RTS 12: Convention Aftermath


This week Kevin and Jeremy come to you live from Horrorhound Weekend Cincinnati 2017 for three days of stories about Kevin trying to teach a hotel maid english, Jeremy expertly selling gay jesus chap books, fights with waffle makers, trying to sell loch ness porn to discovery channel monster hunters and much more as shit got weird in Ohio!

This week’s read is part 2 of the strange barbarian saga JORECK AND THE SWAMP PHANTOMS OF IKK. With Orilious missing, Joreck works tirelessly to find his blood brother, but when he does, well, Orilious has other plans.

Back from Break, the boys discuss all the twists and turns in the Joreck story and set up next week’s Swamp Phantoms finale along with more stories from the road show.

Don’t forget to like our page at Facebook.com/ReadingToStrangers and drop us a buck at Patreon.com/KevinTheStrange if you like what you hear and want to support the podcast!

Till next week, gang. Keep reading!

HorrorHound Weekend: Cincinnati 2017 Recap

Horrorhound Cincinnati 2017 marks over 10 years of road life for me. My first con was in 2006. I printed up 80 copies of my first feature film DREAM REAPER and took it to a small show in northern Ohio with an attendance of maybe 150 people over three days.

We sold 7 movies. Mostly to other vendors who felt sorry for me because I brought 10 actors with me to celebrate the release of my first film. We were all cramped around a single six foot table.

We had a magic show in the corner. We dressed a guy up like the Pumpkin Monster. We traveled in two trucks and rented two hotel rooms. I don’t think our sales even covered our gas money.

The upside was, the con was so slow, we were able to get Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman to do the video introduction to the movie. (Which meant that the 80 copies I’d already pressed up were useless because I needed to re-burn the DVD with the Troma intro.)

A lot has changed in these 11 years. Everything has changed.

But the one thing that remains constant is that horror fans still love horror conventions. And all these many years later, I’m still out here. Lloyd Kaufman is still out here. He’s still slanging Troma films.

I made the switch from feature films to fiction in 2012 and now, five years later, I can set up a small table, only bring one guy to help work the booth (big shout out to READING TO STRANGERS co-host Jeremy Daniels who sold more gay jesus chap books this weekend than ANYONE thought possible!), and sell as many copies of my novels as I BROUGHT of my first film to that first show.

That’s what’s supposed to happen, right? You do something long enough, you stay humble and you pay your dues and then you become successful at it.

When I think of all of the adventures my friends and I have had over the years, all the great people and crazy people we’ve met on the road over the years, I can’t help but smile. This is a crazy, stressful, maddening, but ultimately fulfilling life.

I really truly can’t think of another lifestyle I’d be more content living. I get to write anything my imagination can dream up and then I get go out on the road with my best friends and put those insane stories into the hands of my fans and give them a small portal into the mind of a mad man.

The last few months have been especially challenging. As I’ve broken away from the toxic writing community that seems totally happy playing gossip games on facebook rather than chasing success and adventure, I wondered how I would be received by the horror fans at large on the midwest con circuit.

Would they side with the full time drama queens on social media and ghost me like they never knew me? Would they start drama of their own over my non-PC social and political views?

Of course not. They treated me exactly the same way they always have. With smiles and open hearts. Like family. The Strangeheads don’t give a single fuck about online drama. In fact, NO ONE does outside of the tiny little circle of wannabe writers who start it.

Think about it, I signed almost the same amount of books in three days as the actual amount of people in the shitty little gossip communities who try to drag me down to their level.

When you’re at a con and you hear Iron Maiden playing in the distance, rest assured you’re about to stumble upon the green and purple world of Strangeville, full of drunk weirdos who all look vaguely like the ugly headed Kevin Strange leering down on you from the table banner behind us.

Come buy some books, gang. There’s a decade worth of stories in them. And don’t believe what you hear on the internet. They’re just jealous they don’t live here.

RTS 11: Convention Week


Kevin and Jeremy are on the road selling Strange Fiction at HorrorHound Weekend in Cincinnati this weekend, but that doesn’t stop READING TO STRANGERS! The show must go on and on it goes, gang. This week the boys discuss convention prep and the release of Kevin’s brand new novel I DIED IN A BED OF ROSES (Which you can buy signed and personalized directly from Strangeville here, in paperback on amazon here, or on kindle here.)

After the break, heard for the first time anywhere by anyone is the first part of the brand new Joreck The Barbarian story JORECK AND THE SWAMP PHANTOMS OF IKK!

Joreck and the gang must trek through the haunted swamps of dreaded Ikk to find their blood brother Orilious who has mysteriously gone missing. But what if Orilious doesn’t want to be found?

The boys close out this episode breaking down the first part of the story and previewing next week’s episode. We hope you join us for JORECK AND THE SWAMP PHANTOMS OF IKK part 2 next week!

Remember, you can get the FULL audio book of this story and many more, commercial free right now on our Patreon page by becoming a Patron of the Strange at Patreon.com/KevinTheStrange.

Till next week, gang. Keep reading!