Season 5, Episode 5: Our Favorite Stephen

October 17, 2025

Daniel chats with horror author Stephen Graham Jones where they talk about his most recent novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter; comic book allegories; and how to explore taboos and superstitions by writing scary stories.

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[music: "Wichita Wind" by Shoeshine Blue]

Daniel, voiceover Hey, everybody. I'm Daniel, host of Read Return Repeat, and we're here for another episode. I'm here with the engineer, Kyle.

Kyle, voiceover Hey.

Daniel, voiceover So, like, summer is over.

Kyle, voiceover Yeah. Yeah. Summer's over. Kids going back to school.

Daniel, voiceover It's starting to get chilly.

Kyle, voiceover The leaves are falling.

Daniel, voiceover The pumpkin spice is...

Kyle, voiceover Yeah. No, actually, I got my very first email from IHOP advertising pumpkin spice pancakes.

Daniel, voiceover Pumpkin spice is back.

Kyle, voiceover Yeah. They didn't, they didn't take no break. They were just like, you know what? It's getting a little cold.

Daniel, voiceover Yeah.

Kyle, voiceover Let's advertise it now.

Daniel, voiceover Once it gets, once we stop hitting like—which we didn't hit triple digits this year. But once it starts getting back to, like, high 80s, like pumpkin spice is ready to go.

Kyle, voiceover Yup. And then you go into stores now. Went to Lowe's the other day and saw a ten foot skeleton for sale.

Daniel, voiceover Oh, yeah. Giant animatronic skeletons. They got like Maleficent now. Like, those things are getting real complicated. It's spooky season, y'all. That's what we're trying to get to.

Kyle, voiceover Exactly.

Daniel, voiceover All the, all the businesses that closed the previous year are all Spirit Halloweens now.

Kyle, voiceover Yep, yep.

Daniel, voiceover So in that tradition, real quick I'm going to plug a program I have in October: Spooky Stories for Grownups. We have lots of local performers come in and they read horror stories. It's a fun, spooky time. Check out wichitalibrary.org calendar of events for more information on that.

Kyle, voiceover It's an adult program, no kids allowed?

Daniel, voiceover They can come with an adult. It's like PG-13.

Kyle, voiceover Okay. It's not, it's not too spooky.

Daniel, voiceover People like bringing their kids to it because it's like, yeah, it's still like—

Kyle, voiceover Yeah.

Daniel, voiceover It's not too spooky. But we did read Tracy Jackson's The Lottery, which is about like people like stoning someone to death. [editor's note: Shirley Jackson is the author of The Lottery]

Daniel, voiceover I think that's as—

Kyle, voiceover It gets there.

Daniel, voiceover Yeah, it's young adult level spooky, that's what I'll say.

Kyle, voiceover Yeah, I'll check that out.

Daniel, voiceover But in that spooky tradition, because we're in, we're in spooky season now, we got a cool spooky author. His name's Stephen. Big name. Not to... it's not Stephen, I'm just gonna say it's not Stephen King.

Kyle, voiceover Yeah.

Daniel, voiceover But we got Stephen Graham Jones.

Kyle, voiceover He's my favorite Stephen.

Daniel, voiceover He's my favorite Stephen.

Kyle, voiceover In horror.

Daniel, voiceover Yeah. Stephen Graham Jones is like killing it right now. He's like, like the Angel of Indian Lake trilogy. The Only Good Indians. He's written, he's been active since the year 2000. He seems like he's coming out with a book every year. And like, we're talking to him about The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, which is like a vampire novel. If you haven't read it, go listen, go read that and then come back and listen to the interview. We don't spoil it, but like if you haven't read it, this interview is going to make you want to read it. A really awesome guy. He even does comic books, talks about that. I'm, let's just jump into it. And everyone, we're going to go ahead and jump into the interview with Stephen Graham Jones. Check it out.

Daniel All right. I am here with Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Excited to interview you, Stephen. I'm a big fan of your work. I love the book. I guess starting off, my first question is, like, for audience members not familiar with your work, can you tell us a little about yourself?

Stephen Oh, let's see. I grew up in west Texas, got my undergraduate degree there, my master's in Texas, also my PhD at Florida, Florida, at Florida State. First novel's 2000. Most recent novel's 2025, Killer on the Road. I'm Blackfeet married, couple of kids. I write mostly horror. Maybe that's the most important thing about me. I write most—

Daniel You write mostly horror. Yeah and I guess, like, that's my follow-up question would be like, your style as a horror writer is distinct from other contemporary horror writers. Where do you draw, like... so like in your narrative structure, character-driven plots, you also do a lot of genre blending. Where do you draw a lot of your inspiration from when you're developing your voice as a writer?

Stephen Oh, trial and error mostly. I mean, I'm probably supposed to say like, you know, Philip K. Dick, Louise Erdrich, all the, all of my heroes. Larry McMurtry, Stephen King, everybody, Margaret Atwood. But I think really it's really just trial and error, like, I'll read Ubik by PKD and I think, man, I want to write Ubik. So I'll sit down to write Ubik and I write something wildly different that it's supposed to be Ubik but it's Ubik, but it's not, you know?

Daniel Yeah.

Stephen And I think that's just really how I figured out who I was as a writer. But I'm just getting out there a lot of times and writing a whole lot of things.

Daniel So like, like what—like when you write horror, like, what is your favorite, like, part in the process? Like, is it like creating the story or like developing those smaller things? Like what do you like the most about writing horror?

Stephen The most, the thing I like most about writing horror, probably the kills. Man, I just love the blood on the wall, and I love the shiny viscera spilling out onto the floor. And, yeah, those are the... those are, to me, the, the fun parts, the parts that I, like, write toward, you know? So that's why you'll see something that every 10 or 12 pages like that in my, my work usually because, to keep myself from spinning my tires, I just have to reach for this, these bloody moments over and over.

Daniel I think, yeah, and like, you do a really good job for, like, an environmentally, like I, just when you're talking about that, I like remember The Only Good Indians like the ceiling fan elk kill. Yeah, that was like, that was like masterful. Like yo,u like I felt like kind of maybe scared of ceiling fans for a second. [chuckles]

Stephen That's good. That's fuel, man. That's what I like. All horror creators, we want to haunt up some everyday object. Like, you know, Hitchcock did it with the shower. You know? [Daniel laughs]

Stephen King, he tried to do it with the toilets and was it dream, dreamcatcher, I guess. And yeah, different... like, if I could haunt like, a pencil or some lip balm or something, that'd be the dream. If everybody in the world, every time they open their lip balm to do, to moisturize their lips—

Daniel Oh gosh. Yeah.

Stephen Then that's, that's what you want, you know?

Daniel Yeah. I'm trying to think of, like, what did I just watch that was, like, made me uncomfortable. I forgot, something recently. Like, I was telling someone Texas Chainsaw Massacre, like, in, like, House of a Thousand Corpses. Like, I grew up in rural Oklahoma. And, you know, we see those hoarder houses like, I don't think the terrifying things about the haunt—

Everyone thinks that, like the haunted hillbilly thing, I think the most, the scary part of it isn't, like, necessarily like the killer hillbillies. Like it's all the crap of their house.

Stephen Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Although to tell you truth, I mean, I grew up rural as well, in rural west Texas and like, how you knew somebody was living a good life was if they had, like, like 18 rusted cars and trucks around their place just going to seed, you know, with grass growing up through them and everything.

Daniel Yeah.

Stephen So that's still my dream. I'm like, when am I going to be successful? When do I get some junky cars? You know. [Daniel chuckles]

Daniel Yeah. Like I think yeah, that's like going back home. It's like I think my auntie just like she's pretty organized with it. She just gets a new shed every time she had to get stuff. So there's like a whole, like, count of sheds.

Stephen Oh, wow.

Daniel On her back 40 or whatever.

Stephen I mean, I, I was, I was doing all right. I had a few old trucks, but then a neighbor said he was going to sue me. I live in a, like a suburban street. And he said he's going to sue me because I was lowering the value property of his house or something.

Daniel Oh no.

Stephen So I had to get rid of them.

Daniel Oh, man. Yeah. You can't... yeah, it's city living for like... yeah, it's hard, it's hard.

Stephen Man, it's tricky. I mean, I like being on public water and electricity is stable and all that, but it's a trade-off, you know?

Daniel Yeah. So, like, let's talk about The Buffalo Hunter Hunter a little bit. So this takes place between 1867 and 1912. And it's like period of transition. It's like the beginning of the reservation era. And especially for like, I guess my question was like, why set the story, like, what made you, like, set the story during that time? Like what was like the genesis behind that?

Stephen Let me think. 1912 was really just kind of random. I knew I wanted a preacher, a pastor, a Jesuit priest. I didn't even know what denomination this person was going to be, but I knew I wanted them to be, living in, like, not the Old West as we see it mythologized in all the Westerns. But just after that moment, you know, like when, when, when America was transitioning into, you know, cars and phones and all that stuff. I knew that's what, I wanted him to be on that hinge point or, or one of the many hinge points along that.

But as for why 1878-1884, for me, it was, that was, those were some pivotal years for the Blackfeet, you know? And so, I mean, that was the Marias massacre up to starvation winter. And those were those hard 14 years. And it was transformative 14 years, I guess I should say. And so the fact that it was a transformative 14 years just seemed to fit with the transformation that Good Stab was going through.

Daniel That, that... yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I was, watching him kind of witness that was really like powerful from like reading, just like this idea of some ageless person like that, you know, like was at that point to like the point that continues and... yeah. And like, I guess like the buffalo is like a big part. And I've heard you talk about like, kind of like the inspiration, like being like, I, I saw the documentary Bring Them Home about the Blackfeet bringing back their buffalo. So, like, I think it was the Elk Island herd that was, like, released, right? Yeah. So that's like... can you, like, talk about kind of like the importance of, like, the buffalo and like writing the novel and stuff?

Stephen Yeah. I mean, I've always been just, you know, resentful, angry, regretful about what happened to the buffalo. You know, the same, the same as the passenger pigeon. But the passenger pigeon wasn't, the passenger pigeon wasn't wiped out to force Native Americans onto reservations, you know, and control them. The buffalo was for sure, at least with the plains, the plains tribes, you know?

And so, yeah, it was... I mean, you know, really, as I say in the acknowledgments, the seed of this idea was actually a little interstitial in Earthdivers, you know? There was comic book, which is a story about going back to kill America to stop it from ruining the world. And so these people, these four indigenous, like, just survivors, I guess, they, they try to kill Columbus. They try to stop the Declaration of Independence from being written like it was. And, and we had this idea for a few little interstitials between those, kind of like accident stories. And one of them was The Ice Age, and that was someone resisting, these people coming across, across the ice 20,000 years ago, the Solutreans, which who knows if that really happened?

And another one was going to be a dude gets kind of like abducted back in time to probably late 1860s, 1870s. And he is, he happens to be a marksman. And so and he's also indigenous. And so he comes at the buffalo hunter, hunters. He becomes a buffalo hunter hunter. But we ended up scrapping that interstitial and I still had that title and that premise. And I thought, I want to come after some buffalo hunters. And what better way to do it than with a vampire, you know, because—

Daniel That's, no, that's how you do it. Yeah.

Stephen Yeah, I mean, a werewolf could do it just as well, but a werewolf is probably going to do it... either if a werewolf does it in the daytime, then it's going to be about picking off like lone snipers up on a hill. That's not so exciting to me. If the werewolf does it at night, it's just going to be crashing into a fire, a campfire, and just immediately tearing everybody's throat out. And that's going to be too fast, you know? But I think a vampire is going to number one, stalk only at night, which is scarier to me. But number two kind, of do it like a slasher does. Like mostly, if not one by one, then in a line, anyways, you know?

Daniel Yeah. Like it's, no, it makes sense. Like, you know, like the indigenous revenge angle on this, it's like, yeah, you're like rooting for Good Stab. Like, as someone that got, like, kicked off of Red Dead Redemption for doing the same thing.

Stephen Oh, that they have buffalo hunters in the video game?

Daniel Yeah. Like you can hunt anything. And so, like, if you're just playing online and you see a bunch of guys hunting buffalo, obviously, like you're like, no.

Stephen Oh, wow.

Daniel They call it griefing if you just like, kill other players. Like, it's to like, I got like... like I kept doing it. And so like because I would go back—

Stephen I did not know.

Daniel It's a very—if you... yeah, you should give it a shot because it's kind of cathartic.

Stephen Yeah. I'm writing this down.

Daniel Yeah. Red Dead Redemption..

Stephen There's probably some videos, I can probably find some videos or something.

Daniel Oh, totally. There's some Native streamers now that do exactly this. And they're pretty funny.

Stephen I'll bet.

Daniel Yeah, you get like, get real Native times up on Red Dead Redemption 2. I haven't, I haven't checked in in a while because I just don't play video games. But like that, that was when it first went online. But I know, like I keep seeing TikToks and stuff of, like, Native streamers doing like—

Stephen Cool. That's good. I'm glad that's happening, take them out digitally because we can't go back in time really. You know?

Daniel But I, that's what I liked about Earthdivers because I'll just have those shower thoughts like if I got stuck back in time, how do I like, help more people?

Stephen I know. I feel like I'd be like, I feel if I went back in time, I'd be Martin Lawrence in Black Knight. You know, I don't know how to build a radio. I don't know how to build a computer. I can't even build a steam engine. You know? But I could do some violence if I was lucky. I think I'd get caught pretty soon because I'm not as much of a ninja as I probably want to be in my head. You know?

Daniel Well, that's what I liked about Earthdivers was like, like the first one, like the guy's dialect's off. I forgot something that's a tell that, like, immediately gets captured. I didn't know where Ice Age was going for a second. And then at the at the end, I was like, oh, ohhh!

So like, I won't spoil it for anybody, but yeah, like, that was, that was genius. I loved how that went. And like the Solutreans, I didn't know a lot about them. And I like read on Wikipedia. And I thought it was like a crazy, like, cringe thing. I was like, uh-oh, Stephen. [laughs] I don't know if you want to get in these waters.

Stephen Oh no, I definitely do. I've, I've been in the lithic waters. That's my favorite place to be probably. Man, I love... and yeah, who knows, I don't know, until the waters recede, we won't know whether the Solutreans made it across or not, you know?

Daniel Yeah, yeah.

Stephen But I don't think, I don't think the water's receding. I think they're rising.

Daniel Yeah. So we'll never know.

Stephen Yeah.

Daniel Yeah. So, like, I guess, like, my next question is like, you are a professor. Like, you work in academia and, like, being like a teacher, like, I guess, like, my question is kind of like, how does that, like, come in play as a writer? Do you ever, like, look at your own work as your own as, like, the instructor kind of?

Stephen Kind of have to. Yeah, I kind of I feel like I'm beholden to, like, I'm compelled to, like I'll hear myself telling my students... like, well, I guess maybe to back up, what I'm trying to do with my students in fiction classes is, like, instill a sense of narrative ethics to them, some obligation to the quality of the prose, that kind of stuff. And like, which is to say get all your punctuation right, be mechanically sound, but also don't take cheap ways out for your story. And but I'll say all that in class. But then three hours later, I'm working on a piece of fiction myself, and I kind of hear that again when I want to take the easy way out, you know? And so—

Daniel Yeah.

Stephen And because I can't be a liar, I then have to not take the easy way out. And I think that makes me a better writer. But I kind of groan, too. I'm like, dude, why don't you just shut up and make it easy? You know?

Daniel Yeah, I, on your acknowledgments, I noticed that you would mention, like the people that kind of challenged you and stuff. So I thought that was like, cool because I know like, Etsy, you were like, I remember specifically the character of Etsy. You were like talking about like... because someone influenced you to like, make, to like delve into that character more. I thought that was like kind of cool that you, like,did that.

Stephen Oh yeah, yeah.

Daniel Because sometimes in like epistolary stuff, like the bridge is like, ehh.

Stephen Yeah. Yeah, I know. I had to put some tension in her, in her frame because if she is only a bridge that people walk across, I don't think that's a good use for a character. That's a insulting use for a character. You know, she has to have tension in the arc in there.

Daniel That's, so we'll go ahead and take a break. And when we get back, we'll talk more about the book. So if you haven't read it yet, maybe skip the next part. So thank you again, Stephen, and we'll be right back.

Stephen Cool.

[music: "Wichita Wind" by Shoeshine Blue]

Voiceover The Wichita Public Library has entered the world of streaming with Kanopy. Library cardholders can now access Kanopy's massive collection of movies, TV shows, and educational content from The Great Courses. There's content for children, adults, and foreign language options too. Cardholders get seven free checkouts a month, and Kanopy's constantly updating their library, so there's always something new to watch. To find out more, please visit wichitalibrary.org/kanopy, K-A-N-O-P-Y. Kanopy, just one of the many services provided to you from the Wichita Public Library.

Daniel We're back. Hey, everyone, you're listening to Read Return Repeat. I am Daniel Pewewardy, your host, and I'm here with Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. On this, like, part of the podcast, we'll talk a little bit more about the novel. So if you haven't read it yet, you might... I won't get into like super spoiler territory, but...

I guess, so like, this is an epistolary novel. And so, I guess my question is like, in the acknowledgments, you kind of talk about, like, you, all the detail that you took to, like, get it right. Like you have a hundred and like, I think sixty years and you have like multiple narrators and so, like, they all have their different perspectives and everything. And I remember you talking about like, Ducharne, the, the Lutheran minister and like, his, like, em dashes and all that stuff. So like, I guess my question about that is like, how much of this writing process for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter was telling the story and how much of it was just like crafting it into the version that we got to read—in my case, listen to?

Stephen Yeah. That's a neat way to ask. Tell you the truth, most of it was telling a story because epistolary, the two forms that come the most naturally to me are second person present tense and epistolary and actually those are not that distinct, I don't think. I think it's just different expressions of the same impulse. So epistolary is super supernatural for me. First did it in '07 with two novels, Ledfeather and The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti.. And I realized, oh, man, this is, this has tapped a main vein. I can do this forever. But that also told me, you can't only do this. You gotta, if you don't do this—if you only do this, your muscles that allow you to write in other modes are going to atrophy.

And so I don't do it every time out. You know, the same way, like, Demon Theory, Last Final Girl and Zombie Bake-Off are all in this hybrid prose screenplay format diction—so there's, like, cinematic diction, I guess you could call it. I could do that forever and ever. But since I want to be able to do all kinds of stuff, I can't only do that, you know, because I'll forget how to do the, other the other. But no, epistolary comes super, super naturally.

Arthur Beaucarne's like encrusted antique baroque, Victorian, educated, isolated, decayed, manner of writing where he's always trying to look smarter than he is, that comes really super, like, scarily natural to me. It's like the voice, it's like the voice in my head, I think. Good Stab, but he was a little trickier. The only reason he was tricky was because, because to inhabit his point of view, which I had to do before I could express his voice, I had to make myself think like he thought. And that was tricky, because I was, of course, raised in the Western tradition with a clear line between the natural and the supernatural.

Good Stab was not, you know, he does not see that distinction. It's all one big continuum. It's not even continuous, just like one space. And so I had to, had to make myself for his sections think like that, which was tricky, you know, and, and I guess with, not with him so much but with Beaucarne I did have to do a little bit of fact-checking every once in a while to see whether this term existed in 1912 and whether this phrase existed back then, that kind of stuff, because lots of the, lots of things that we think are eternal came around in 1940, you know?

Daniel I was shocked to learn "hello" is like, came about with the like, beginning of the telephone. It's not like—

Stephen Oh, really? I didn't know that.

Daniel Yeah. Like I—yeah, people don't understand, like, a lot of our language isn't like as new or as old as you think it is. And so yeah, I, I could see that being the part of that would catch me up, like just the everyday turns of phrases like, probably even the term turn of phrase is probably—

Stephen Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, probably so, probably so.

Daniel And then you have like Shakespeare.

Stephen Yeah. Yeah. He was originating a lot of stuff. But yeah, early on, Beaucarne kind of confronts that. He says that's neither here nor there or something like that. And I had to do a lot of work to try to figure out whether I could actually have him say that. But I was trying to, trying somewhat just to give the audience a signal or a heads up that I am concerned about whether this is period appropriate or not. You know?

Daniel That's—yeah, no, I thought it was, yeah, I was really impressed with just the epistolary concept of it, like, I like—I like, I have ADHD, so, like, epistolary novels work for me because it shifts enough that I, it keeps me interested in stuff. And... yeah. And I try to do Dracula every year through this, like, app called Dracula Daily, where they email you on the same date.

Stephen Huh.

Daniel Yeah. It's, so, like, since it's in the public domain, like, it'll start like in May when the novel starts, and then you just get an update every time it gets to a part in the... it's a fun way to read Dracula.

Stephen That's pretty cool. I had no idea.

Daniel Yeah.

Stephen Nice.

Daniel I had a question. So The Only Good Indians starts with the hunting taboo. And you also have that as a part in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter also starts with. And like, I guess, like the breaking of taboo is oftentimes, like, used in horror as, like, a way to kick things off. And but also it shows up in, like, the Native oral tradition as, like, cautionary tales and things and, I guess I was wondering, are you a superstitious person? And, like, what draws you to using these mechanisms in storytelling?

Stephen No, I am hugely superstitious. Probably, probably, like, to my detriment. You know, like, I just want to walk across the room. I gotta do 16 things in order to do that and feel like I'm okay. So it's not at all helpful, but as far as both of these stories dealing with the hunting taboo, you're probably right that it is baked into just most, a lot of horror builds, you know?

Daniel Yeah.

Stephen And it's a way to like... so for me, I always think of it as a way to let this person into the justice cycle—and not let but force, trick, pull, something like that. Because if they don't commit some minor trespass that then magnifies, then how does the story start at all, you know?

Daniel No, that's, yeah, that's yeah, that's kind of what my like, yeah, that's my question is like that, like the whole—Native taboos make perfect sense for horror, for like... like I work at a place, I'm like Comanche and like I work at a place that our mascot's an owl. And so—[laughs]

Stephen Hmm. Oh, wow.

Daniel We just had, like, this thing we had to complete. And then we got a little owl button for our lanyards and I had to be like, thank you, but I can't. It's like... like, even with, like, I can look at this objectively, like an act of for me, for decolonizing and like, like living as an indigenous person is like being like, cautious of our taboos too. So it's like how I kind of look at it.

Stephen Yeah.

Daniel But that's... yeah, that, that's, I guess my next question I guess kind of relates to being the Native identity is that like I didn't... reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, like, I didn't pick up on any kind of blood quantum allegory until, like, well halfway into the book, and I won't give away, like, what's happening to Good Stab to make that. And like... I've like, I have, I'm friends with a couple other Native writers and I've heard, I've seen people kind of like talk about like, there's like the blood quantum thing, like blood becomes like, because of the colonial practice of blood quantum, becomes, is like... the idea of blood kind of is tied being in the Native identity. So, like, it makes sense that that would come up like in a Native vampire story. I guess my question is like, did... was, did you have an... were you, did you intentionally want to include that or did that just kind of like become unavoidable, like...?

Stephen Yeah, I mean, it was unavoidable in a sense that it was an unavoidable, joke, you know? Like I'll, I'll always veer into whatever I think is funny, you know? That's like, probably my weakness as a writer. And to me, it was hilarious to call Good Stab the full-blood, you know, because—

Daniel Yeah.

Stephen Because he's a vampire, so he's full of blood, you know? [both chuckle]

Daniel Yeah. That was... yeah, that was, that, I got a good chuckle out of that one. And I guess my next question. So like, you kind of cited a couple comic book in your acknowledgments. You cited some comic book influences like Thor and then like, Conan. Actually read some Conan and I read a little bit of, I had a stack—I'm a comic collector, so I do have a stack of comic, Conan comics I've been wanting to get into, and I was like, I'll use this as my excuse. And but I get to vibes like, I kind of got, like, where the influence comes from of him just being this guy that just wanders and...

Stephen Yeah, no, I mean, growing up, Conan the Barbarian was one of the first, like, series of books that I read. That and Louis L'Amour. And I was 11 years old, I guess, but... and I was also in west Texas and I knew the Blackfeet were in Montana and, and here's Conan, who comes out of the snowy north to, you know, do whatever he wants with a sword and, and be his bad self. And so I just kind of sneakily abducted Conan into the Blackfeet tribe, you know?

Daniel [chuckles] Yeah.

Stephen Yeah. And he became my, like, I don't know, avatar of the Blackfeet for a year or two, you know.

Daniel That's, that's dope. I kind of like... yeah, I, being a comic fan, I kind of was like, look at those allegories. Like, I grew up in Kansas. Like, Superman means a lot to me like, because, like my parents had to, like, moved us out a lot. And because it's like, for a better life, it's like, I'm kind of like Clark Kent a little bit. [laughs]

Stephen Yeah, for sure. I think that's good when we, when we can, like, when you don't see versions of yourself in media, then you reshape media to be a version of yourself, I think, you know?

Daniel Yeah.

Stephen That's definitely what I was doing. In Rambo 2—I stole Rambo, you know, because Rambo, he wears that cool headband and he, he's always fight—he's always doing guerrilla tactics and fighting and has a knife and everything. And I thought he can be an honorary Blackfeet, too, you know?

Daniel Yeah. Oh, of course. Totally. I yeah, I think he does have like a Native—I think they have canonically made him Native at some point.

Stephen Oh, really?

Daniel I forgot what tribe, but...

Stephen Oh, wow.

Daniel I'm, I'm always like, impressed because of the '70s, it was always, like, a cool feature for your, like, white actor's character to be part Native. And it's like...

Stephen Yeah, it was like, who is it? Wayne Newton is supposed to be Native too, right?

Daniel Yeah, yeah.

Stephen And people always say Elvis was too, but I don't know. But I don't know about that, you know?

Daniel I'm Cherokee. So that's like...

Stephen Yeah.

Daniel Yeah. Gary Busey is my favorite. Like, he's a, he's a card-carrying Delaware.

Stephen Seriously? I did not know that. Interesting, interesting.

Daniel Yeah. But the first like, the first Native, Predator—well, yeah, there's a Native in every Predator movie, basically.

Stephen Yeah, wow. That's cool. That's nice.

Daniel Yeah. Cause..., so I get, but back to, like, the comic book, so, like, with the Conan influence and then kind of Good Stab's like a vigilante, like doing what he's doing. Like, do you kind of consider The Buffalo Hunter Hunter like a superhero story in a way, like in your own way?

Stephen I had to work to keep it from becoming that. Yes. Like, I was really aware, like when I watched The Sixth Sense back in what was that, '99? Once I realized what this little kid could do, I was like, oh, no, this would become a superhero story. And then at the very, very last, it starts to shade into something that could be a superhero story and then the movie cuts. And I thought that was really smart, you know, because... and so I was really aware of that kind of possibility with The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and I think that's probably why I tried to, like, burden Good Stab with bad stuff as well, just to keep him from being so, I don't know, so lantern-jawed, heroic, hands on the hips kind of stuff, you know?

Daniel That's, yeah, I would honestly, I won't be mad if Good Stab showed up again in some comic book form. That would be really cool. Like, I like the character. Like, like it's a great—yeah, it's a great character. I hope, I hope that that's not his last story. But yeah. I, you'll have one more question—I have like, one more question about the book. So like, I said his name wrong, but Boucharne, right?

Stephen No, Beaucarne.

Daniel Beaucarne. Beaucarne, so like, through the book, he kind of talks about food a lot. And this was something I just like, didn't... I know it's a vampire book and that's like, consumption becomes like a theme, but like, like his hunger is tied to a story. And, like, I just had a question about, like, what does his appetite represent to you?

Stephen Yeah, people, I've heard people saying in these kind of, you know, question and answer kind of periods, they, they ask if Beaucarne's gluttony is associated with Good Stab's, how he can't stop feeding once he start, once he latches on. You know, he has to eat it all. That's kind of how Good Stab, you give Good Stab a dozen glazed donuts, he's not going to eat just one. He's going to eat all those donuts, you know? And so will I also. [chuckles]

But, you know, that's cool. I'm glad it worked out like that. But that was so unintentional about me. What it really was, was I wanted to give this doddering old pastor some sort of endearing trait that people could identify with, you know, and that happened to be his... his, I don't know, penchant for overconsumption, you know, his inability to control his sweet tooth and... and then I had to maintain it. And, you know, that was, that was kind of hard to maintain it in the sense that I kept having to tab over in my browser and say, what is a dessert or a sweet or a meal or a plate or whatever from the early 19th century in, in like Germanic culture or something like that. And, and then I'd have to like, process through these recipes and, and all this stuff.

And I'm not a fan of, like, food. I just like my food.—I like to drink Soylents, which take like one and a half minutes to drink and I'm done. I don't like, like, big meals with a lot of taste and flavor, you know? So doing all Beaucarne's fancy foods was pretty gross for me. [laughs]

Daniel Yeah. I will say, like, I don't know if it's just movies, like they'll have the killer that has a sweet tooth, but, like, I didn't really know how to read him, but when he started talking, I was like, oh, this guy, I don't like this guy. Like, something about a sweet tooth is moralizing in fiction now. Like, you're like, I don't trust, anyone with a sweet tooth, I don't trust.

Stephen That's a good point. You know, and I wonder if, like, Hannibal Lecter did that to us for classical music. Because he always likes to listen to, like, what is it, the Goldberg Variations or some sort of Beethoven if I remember correctly. And, or Bach, I don't know, but... and, you know, he would like, get all high-class and listen to it while he ate kidneys or whatever, you know? And, and I wonder if, like, anytime we see a character or read a character listening to classical music, we're like, oh, bad guy!

Daniel Yeah, I think, I think, I think there is a connection there. You did bring up Soylent. I will say, like, I've done Soylent before. I do like protein. I have switched to, like, I can't do, like, whey, I always gotta do vegetable protein.

Stephen Oh.

Daniel Yeah. And so unrelated to any of this. But I will say I've done, like, I had some jaw surgery. I had to get, like, gum graphs and so I was doing Soylent. And then I kept doing it because I was like, oh, this is... I did feel like a vampire, I will say. [laughs]

Stephen It's, it's nice. I love... you know, I went for a while where I think I drank only Soylents for, for like around the clock. But then I went to donate blood and they said, you don't have any iron, sir. So I had to go back to eating normal food and supplement Soylent.

Daniel Mine was, yeah, but like, I was, I forgot. Yeah, I was like, getting cramps all time. And someone's like, you have to get some, like, carbs or whatever, so...

So thank you again. It's been awesome interviewing you. I guess my next question is like, what do you got? You got anything coming up soon? Or, like, what's your next project?

Stephen You know, I think I want to say it's October 2, I have, two book, two reprints coming out from Open Road. They've been reprinting a lot of my old out-of-print stuff. And, I don't know if I, I don't know if it's been announced. I don't know if I can say the titles, but, I think people are gonna... I think people are going to go for them because there's kind of special features, I guess I should say, I could say. And what else. I've got, I've always got stories coming out in different anthologies and sites. I think I'll have one out on Lightspeed here in September. And yeah, maybe in some other places. I just had a story come out in Weird Tales, and I'll have a novel. I'll have at least one novel in 2026. I just finished it two, maybe three nights ago, but it's not been announced yet, so I can't say anything about it.

Daniel Cool. Congratulations.

And so we always ask our guests this question. What are your three books that you would recommend to your listeners?

Stephen You know, these are two of them. Well, no, none of them—are any of them out? I don't know if any of them are out actually. The first one I just finished it just like 4 or 5 days ago, it's called It Looks Like You in the Dark by Mathilda Zeller. And it's a horror novel. It is brutal and it's just full of rage. And I really, really like this book. It's probably not coming out until 2026, I suspect, just because I don't think I've seen word of it online yet so I must have a really early copy.

And Adam Johnson's The Wayfinder about the Tonga people and like, I don't know, 500 years ago, 1200 years ago, I'm not sure, it doesn't really matter. And, you know, Adam, he's a really, really good writer. It's a really big, epic, book. So, so well written. Completely impressed with that. I want to say it comes out in October, The Wayfinder.

And then I right now, I'm reading R.F. Kuang's Katabasis about a student at a magic school going down in the hill to, find her dead, professor, you know, and it's really, she, she's a really, really strong writer. It gives me distinct like, Doctor Srange and—like Strange and Norrell vibes, you know?

Daniel Yeah. So, I'm getting—so I have a note: what's your favorite horror movie?

Stephen Scream. Man, it's always Scream.

Daniel Really? Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I haven't seen the most recent, but yeah, Scream is like, so classic. I love quoting Matthew Lillard's character. "My parents are gonna be so mad." [laughs]

Stephen Yeah. I think he ad-libbed that line, too.

Daniel Oh, that's, yeah, that makes sense. I was going to ask, are you reading any comics right now?

Stephen Yeah, they're—where are they? I just had a stack that I'm going to read. Let's see. I think Death Stalker is one of them. Is that... and it's Tim Seeley. I've had it for months and months. I'm just finally getting a spare pocket to read it. And I've got, I think I've got the first three issues of a little Batman series that what's that guy's name, Grampá? I think he's just called Grampá. He did Mesmo Delivery. And I'm really excited to read that. What else? I've got a tab open right now. Who was it? Bloody Disgusting or someone did the ten most essential slasher comics. And I've read most of them, but I haven't read all of them. So I'm about to order those and read those.

Daniel Yeah, that's, that's dope. I'm a big James Tynion fan. So I've been reading Exquisitve Corpses which is like, yeah.

Stephen Yeah, Tynion's good.

Daniel I'm going to like, track down a copy of Memorial Ride—I didn't know you did like some with Maria Wolf, because—

Stephen Yeah.

Daniel I just want to say, like, being Native, like, you are like, like you're not just associated with being Native. Like, you are a top-tier horror guy. And I, like getting back in comics, I've noticed, like, Maria Wolf is like the GOAT illustrator right now. I just, it's really awesome to see, like, I just, like, appreciate you as like, like an author. It's really cool to see like, she's just killing the game. [indistinct]

Stephen Thank you, thank you. No, Maria, she's amazing. Yeah.

Daniel Yeah. Like she just did like a Godzilla cover that's like, like really nuts.

Stephen Yeah.

Daniel People are like, obsessed over it. Anyway. But thank you again. It was awesome and looking forward to what you got, you have coming out. And thank you so much.

Stephen Thank you. It was a ball, man.

[music: "Wichita Wind" by Shoeshine Blue]

Voiceover Want to take your library advocacy a step further? Become a friend of the Wichita Public Library. Depending on your preference, there are three levels of membership offered. These range from $10 to $100 per year and include great benefits such as gift certificates to the used bookstore, early admissions to book sales, and grace periods on returning your library materials. It's an excellent opportunity to support your local library and assist in providing for library materials, programs, and services for our community.

[music: "Wichita Wind" by Shoeshine Blue]

Daniel, voiceover Awesome! That was such a fun interview. I'd like to give a big thanks to Stephen Graham Jones for joining us with the show. We didn't think we were going to get him, but that was awesome. Read The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Read The Only Good Indians, read the Angel of Indian Lake trilogy. All his stuff's good. His comics are good.

Big shoutout to Kyle, Ian, Jenny and everyone on the—Greg. Everyone on the podcast team. This is a Wichita Public Library production. If you liked what you heard, make sure you follow us on wherever you listen to podcasts. Check us out on YouTube and if you really liked it, share it with your friends. Because, it's listeners like you that keep us going and appreciate you guys a lot. That's it. And I'll see you on the next episode. Have a good day. This is Read Return Repeat.