Guest Spotlight: Clay McLeod Chapman
Episode 17 of The Film Coterie (due to be released before the end of this week) features a special guest appearance by the one and only Clay McLeod Chapman of The Pumpkin Pie Show fame. If you are unfamiliar with his work, this episode will be a great jumping off point as he was kind enough to share a tale with us on the episode. Listen and you'll hear him perform Michelle, one of many short stories that come from The Pumpkin Pie Show and his books. I seriously can't wait for you all to hear it.
I had the chance to see Clay perform at the Overlook Film Festival and I knew right away that I wanted to reach out and see if he would have any interest in being a part of our special Buxton Inn episode. As you are well aware of by now, I love horror in all of its forms. Fans mostly consume the genre in books, television, and film. How often can you say that you've had the opportunity to enjoy horror through a talented storyteller and a live performance?
Listening to Clay perform Michelle last night at the Buxton Inn was awesome. He called in to our podcast and I think the element of his voice coming in over a phone call gave the tale an extra immersive element. Imagine a creepy character talking directly to you on your own phone and laying out a horrific tale and you'll start to get the idea. It felt personal that way. Sent a shiver down my spine at moments.
If you like what you heard on this episode, I've got good news! There's a lot of Clay McLeod Chapman material out there for you to consume. Here is but a slight preview of what you can find.
BOOK - Nothing Untoward (Available for purchase on Amazon) - Clay's newest book and features 40 stories from The Pumpkin Pie Show. I've been enjoying reading a few stories from it each night. I'll steal from the official synopsis and whole-heartedly agree that it is "darkly humorous" and "strangely heartbreaking." Definitely grab this book if you think you'll enjoy more tales like you heard on our show.
MOVIE - The Boy (2015) (Available for rent or purchase on iTunes and Amazon) - This film is co-written by Clay and is based upon a short story from one of his earlier books. This is important to note - there's another film called The Boy (2016) and that one is about an evil dummy boy, you don't want to watch that one. You want to watch The Boy (2015) about a real (creepy) boy. You know you have the right movie if the box art features a boy with antlers on his head. It stars Rainn Wilson and David Morse and is definitely worth checking out. A chilling portrayal of what isolation can do to people.
COMICS - Clay has written a number of comics (his website does a great job of highlighting the recent ones). Self Storage is a zombie rom-com that will soon be collected into a trade paperback. Amazing Spider-Man: Edge of Spider-Verse explores alternate realities and what if the radioactive spider had bitten someone else. American Vampire has been consistently awesome through the years and Clay has written for it as well. This is just a taste of some of the comics that Clay has written, check out his page for even more.
Follow Clay on Twitter (@claymcleod) and check out his website. With The Pumpkin Pie Show celebrating 20 years in existence, I'm sure there will be some new and exciting performances unveiled there over the coming months.
If you enjoyed hearing Clay on our show, let us and him know! We'll kindly beg him to do something with us again for a future episode. Listen closely to this upcoming episode and you may just find an easy way to win something cool, you've been warned.