Happy book birthday to my little horror-western hybrid with a dose of claustrophobia and dystopia, When the Night Bells Ring! You know what that means: the paperback version is now available as of TODAY!
To celebrate the release, we had an online book tour this past week, filled with readers posting wonderful reviews that warmed my cold autumn heart. Here are a few of my favorite snippets:
“Each page turned delves deeper into an atmospheric tale that's as unsettling as it is compelling, with a tension that grips tight and never lets go. The story explores profound themes of self-surrender in the face of dire circumstances, all while juggling the immediate perils lurking underground with the broader, ominous dread of desolate abandonment. … Kaplan's storytelling prowess is nothing short of wonder.”
“[T]he story packs a hell of a punch. It made me not want to sleep at night, both because I wanted to know what happened and because I didn’t want to be alone in the dark.”
“Impressively, Kaplan juxtaposes a dystopian future ravaged my fire and drought with monsters uncovered by silver mining during the 1860s mineral rushes of American West to set the stage for the horrors of human greed and the debt nature demands to be paid when humans take too much from it.”
“Kaplan is truly an amazing storyteller.”
Thank you again to everyone who participated in the tour, and to everyone who has read the book over the past year! Knowing that the book has connected with readers is just the best feeling.
When the Night Bells Ring
Yes, of course I am going to do a pairing with my book for the paperback release :)
First, a classic: the whiskey sour is what I originally paired with this book when it was released last year, so I want to highlight this one again as a great pairing. My publisher, CamCat Books, clearly agrees (click the image to view the full reel on Instagram):
But I had another idea during a recent podcast interview I did with CamCat Unwrapped, the official podcast of CamCat Books. I was asked about cocktail pairings for the different characters, and when I thought of a pairing for the Dust Devils—Mads and Waynoka—all I could think of was… no, let those poor women hydrate! Just drink water!
But look, this is Books & Booze, not Books & H2O.
Pairs best with…
Ranch Water Cocktail
Here’s a boozy but refreshing alternative to just chugging some silty sump water from the bottom of a mine. And you won’t run into any creepy creatures while you drink this. Probably.
Ingredients
3 oz tequila
1 ½ oz lime juice
4 oz sparkling mineral water or seltzer
Directions
Add tequila and lime juice to a glass with ice.
Top with sparkling water
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
I don’t want to just do one drink pairing today; let’s do a few more! Here are a couple of my favorite recent reads, starting with a book that somehow manages to be utterly bleak and also beautifully written, full of both violence and humanity… as well as drug cartels, magic, and Spanish.
Promise by Christi Nogle
Nogle has put together another stunning collection after the powerhouse of The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future. Promise is a collection of weird science fiction stories that are full of wild imagination, strangeness, and ambiguity, probing the boundaries of existence, consciousness, and what it means to be human.
Tips from a Writing Professor
Give me trouble.
No, seriously. I’ve noticed a growing trend in my creative writing class of stories without any trouble. Everything is nice, the protagonist easily accomplishes what they want, and in the end we all learn about the power of kindness as a testament to the enduring spirit of…
I’m sorry, I couldn’t finish that sentence because I was falling asleep while writing it. Even describing such a story is boring.
All stories need trouble. Without conflict, there is no story—there’s just people doing things. There are different types of conflict that could appear in a story. It could be conflict between two people, as in a power struggle between the protagonist and the antagonist whose goals are at odds; it could be a conflict between a person and a situation (natural, societal, etc.); it could even be inner conflict within an individual. Whatever the type of conflict, it needs to have some real stakes for the characters.
Why all the negativity? This is because only trouble is interesting. If I tell you a story about how I had a lovely day, got to eat at my favorite restaurant and watched a good movie and snuggled with my cats, well, you might be pleased to hear I had a nice day, but this is not a story. There’s no tension, nothing holding your interest (especially if you don’t know or care about my feelings, and let’s be honest, you probably don’t, so what does it matter to you that I had a nice day?). But what if I told you about how my cat got loose, and I spent the day searching the neighborhood, frantically putting up flyers, and posting on Facebook hoping someone would find my cat? Then you might be interested, because you want to know what happened! Did I find the cat, or not?
Conflict is interesting because it leaves us wanting resolution. The resolution of this story could be a happy or tragic ending: if I said someone saw my post and got in touch because they found my cat, you could breathe a sigh of relief knowing that it all worked out. If I said I never found my cat, well, that would be a very sad ending, but it would still be an ending (don’t make the mistake of thinking that resolution requires a happy ending). It is perhaps an unsatisfying ending, though.
Without conflict, there is no tension, and since there’s nothing to resolve, there’s no driving desire for resolution. This is why conflict and tension are integral in a story. If there’s no conflict, there’s no story.
Once you have a conflict, though, you can’t wrap it up too easily. It’s profoundly uninteresting if a character is immediately able to solve their conflict without difficulty. I am often reminding my students to make their characters struggle. Make them suffer. Make them almost fail. Make them actually fail. Make things harder for them, and then harder still. Bring them to the brink of annihilation. Without struggle, there is no transformation, no character arc, no real earned emotion. Without struggle, there is no need for resolution.
I get the sense my students want to write nice stories, but I also remind them that including more conflict won’t take away from the sweetness of a story. Instead, it may enhance it by showing how delicate that sweetness is, and how easily it can be lost.
I also suspect some of this is the fault of ChatGPT (which loves to write about pedantic testaments to the enduring human spirit… and also tapestries, so many tapestries…), but I’ll refrain from getting into that.
So, just remember: if you want to write a story, we’re going to need some trouble.
Writing Update
What have I been up to? Not much writing lately (every time I catch up on grading, another barrage of essays falls in my lap…), but I still have a number of updates to share.
At the end of August, I finally finished writing a new novel. I had given myself a deadline to finish it before the start of the semester, and yes, I managed to reach the end three days before the semester began. Please clap. I’ll share more about that one after my agent finishes reading it (cue panicked anticipation).
I’ve recorded three different podcasts recently: two interviews and one writing challenge, in which three other writers and I were tasked with collaboratively writing a horror story in one hour based on a prompt. We all agreed it was incredibly nerve-wracking, but it was also a lot of fun! Also, you’ll be able to catch When the Night Bells Ring on CamCat Unwrapped in about a week, where they will do an entire serialized reading of the book! Audiobook lovers, take note.
In September, I had the opportunity to do a four-day horror writing retreat in Big Bear, where I worked a little on a short story but mostly engaged in fun activities like arts and crafts (make your own Necronomicon!), scary stories by the campfire, a ride on a pirate ship, tarot readings, and a spooky scavenger hunt in which I won a delightfully creepy palmistry hand. The first annual Horror Conclave was a rousing success!
Recent Work
My anti-ChatGPT story “Humanities 215: Science, Literature, and Human Insight” came out in Wilted Pages: An Anthology of Dark Academia edited by Ai Jiang and Christi Nogle.
My poem “Where the Monsters Live” can be found in Under Her Eye: A Women in Horror Poetry Showcase, Vol. II edited by Lindy Ryan and Lee Murray, which will be available on November 7.
My story “Where All the Streets Lead” was just published in A Darkness Visible: Explorations of Horror in the Postmodern edited by G.M. Miller, Ewan Moor, and Justin A. Burnett.
My story “Bluebells in the Rug” is included in House of Haunts edited by Heather Daughrity, which will be out on October 13 (Kindle edition available now)!
Events
On October 28, 4 - 6 pm PT, I’ll be doing a reading for Night Time Logic. The event is free and will be streamed live on YouTube. Christi Nogle, Daniel Braum, Brian Evenson, and I will each be reading from our stories in A Darkness Visible to celebrate the anthology and, of course, Halloween season!
About Me
Jo Kaplan is the author of the horror novels It Will Just Be Us and When the Night Bells Ring. Her short stories have appeared in Fireside Quarterly, Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Vastarien, Horror Library, Nightscript, and a variety of award-nominated anthologies (sometimes as Joanna Parypinski). Find her at jo-kaplan.com.