The Nightmare Engine Podcast
Welcome to The Nightmare Engine — a weekly show that churns with dread and drips with dark insight. Hosted by David Viergutz, the Master of Malice, this show tears back the curtain on all things horror. From the art of scaring readers to chilling interviews with guests of the macabre—authors, occultists, scholars of the strange—you'll explore the gears that keep the genre grinding.
And nestled in the static… notes from The Curator of The Dead Letters, whispering deeper truths from the shadows.
This isn’t just a podcast.
It’s a transmission from the other side.
The Nightmare Engine Podcast
Revenge Tales and Truck Stop Nightmares: A Conversation with Shannon Bradner
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What drives seemingly normal people to create stories filled with blood, terror, and revenge? Shannon Bradner, a factory worker by night and horror writer by whenever-she-can, pulls back the curtain on her creative process and reveals the often mundane seeds that grow into horrifying tales.
Working twelve-hour night shifts for twenty years has given Shannon plenty of time for her mind to wander into darker territories. She shares a chilling real-life experience of discovering a dead body in a compactor at her workplace—the kind of disturbing incident that can't help but influence one's perspective. The isolation and altered reality of working through the night creates the perfect environment for horror creativity, as both Shannon and host JP Willie discuss from their night shift experiences.
Shannon's horror isn't just about shock value. "I play on the more emotional side of things that happen to people that make them do the things they do," she explains, revealing how her revenge-focused stories explore psychological catalysts behind horrific actions. Her inspiration comes from unexpected places—washing dishes while listening to Eddie Rabbit sparked "Truck Stop Diner," while a casual conversation about a local dive bar became "One Night at Clyde's."
When discussing our collective fascination with horror, Shannon offers a refreshing perspective: "Everybody has a dark side. Some have a darker side than others. I think sometimes that's how you get it out—you watch these things, they're not real, you're enjoying it." This therapeutic aspect allows us to indulge our darker inclinations in a safe, controlled environment.
For aspiring horror writers, Shannon's journey offers encouragement. As someone relatively new to publishing, she's focusing on short story anthologies while developing her first novella, proving that you don't need decades of publishing experience to create compelling horror. Find her work on Godless.com and follow her journey into the darkest corners of human experience.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nightmare Engine podcast. It is Friday, march 7th, and I have no idea what episode this is this season. We're following that train right now and it seems to be okay. It's probably episode 8 or something, but I'm sure you guys have clicked through on the titles and figured out which we want to listen to. Yeah, so just real quick updates on things that have been going on. Last week we had last time last show we had JD Barker on and that was all a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Jd's huge in the thriller and horror field and he got to write. He writes alongside James Patterson on occasion and has his own line of thrillery, horrory books, including a new release. So that one's coming out in May and it's based on a real story. So it's a little island that he can see off his back patio. I thought that was really interesting chatting with him about that. He also talked about writing a little bit in the Dracula sphere. I guess he was contacted by some family members of Bram Stoker and got to participate in creation of new content for that, and I think that happened some time ago. So it's not a recent thing, um, but yeah, so besides that, I am fresh off another call. I was just um, uh on live on Facebook, which I don't do, um, but I did this time and, um, I went live and did a pre-launch party for Scare Mill 2, the Drift, including a live reading by yours truly. So if you want to hear my radio voice badly narrating the characters, it's available, it's over in the Facebook group. So please, if you haven't joined the Facebook community, jump in. We did some giveaways and some sneak peeks on Scare Millail too, so that's my big focus right now.
Speaker 1:I've got two, two horror books planned for this year um, to include Roanoke. I'm not going to release too much information about that one other than um, Roanoke, which should say plenty, um, and then, uh, another one that's going to be seeing a revisal and I uh, uh arrival and I haven't really spoken much about it, but it's um big fucking spider. So, um, my, I know everybody was looking forward to that for some time and then we killed the project and now it's coming back. So big fucking spider, I wonder what it's about. Um, anyways, that's enough rambling. That's the updates.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm just chugging along. I'm having a blast meeting people all over, the people from all over contacting me saying they they've got my books and my letters and, yeah, it's really interesting to see now the type of people, the amount of people, I can expect in London. I'll be in London in June speaking there, and I'll have a special live launch party for Scare Mill 2 that I encourage anybody in my European friends to come join me over there and come meet me and I'll get more details out. But yeah, last week in June launch party, let's do it All right, that is it for the updates this time and my lovely guest here has been so kind listening to me ramble, but I'm really happy to bring her on. Shannon, welcome to the Nightmare Ninja podcast. I want you to introduce yourself and tell us about what you write and the things that you find interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay, Thank you for having me on first of all, but I'm Shannon Bradner. Mostly what I write is short stories, a little more on the extreme horror side. Mostly they end up being revenge stories a lot of the time. I'm really into those and I enjoy writing those a lot. I'm very new to publishing and so I'm hoping to get a novella or a short story collection out within the next year or so. But I'm still learning the process of all this stuff, so hopefully I can get there. But yeah, it's mostly extreme revenge kind of things like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, when are you calling in from?
Speaker 2:Virginia.
Speaker 1:East coast. Okay, very cool. Yeah, you plan to go to scares that care this year.
Speaker 2:Oh, every year I would I say I'm going and then something happens where I never make it. So hopefully I can make it this year. That's the plan.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's a great event. Great event Lots of people show up with wagons to buy books, so it's really amazing. It's funny to find 250 horror writers out in the wild at once. Normally we're just a dime, a dozen or just a few in between. So, shannon, what do you do for your day job?
Speaker 2:I actually work in a window factory, night shift 12 hours. Yeah, yeah. So you know how that can be. But you feel like you're not a person half the time. You just kind of drift along. So it's hard to focus sometimes.
Speaker 1:So I can imagine that it's not a window factory. I don't really know what that looks like. Is it the glass portion of it, or is it the wood, the whole thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of it, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1:So is it like an assembly line or is it a scenery?
Speaker 2:It is. You have different, different departments. Um, they kind of do uh, like you work where I work now. I've been there 20 years, so I've been everywhere but um, where I work now is where we actually produce the glass for the windows and they ship to, or they get shipped to, the other departments and they put the different types of windows together, some with machinery, some by hand, it just depends on what type of window it is. It's very hot, very hard physical labor.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, Well, very cool. So night shift, night shift. So I was a night shift cop for about 10, 10 years and I can tell you night shift is a different beast as far as when the mind starts to wander. So I think it's just being awake during the non-waking hours is what makes our minds kind of go run amok a little bit. So anything creepy happen to you, anything weird since you've been on night shift, I mean.
Speaker 2:Yes, actually.
Speaker 1:Well, do tell Terrible.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, it's terrible, but it actually happened last week. My gosh, it's it's terrible, but it actually happened last week. Um, I came into work and there were uh, where I go in, there were yellow. There was yellow tape around these like dumpsters and compactors, and it was police out there everywhere and a bunch of supervisors safety. People didn't know what was going on. Try to go in the door open, open it. It's yellow tape all over there too. Go in another door and talk to somebody. They found a dead body in one of the compactors last week.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's not supposed to be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not at all, not at all. Apparently, the gentleman got into an empty compactor that was never used and we're not really sure why, climbed in there to take a break, for whatever reason, I'm not sure, but he passed away, had a heart attack or something. Yeah, it was really sad, but that's probably the weirdest thing obviously that's ever happened since. I've been there.
Speaker 1:What about outside of work? Just you, you got some creepy stories, cause I like I like hearing about this stuff. I like I want to know what people have been through and, like you know the stuff that inspires them, of course too, and in the writing. But you know, but let's say it's just, you know we find interest in the macabre. So I, I would really like to, you know, I like to know from folks like I talk about stuff with trains. I don't like trains, I don't like black holes. Right, I've got some very specific phobias and stuff like that. But what about you? So anything that's just out of the ordinary creepy jumping out at you?
Speaker 2:Nothing quite that extreme. But yeah, you know, I've had some weird encounters in my home, my husband and I. He felt like something physically pushed him into a wall, so we kind of think we might have a little something going on in here sometimes. Little something going on in here sometimes, but um, and I've definitely encountered some, some people in my life that made me feel a little uneasy, but, um, nothing, nothing quite that extreme in real life, thank goodness.
Speaker 1:So, oh, I guess you're lucky yeah, yeah, so far well so, and I'll tell you this so there's always um, there's always that time where I'm like uh, do I see something or not? You know yeah, yeah you know, you have like a miniature existential crisis where you're like I may have to rethink everything that I know um yeah there I was out. Uh, I was on a patrol and it was probably, I don't know, two or three o'clock in the morning and I the spot.
Speaker 1:I like to sit at the top of this massive hill so I can see any cars coming um right, and I remember this story vividly because, um it, because sounds and smells like really really intense for me. Um, not so much sight I could see a lot of stuff and I really care too much but it's sound and sight, um sound and smell, and so the smell that I could like smell is just coming in from the from in, from the outside air into my patrol car and it just smelled rotten, just old and festering and rotten.
Speaker 2:You knew it was kind of sick.
Speaker 1:That was the first thing. And then the sound, and I heard this awful moaning scream thing and it was probably two or three seconds long and it echoed and I put the car in drive and I took off and I left.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And as I'm getting closer to town, there's a bridge and bridges by themselves are not creepy Bridges, after all of that is absolutely terrifying, and so I stopped before the bridge and my headlights are shining on the bridge and I see what I think is a deer, but it's missing half of its body and it's up on two legs and it's crawling on two legs, but here's the thing there's no other cars nearby.
Speaker 1:There was nobody who would you know you need a vehicle to do that kind of damage to somebody, or something else took you know, took it on. This is a full-size doe. This was not like a little, like a, like a fawn or anything, it was a. It was a full size dough, so several hundred pounds, and I remember it. It crawled on its hooves on the front and then fell off the side of the bridge.
Speaker 2:Oh no. Yeah, and so like crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, throwing all this together and I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't know what I saw, but, like you know, um, it was absolutely terrifying at the moment. Um, and then, like afterwards hindsight, you're like, ah, that was actually kind of cool, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, um, no, actually I think we uh, where we travel, it's very uh, it's very. The country is nothing but trees, few houses, a lot of deer. But we did, we, we did kind of see somebody that was just kind of sitting on the side of the road just for no reason, just sitting there, and we were like like they were fine, they seem to be fine. Anyway, they weren't like just laying there, they were moving, but we were like nope, we're not, we're not getting in all that. We called somebody and I guess they you know the police went back but um, like I'm not stopping for that I've seen too many movies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're like I know what the next step is exactly.
Speaker 2:Somebody else can handle that.
Speaker 1:So what's? Um? So where's inspiration come from for you? I mean, it takes someone special to write horror, takes someone special to write anything leaning towards extreme, so what?
Speaker 2:right. Where's it come from? For you it's so weird because just different, um, different places. I remember washing dishes and listening to, uh, an old country song and got an idea about a truck. For this is my story, truck Stop Diner, which is basically about somebody who their situation seems to be one way, but it's not. They're not the person you think they are. But it's a very short story. The song was Driving my Life Away by Eddie Rabbit, which is about a truck driver and for some reason that story just popped in my head like what if this happened at this truck stop diner? But just sometimes things just pop in my head. Sometimes I'll be having a conversation with somebody.
Speaker 2:I have a story called One Night at Clyde's and I was just kind of having a conversation with somebody. I have a story called One Night at Clyde's and I was just kind of having a conversation about this dive bar we have in our town. It's not here anymore but you know it was kind of like the place everybody went. It was just very much a dive bar and I don't want to give away the ending to it and I will if I say too much. But I remember saying what if the owner's name. What if he was this, what if this happened? And then I was like I'm writing that that's just too good, it's just too funny, and you know it's pretty fun to write. So it just kind of comes from anywhere, it just pops in my head. Nothing too much as far as real life experience, just kind of. You know, just ideas pop in my head, it's fun.
Speaker 1:And so what are your, uh, what does your husband and family think about your writing, or are they in the dark about it?
Speaker 2:Um, my husband, he's, um, he's very supportive, he reads my stuff and he, you know, he's really into the same things that I'm into as far as reading and um, books and movies and things like that, my, my other family, they, um, they're, they weren't ready. I let somebody read uh songs, uh sausages never you buy and they're just kind of like oh okay all very good, so they weren't really ready for that one as much. But mostly they don't read my stuff, just my husband does. Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1:And so let's segue a little bit here. Let's talk a little bit about spooky movies. Is there a particular brand of spooky movies? Because there are brands at this point, like it's insidious or paramotivity, you know they're all brands. At this point you got nine movies. You know when you're, when you're competing with Sharknado, for how many different different sequels you have. I think you're a brand.
Speaker 2:So any, any particular brands of of series that you're really into, I think you're a brand, so any particular brands of series that you're really into. Gone to my head. I guess I'd have to say my favorite would be Slasher, the old Slashers especially, but I love them all. I'm really into kind of re-watching the Friday the 13th movies and my favorites my trifecta is 4, 5, and 6. I love those. Those are my favorite ones. But yeah, mostly I would say the slasher genre is my favorite, but I love them all. So found footage they're so fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as long as it's like with slashers. If you take it too seriously, then I really don't like it. But if it's meant to be ridiculous, you know kind of that evil dead feel when it's over the top and just like you're going for shock, value right, but not shock and disgust, mainly just kind of shock. And that's what I noticed about evil dead and about you, and even start with Jason, and it's just, it's all ridiculous. Send Terrifier. Terrifier is a perfect example, more modern example.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I love it for its own craziness. Yes, that's the other thing. What do you think? Why do you think people like horror stuff? What's your opinion on that?
Speaker 2:It's hard to say. I think, um, I don't want to give the whole like, oh, it's an escape, you know, but it's. I think people, everybody has a dark side. Um, and some have a, you know, darker side than others and I think sometimes that's how you get it out. Is you watch these things? They're not real, you're enjoying it. I mean, sometimes that's how you get it out. Is you watch these things? They're not real, you're enjoying it. I mean, sometimes it's really messed up, like like the Terrifier movies, and they're just messed up and crazy and you're laughing like a kid. You know, you're just enjoying it. And people might think, oh, that's kind of weird, but that's part of how you get that darkness out of you. You know how you, how you indulge that. That that's just for me. I can speak for myself, but that's kind of my opinion on it. Everybody has that need for that darkness to come out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I like that. It's kind of a neutral approach to it. I talked to Tim Wagner early on in the seasons. I don't know if it was this season or last season. I talked to Tim Wagner early on in the seasons. I don't know if it was this season or last season I talked to Tim Wagner and his answer and I ask this of pretty much every author that comes on. I said what do you think about horror? And he's like it's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's it. I was like do you think it has a healing effect, teaching people to be strong? He's like, no, he's like but, and that's okay, it can just be fun.
Speaker 1:You know, um, you know people like to experience, uh, thrills and and and chills and stuff, but they don't like it in real life. You know they like the safe environment. You know books do that for us. It's a very safe environment. Yeah, there's the mental aspect of it, but when you're reading a story, I mean it's, it's only as real as you want to make it know yeah yeah, so and and that was that always presents a challenge, right, and we're especially in horror, is we're not?
Speaker 1:we can only explain away so much before we start to lose interest. I think if it's too overly done, you know, overly explained, right, then it loses the mystery. And then you're just like, ah, there's the scary thing, and now you it's, it's no longer a horror story, it's more story, it's more like a survival story, right, because you see the scary thing, you know yeah, I don't need to know why michael myers is killing people, I just need to see him do it I don't need to know any of that, so yeah yeah, have you seen that?
Speaker 1:um, have you seen that there's a it's? It's going around, but it's a jar and inside the jar is Mike Myers floating. He's chained down to the bottom. Have you seen that?
Speaker 2:No, I haven't.
Speaker 1:It's really cool. I think people are like they're DIYers and it basically looks it's a stand, it's in a glass jar and it's got him at the bottom in the lake and he's holding his knife. And he's got his mask on and he's just chained by the neck to the bottom Because he can't die. So I just yeah. And it's a light too, so it lights up and I was like, oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's neat sorry, excuse me, I was having some technical malfunctions there um no problem, everything just went muted for a second.
Speaker 2:Luckily I didn't say anything um, but but yeah anyway.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I that was a little sidebar aside, like I'm like I like really cool horror decorations.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm like, you know, and I dig into my past a little bit and to my, to my family and my roots, so I know I totally look like it, but I am actually a significant portion of Hawaiian and so that comes from my mom's side of things. So, um, so she's a Filipino Hawaiian and my dad is a Wisconsin cheese head. So apologies to my Wisconsin friends that, uh, that I call cheese heads, um and uh, you know, and, and you know, because of the heritage, I've got like a real attachment to the ocean, um and a real attachment and respect for it and the and the creatures there and like octopuses for me are like.
Speaker 1:That's my favorite animal. That is by far okay. I've got a massive octopus tattoo from my chest all the way across my back and shoulder um so I adore adore octopus, um, octopuses and um, but but also at the same time it's like I've got this irrational fear of the ocean I don't say irrational, I think it's very reasonable to be afraid of the ocean, but I think it's like a respect, borderline terror about it, knowing that we are just playing here.
Speaker 2:You know yes, yes, I love the same. I love the ocean, I love it's beautiful. But then you really think too much about how big it is, what's in there, what we don't know is in there. It can be really overwhelmingly terrifying when you really think about it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's kind of got that feeling like like there's an attic right and you're climbing up the top. You can't see inside. But you gotta you know you gotta poke your head up like it's kind of like that you, you poke your head into the ocean.
Speaker 1:You may not like what you see when you poke your head down there and you wouldn't have known it was there unless you you know but but you decided to poke around in it and I think that's kind of what happens in horror stories anyways, isn't it like people go poke in their nose and this stuff?
Speaker 2:they shouldn't exactly you're like. I would never do that, but you know you probably you might yeah yeah yeah, so speaking of motion stuff, go ahead.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, go ahead oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say you brought up um evil dead and I was gonna ask you what you thought of the uh, the 2013 evil dead. I don't know if it was remake, continuation, whatever you want to call it, but what did you think of that?
Speaker 1:I love it, I mean I loved it because it was, it was silly, it was exactly. It made no promises. It said we are evil, dead and you're gonna get the exact same thing as the first one. I think that's what needs to be done with when you're gonna use like ip, like that, that it's just so rooted in culture, like when people think horror, the necronomicon is right there.
Speaker 1:You know, like yeah, it's not, you don't have to, you don't have to to dig to find that in the history books of horror, so like the necronomicon, like so, when you've got beautiful ip like that, when you've got stuff like that, like the best thing to do is just give more of the same rather than try and innovate and create new. You know, I think you know, alien Romulus did this. Yeah, so minus a few parts, like alien, romulus used costumes and costume design versus CGI, and that was what made it so terrifying in the first, the first movies and the first of the alien franchise. So like watching that again, seeing that they're going back to people in suits acting as the monster instead of CGI, it just made all the difference. And so that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to take that thing that people love and make more of it. You know, sometimes innovation is not not the answer.
Speaker 2:Exactly Agreed is not the answer. Exactly Agreed, Absolutely yeah. I actually went to see it like five times Evil Dead.
Speaker 1:Oh, the 2013 version.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because everybody kept wanting to go, so we were just like we'll go with you. And it was fun. We had a blast.
Speaker 1:Did you see the second one they made?
Speaker 2:the uh evil dead rise I think that's what. Yeah, I cannot yeah, yeah, yeah, I did see that. I actually enjoyed that too. It wasn't not as much as the other one, but it was fun. It was fun too very cool.
Speaker 1:So what's on? Uh, what's on the chopping block? What do you got planned? What's coming up?
Speaker 2:I've got two stories that I'm actually working on for anthology invites and they'll be hoping to finish them up here the next couple weeks and have them in. They should be. I'm not sure when they'll be released, when the anthologies will be released, but I think it'll probably be sometime summer maybe. So that's fun. And then in between I'm still working on a novella and short story collection too. I'm so much better at short stories, but I'm more comfortable with them, more comfortable writing them. I've tried my hand at novellas before and I just end up kind of chopping it down to a lot shorter. But I'm hoping to get there. Very cool, I know.
Speaker 1:So what do you think makes your horror flavor unique?
Speaker 2:What makes it turn um for me it's I play on the more emotional side of things that happen to people that make them do the things they do, as opposed to just, hey, we're just, you know, we're just blood, guts and gore. There's a reason behind it, and a lot of times I have to tap into a lot of things inside myself to get there. The idea kind of comes from wherever it comes from, but as I'm writing it, sometimes I have to tap into things you know inside myself to make it real for me why this person would do what they do. You know real for me why this person would do what they do, you know, and I think that's kind of what makes what I'm writing a little more unique. It's just more it comes from more of an emotional place than just, uh, just people doing horrible things for no reason yeah, well, I mean, but isn't that, isn't that kind of the core of horror?
Speaker 1:anyways, at some point, it's just being like people are going to be awful and sometimes they just do it for for being, for for reasons to be awful. Like it doesn't there? There is no, there's no logic behind it, because logic, you know, says, you know, the average person is a is a functional, logical human being, the average person.
Speaker 1:And so like we always write about the people who are not you know, and sometimes we see what they do in the pursuit of science or the pursuit of knowledge or the pursuit of wealth, like the horrible things we do to each other. Um, you know, and horror taps into that. You, that's.
Speaker 2:That's something that's unique well, more or less, for me it's uh, the thing that it's the catalyst is for really no reason whatever. Somebody did something to somebody or something happened to somebody, and that's why they do what they do and they might, they may take it, you know, further than they should have taken it, obviously, but, um, that's just, that's just kind of how I, how I write, I guess just more from an emotional place, but, um, you know, it's not really I, I guess a new, new, uh, unique perspective, but it's just kind of where where I draw everything from.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, do you think, um, do you think there's gotta be like a lot of good in a horror story for there to be a lot of bad? Like we're watching these stuff, like I I think there's cause, there can't be one without the other, right, and I mean so whenever I'm watching like a horror movie, it's always at the beginning, or when you're reading a horror book, where it's where, it's always at the beginning. Here's the picturesque life right or as close to picturesque, as can be for the characters and then, you know, then comes the big bad, then comes the scary.
Speaker 1:That really upends all of that you know and just kind of turns everything on its head. Yes, I think one really good all of that you know, and just kind of turns everything on its head.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think one really good example of that as far as the book and the movie, but it's Pet Cemetery, because when you see the movie, this family they pull up, it's this gorgeous home and it's, you know, everything's sunshine. But obviously we know where that goes, so it doesn't end well for anyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the lesson there in Pet Sematary is awesome, right? I mean, it's a few lessons in there and one of them, you know, is be careful what you wish for, right.
Speaker 2:That's the first thing.
Speaker 1:You know, it's kind of like that. It's always like that. I don't know if it's a meme or pop culture or whatever, but whenever people get a genie and they ask for something and they give them that literal thing instead of what they thought they wanted. You know?
Speaker 1:and you know kind of that trickery involved there. That's what it. Yeah, I mean that's. I think there's gotta be good. There has to be. There has to be some sort of good that we can all reflect on and be like, yeah, that's how things should be for the character. Let's see how things go sideways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely yeah. Did you see the sequel, the Pet Sematary sequel, not the remake but the I watched.
Speaker 1:So of the remake, the part two of the remake part two, no, just part two. Yeah, the from from way back night edward, no, no, no, I didn't oh so well, tell me about it okay, so when that at the time when that movie came out.
Speaker 2:Pen cemetery was my absolute favorite stephen king, you know, book, movie, whatever and I was so excited when it was getting a sequel. Edward Furlong's in it. Who else is in it? Clancy Brown is in it just being Clancy Brown's best, and I can't remember. It's a few other people that are in it that have been in other things, but it's ridiculous. It's very mean-spirited. It makes no sense. They don't really follow any of the actual rules from the original story. It's kind of like yes, we're just going to bury people and bring them back and see what goes.
Speaker 1:So I always judge King's stuff based on um different levels of cocaine binge where he's at Um, and so I think um, I think for Pet Sematary he had to be like right before you know where. Things are still kind of livid for him, you know, still kind of vivid for him, so he's but um pet cemetery.
Speaker 1:What I thought was interesting about is that it will also wove in the lore of the wendigo yeah and that's a huge um, a huge cryptid monster, whatever from from history, um, and and honestly it's the inspiration behind my logo is the Wendigo, and I love anything to do with it, and so I thought, when I first read it and I watched the movie, I thought there would be even more of an emphasis on the Wendigo being there, being present and the things it represented, and it just seemed like just a footnote kind of like when Stephen King wrote about it and he's like when you wrote it and the universe is some on the back of some giant turtle and it's taking a shit and that's how it created the earth.
Speaker 1:It's just kind of wild. If you get an opportunity I'm butchering it, but it's out there. I mean as far as. So that's like peak cocaine binge when he's talking about the giant floating turtle and that's how the universe is where the deadlights and all that. But yeah, it's gosh the lore, so lore. We're talking about.
Speaker 1:Lore, talking about things that are you know just stuff in life, that's, you know, stuff that we write about. It's got to be rooted somewhere, right? Either we create it or it's rooted on a belief or an idea, like if you, you know, be careful what you wish for, or you know how, about you don't eat your friends, you know, like that sort of thing, right, I mean, how far were you willing to go so like, is there anything in particular that you're like? Man, this thing needs a horror story.
Speaker 2:It just hasn't been written yet oh wow, I can't think of anything. I feel like if I dug deep, maybe I feel like people have touched on almost everything that I can think of. I don't know. Maybe people have touched on almost everything to that I can think of, um, I don't know, maybe, uh, mothman has been done, but I think more Mothman would be be fun. More.
Speaker 1:Mothman More creatures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But he's kind of like comical right, like kind of like yeah just kind of yeah, which to me you can really do it very tongue-in-cheek, very kind of. You know it is kind of comical, but you can kind of I don't know go another way with it. Maybe. I don't know. That's kind of a hard one because I can't think of anything much that hasn't been for me, that I know of, that hasn't been touched on. As far as lore, and a lot of it's been done well.
Speaker 1:Every story's already been told right. And that's the thing we've got to remember too is that every story's already been told it's. How many different ways can we tell it and can we still be respectful to it but at the same time, maybe give it our own flair, give it our own twist, and that sort of thing?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so very cool. So, shannon, just do me a favor. You know this is. This is the time, the shameless plug time. Let's tell, tell everybody where they can find you and where you want them to go to get an introduction to you and your writing and, if they like, who you are, and let them know where they can go to find more of your stuff.
Speaker 2:Okay, Just everything I have. Everything I've written is on Godless Godlesscom. Under my name, Shannon Bradner, I have a short story in the Scorned Anthology. You can find it on Amazon under Bainham Books Press. And as far as my socials go, a manic pixie bookworm on instagram and just shannon bradner on facebook. That's all the socials that I have. So perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I'll make sure I get all those links in the description. Um, I appreciate you coming on, shannon, and sharing a little bit about yourself and and what you're up to and the things that you find interesting. You seem pretty level-headed, considering you're a horror writer, so that's a lot.
Speaker 2:That's always fun to notice is that we are the most average people, I believe yes, uh, it was so funny because a lot of people that, uh, that I work with some know, I write, you know, do you think do that and some don't. But um, when it comes out, you know, they first thing they ask what kind of stuff do you write and that? And some don't. But um, when it comes out, you know, they first thing they ask what kind of stuff do you write? And you're like, of course, horror stuff and you're like yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And this guy looked at me. He says oh, your mind works like that. And yeah, you know, yes, it does.
Speaker 1:Sorry, yes, it does no apologies needed yeah, cool. Well, Shannon, thank you for joining me tonight. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was a pleasure to get to know you and I hope to see you continually in the space.
Speaker 2:Absolutely for sure.
Speaker 1:Wait, can't wait to see what you come up with. All right, y'all. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This has been the Nightmare Engine podcast episode, something on Friday, march 7th, with Miss Shadden Bradner, so thank you so much to her for jumping on and checking in from Virginia and sharing a little bit about her life and what she's done and her writing and her joys for us. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining me again for another week and I look forward to speaking with you once more. That's it, goodbye.
