I am the proud member of a men’s book club. I have been for over 20 years. And no, “book club” is not a euphemism for “poker”.  The Men’s Book Club is as real as its name, although capitalizing the letters was my contribution. The monthly readings are by no means pushovers – no sports books (although we read When Pride Still Mattered, a biography of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss – we do live in Wisconsin after all) and fluffy bestsellers.  In addition to a psychologist and professor (me), the group contains multiple attorneys, a dentist, a family therapist, business professionals, a physician, an engineer, and English professor – you get the idea. We read histories, classics, National Book Award nominees, Booker Award nominees, biographies, history - anything at all. The eclectic nature of the group is its real strength. Besides my own avid reading over the decades, I think my attendance in this group has really informed my writing. This is not to say that we read horror novels – the exact opposite really (although they did go along with my suggestion of 11/22/63 by Stephen King – the only King book read by most of these guys). Instead, I have learned what others appreciate in their reading, how they value the written word, what constitutes well written prose, what facilitates the intricacies of character development – all of the fine points that I probably slept through during high school and college English classes.

My exposure to the breadth of interests and opinions of very educated people has dramatically changed my ability to tell a story. While my academic and scholarly writing has been honed over the years through writing empirical journal articles, receiving reviews of my work, and being challenged by my psychology colleagues, my fiction writing – and the courage to try it – has been informed by the monthly meetings over 20 plus years with this group of men. 

As a neophyte in the realm of social media and one who is learning the ropes of fiction writing, I was pleased to discover blogs by authors who willingly offer advice on a wide range of topics related to publishing and using social media. Two authors whose blogs I’ve found helpful and interesting are Scott Southard (http://sdsouthard.com/) and Susanne Lakin (http://www.cslakin.com/) . I will undoubtedly find others and mention them as time goes along. If you are a novice writer or social media-challenged like me, I recommend reading the blogs of these helpful folks.

When I was 6 years old, I remember one evening sitting with my older brother in his bedroom playing something and watching TV. He was twelve and actually had his own black and white portable TV - the whole thing was cool beyond belief. At one point, a trailer (they used to call them “coming attractions” back then in 1960) for the movie Village of the Damned came on. Kids with platinum blond hair with strange eyes which would glow and make people kill themselves. My God, it scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t make sense of it. These were kids, actual killer kids, and they had a movie about them. I couldn’t stop talking about it, and hoped in vain to see the trailer again. I don’t remember if I was fortunate to see it, but I sure remembered the images of those searing eyes. I was too young to see the movie, of course, but my brother did. Much to my chagrin, he pronounced it “neat” but wouldn’t go into detail – whether this was out of brotherly concern (which I doubt) about causing me nightmares or he just couldn’t be bothered to talk to his baby brother at the time when he had more pressing things to do. Years later I was finally able to see the movie and also read the novel on which it was based: The Midwich Cuckoos.  Both the film and the novel have justifiably attained “classic” status. The plot is unnerving and freakish. The characters, however, those kids who were monsters, they made a huge impression on my 6-year old mind. I’m not sure if I can point to this as the origin of my interest in the “creepy kid” horror genre, but it is a good account as any. Most of my horror fascination throughout childhood was drawn to giant rampaging dinosaurs in major cities (followed by other big monsters doing nasty things). So, being a fan of scary kid horror didn’t really take hold until high school when I read The Other and The Exorcist, but the origins may have started with that trailer seen in my brother’s bedroom in 1960.

When I started my horror novel, Birth Offering, I knew the major character would be a 14 year old. Now, my entire career has been as a psychologist with the past twenty years specializing in pediatric psychology. I convinced myself that I knew a little bit about how kids acted, felt, and thought. However, I was getting rather, well, old, and I needed to brush up on how other authors were writing about kids. I found four recent novels which were excellent reads and contained great adolescent characters:

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch

The Last Child by John Hart

None of them are horror stories, although the mystery novel, The Last Child, certainly contains elements of horror. Regardless, for anyone interested in well-drawn teenage characters, these novels provide great examples. I recommend them highly.