guess depends on your
generation and how you grew up. But for us,
when you actually take a pen and write on a piece of paper, it
does something different. Your subconscious
is tapped into in a
different way, I guess. Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And it's, it's weird because it takes me a lot longer
to hand write something, and so
I'm less, almost less worried about it because I'm like,
okay, I've already got this, this idea mapped out,
but I need to finish it, finish writing it, you
know?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And, it's just a way more,
like, relaxed kind of way of
loosening the scree of the plot and, like,
lifting rocks up and seeing what's underneath, you know?
>> Jeniffer: That's cool. That is cool.
I guess, as a writer myself,
sometimes, like, I find myself going off on these tangents, and I'm like,
what am I doing? And I stop myself. And I think that just
shows I'm a new, newer writer. But it sounds to
me like those take you to places, and following those
tangents is a really good idea.
>> Chad Thompson: And to me, that's like, that's 90% of the
fun. It's like coming up with something, being like, oh, shit, how
do I pull this off? Coming up with an
idea of being like, I want to do that, and then, what is the
connective tissue from where I'm
at now in the story and where I want to be? And
it's like, how do I make that happen? You know?
That is 90% of the joy in writing for
me, like, figuring out those little twists.
>> Jeniffer: Nice, you know? Yeah.
Where did you get the idea for fever house?
>> Chad Thompson: You know, like I said, a lot of it was just hutch and tim,
and I loved those guys, and I wanted to,
have them in there. And then clearly, the crime
angle, the straight crime angle, wasn't working. And I had this
idea of a severed hand
in a, like, cracked leather, like,
oldena doctor's bag, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Chad Thompson: With. Filled with money. and so those two
things were really the impetus where it was
like, that's where that kind of connective leap started,
where started happening. and I was like, how do I
make this work? So there's this guy who's a leg breaker, and then
this hand, and the hand does something. I don't know
what. and so it's really, like,
in, I think in misery, in,
Stephen King's misery, the main character is a
writer, and he plays this internal game that
I think is called can you, like, can you do this, as a
writer, how do you do it? How do you make it
happen? And to me, that. Yeah, it's just.
It's really like, how do I make this work between Hutch and this
severed hand? And so I just had to start
answering questions about, like, how does this hand
work? what are its powers? What are its
effects? And then I had to kind of
build the world from that.
>> Jeniffer: Wow, that sounds really fun.
>> Chad Thompson: It was so fun. Yeah. The devil by
name, I think, is, like, it's a strong book. And,
my God, it was so hard to m
write because I had built
such a kind of, like, puzzle
box by the end of fever house and all these
parameters.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: You know.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: That I had to solve all these different problems I had
to solve, to move forward
because it ends, like, you know, things are reasonably effed
at the end of Fever House, trying not to give anything away.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. Yeah, reasonably effed. I like
that. I feel like there could be a book three,
honestly, you know, if we.
>> Chad Thompson: Ever get, like, tv and film stuff
moving forward, and it takes off, like, I could totally
see random house being like, do you think about a trilogy?
>> Jeniffer: Totally. Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Now there's just plans for the two.
>> Jeniffer: And as I was reading it and some reviewers said the
same thing, I kept thinking to myself, my God, this needs to be a
Netflix series. Like, I could totally see it,
right? But can they do it justice? I mean, I don't
know. It's just different, right? You have a different
storytelling way when it's a
screenplay or writing a series, so it's going to be different.
>> Chad Thompson: But I can't, I can't do
anything, say anything specific yet because contracts aren't signed.
But I did have a option, and then that option
was not renewed. and, you know, I think
the strike really, the writer strike really put a damper
on a lot of projects, and fever house
did not survive. and now we
are, about to ink a, ah,
contract for another,
another option for it. And I'm very excited about it. And it's
a killer team and a rad showrunner and.
>> Jeniffer: Nice.
That would be awesome.
I kept trying to picture some of the characters, and I thought to myself,
who does Keith envision? Like, Katherine, for
example?
>> Chad Thompson: Sorry. the closest I can think of, at least with Katherine,
is like, I think Kathleen Hanna would kill at
it. And, like,
she's the right age, as far as I know. She's interested in,
like, getting into more acting stuff. And I'm like, she'd be
fucking perfect at it.
>> Jeniffer: I don't know who she is. Who's Kathleen Hanna?
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, that's the singer of bikini kill.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, wait, she's going to be acting. That would
be amazing.
>> Chad Thompson: Well, no, what I've heard is she is interested,
in kind of broaching that world.
But I can't speak out of turn as how accurate that is or
anything, but when I envision a character for
Katherine, I think she would be really good at it.
>> Jeniffer: You know what? I just looked her up and I totally.
Yes. She would be perfect. She has the right
look. Everything about her looks. Right.
Kathleen, if you're listening, we have plans for you, lady.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, there we go.
>> Jeniffer: and then Nick coffin. Let's. Let's talk a little bit
about his character. he's a complicated
character. He grew up in a pretty.
Yeah, let's talk about him. Tell me how he came to be.
>> Chad Thompson: And, you know,
I think, it's so weird to be, like, where did you get
your idea?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Because almost like, so much of it,
like, road seven. I don't remember writing a lot of road seven,
you know? and not like he was in a mad
fugue state and, you know, high on opium and
all that, but just like, you don't remember, like,
how that can. Those connective
acts in the plot took place, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Chad Thompson: And so where Nick came from, I think mostly
I just kind of had this image
of a, skinny,
like, mid twenties kid in very gangly
and in, like, combat boots, like, running
down the street. And that's where
that's, like, his first scene. Is he running to meet
Hutch somewhere?
>> Jeniffer: That's right, yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And so again, and then it's like, okay, so you have
this character and this character and this character, and they want
this, or they're afraid of this. How do you make that
work? And so it's a lot of, like,
writing in my notebook and thinking about it when I'm doing
dishes and stuff. And, like, if it. If
things don't start to gel plot wise,
I've effed up and I either need to get super crazy with the
plot or I need to step back and
cut some. Cut some words, right. And get back to, like,
a simpler spot, you know? and that. I think that
happened a lot with Nick where I, wasn't quite sure where
he fit in, and I had to make a leap and just
be like, oh, he and Katherine. There you go.
>> Jeniffer: That's awesome.
How long did it take you to write the devil by
name?
>> Chad Thompson: that, I think, was probably 14 months, because I had
to. I wrote the first draft really fast,
and, it was way more focused on John
Bonner and the elements
inside the fever house inside Portland because
I wanted to try to recapture that kind of
crime element, to it. And
my editor, was just like, it's not working. It's
too insular. All these other characters
are like, they don't even really come in. They
don't meet. They don't all meet up until much m later in
the book. and so I had to kind of step back
and again rewrite it.
>> Jeniffer: I felt like John Bonner was, like, the main character. Like,
he was a really strong character. So I
felt that, like he was maybe intended to be, like,
the thrust of everything. But you did. You
pulled back on him. But it's great.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. It was hard because he was fun to
write. And that world, kind of like a
crime thing in post apocalyptic Portland
was really fun, and a challenge,
but ultimately, it just didn't cut the
mustard. And it's such a heartbreaking
thing. Like, the first couple days after you get notes from your
editor, and they always end it with, like, I'm happy to talk about
this whenever you'd like, you know?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, so much work to be done.
And then writer brain takes over,
and, you know, by the next day, you're like, how do I fix this problem?
>> Jeniffer: You just do it, right?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. and it's fun. Even when it's not fun, it's still fun.
>> Jeniffer: That's awesome. I'm so glad. I love that.
You are 100% writing now, right?
That's what you do.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. This is it, Mandy. This is it.
>> Jeniffer: That's great. And so your next
book.
Well, actually, is there anything else you want to tell our listeners about this
duology before we ask you our
final questions?
>> Chad Thompson: no, I think that, like, please just give it a shot
and probably want to read them in order. and,
yeah, I just, again, I feel tremendously fortunate to
a be on this show. Thank you very much. And to just
be able to do this. Yeah, I get to do for a
living. It's so cool.
>> Jeniffer: It's awesome. Well, we love having you,
and I just think you are the epitome of
what every author needs to
be. You have so much
gratitude, but yet you're such a badass. Like,
to me, it's, like, amazing because you're such a great writer,
and, you know, as previous listeners know,
you're technically legally blind. So you do have a bit of a
handicap when it comes to, you know,
working.
>> Chad Thompson: Right.
>> Jeniffer: but you push through and you do it with such joy. It's awesome. I love
it.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, totally. Yeah. So it's a weird
thing where, like, and I think that's one of the main reasons why
I'm not doing as much design and illustration,
as a blind guy, because there were all these various, like,
accoutrements that you needed, and you needed, like, your computer and all
these applications and a scanner and.
Or, you know, I haven't made the leap, being an older
person. and I say that with
air quotes, but, like, drawing from tablets. You know what I mean?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Ah, there's a way you could kind of usurp all this by.
With technology, but I was just finding there are all these
trappings of, like, shit that I needed to use to
do illustration stuff. And
with writing, it's just a notebook or
a, you know, blank computer screen, and you go, right.
And that is tremendously freeing. I don't know
if it's necessarily as a legally blind or visually impaired guy, but
just as a person, I find that tremendously freeing.
>> Jeniffer: That's cool.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: So tell us about your next book. The bad guys. Is that what you
said?
>> Chad Thompson: No, it's called. It's a vampire book. set
in 1970s Portland,
shocking. And
throughout, like, Montana and North Dakota and
stuff. but it is
essentially true grit with
vampires.
>> Jeniffer: Sounds awesome.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, it's a Vietnam veteran and his
adoptive niece hunting a vampire
that slaughtered their family.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, okay. And does it have a title
yet?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, it's called Coffin Moon.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, nice. Okay. I don't know where I got the bad guys.
coffin moon. Very cool. And that's coming out in
2025 in.
>> Chad Thompson: The spring, or, I'm assuming summer
or fall.
>> Jeniffer: Okay, well, listen, we don't want to get too far ahead
of ourselves, people. You still have to read
fever house and the devil by name.
>> Chad Thompson: Excellent.
>> Jeniffer: Excellent books.
I have one more question. How are your girls? Last time we talked to
you, you just adopted two daughters.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, God. Oh, yeah, they're great.
>> Chad Thompson: it's one of those things where at the time,
when I first started out as a kind of trial
by fire, dad, we adopted
two girls who were two and three, weeks after
Covid shut down the state.
And so not only were they like, why the hell are
we here? But also like, oh, and we can't leave, and we can't go to school
anymore.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, my God, we're stuck in the.
>> Chad Thompson: House with you guys.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And it was very hard, you know, and
now, almost five years later,
four years later, it's just, we're just. This is
just life, you know what I mean? Like, it's
just we play, board
games before we walk to school, and we walk the
dog on the way to school, the dog poops in
the street, and it's a big ordeal, you know, because there's traffic
and. You know what I mean? It's just like, regular.
>> Jeniffer: That's awesome. Well, that's great.
I loved the dedication. I think it was the dedication
in fever house where you said, you know,
to my daughters, don't read this till you're old enough, or please don't
read this till you're 18.
>> Chad Thompson: I'm doing a book launch tonight because it's,
it's, you know, pub day for the devil by name. And
I'm like, yeah, so I don't know how we're gonna do this, because, like,
I'd like the girls to come, but they're seven and eight, and
I'm reading a scene from the devil by name that is just gnarly
as shit.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And my wife's like, you know, they keep
talking about how they want to do horror stuff. Like, let's, you know, let's
try it. And I got about, she. Oh, and she read it
in her, like, funny reading voice that she does, you
know? she started reading the devil by name,
this scene, and they were like, yeah, I'm tapping out.
Fuck this. I cannot listen to this. It's too spooky.
>> Jeniffer: It's too much, right now.
Yeah, but they're interested.
>> Chad Thompson: They're not ready. They'll be reading Clive Barker by the
time they're twelve.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, for sure.
>> Chad Thompson: Totally. I think I started Stephen King when I was ten or
eleven, so.
>> Jeniffer: Sounds about right. What is your
favorite Stephen King book?
>> Chad Thompson: I don't know. It really bounces around. I think he just
had a new collection come out, ah, three or
four months ago. Called you like it darker,
and it's great. there's even a
kind, of a cujo,
sequel where it's the main. The father from
cujo makes an appearance,
40 years later or whatever.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, that's cool. Cool.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, it's really cool.
>> Jeniffer: All right, well, thank you so much again.
We really appreciate your time. And this is your launch day, so I feel
really fortunate.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, I appreciate it so much. Yeah. thanks for having me
again. We gotta do it 3rd, 4th, 5th time,
100%.
>> Jeniffer: You can come back anytime. We're all
loving watching you skyrocket and telling the
world about your great books.
>> Chad Thompson: Thank you so much. Don't forget about us humans back here on
earth.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, right.
>> Chad Thompson: Totally. Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Well, you can learn more about Keith
rozin@keithrozin.com
and follow him on Instagram at
rozinkeith, on Twitter
rosin and Facebook. I think it's Keith Rosin
seven. Is that right?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, sounds right.
>> Jeniffer: You can go to his website and his name is spelled r o s s n. I'm
sorry. R o s s o ndez.
>> Chad Thompson: There we go.
>> Jeniffer: Get it right, Jennifer, and just buy these
books. They're so good. What a wonderful way
to support authors. Read their work,
tell people about it. You're gonna love it. And like me, I had
no idea how much I would love this book.
And you will love it, too. This
has been another episode of the premise. You can
visit us online at, thepremisepod.com and
subscribe and rate or review the premise wherever
you get your podcast. Those reviews really help us get the
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Facebook, enifertompsonconsulting. Until
next time, thanks for listening.
Goodbye. Bye.