Horror writer brings chilling tales to Spooky Grandma's
Oct. 7—Indiana author Clint Smith remembers those childhood nights watching Sammy Terry, spooky Hoosier host of Nightmare Theater. Terry would rise from his coffin each Friday to guide television viewers through that week's B-horror film, providing quips and commentary as the film went to commercial.
Smith called Sammy Terry a storyteller and inspiration. Now, much like Terry, Smith weaves and crafts tales to spook readers. Saturday night at 8 p.m., the writer will bring his stories to life during a campfire reading hosted by Spooky Grandma's Halloween Shop.
It's one of many events Spooky Grandma's, 6342 W. CR 100 North, is hosting this spooky season. Admission is $1 and all proceeds will go toward Reach Out and Read Indiana, a program that combines children's books and pediatrics to stress the importance of reading to young kids.
Smith is the author two short story collections, "Ghoul Jaw and Other Stories"(2014) and "The Skeleton Melodies" (2020), both published by Hippocampus Press. Saturday night will be his first reading since the COVID pandemic began.
Smith grew up in the 1980s, and his memories of that time sound similar to Cass County. He recalled being in-between suburbs and rural areas in Wanamaker, Indiana.
"That tension was formative for me as a kid," he said. "I would go to school with kids who knew all about MTV and I had no real proximity to that. Then I would go to school with kids who would wake up at four in the morning and help their family farm."
Smith said the earliest stories he remembered having read to him were ghost stories. His parents would pick up children's books in the Halloween aisle at the grocery store each season, and those tales would last beyond the holiday. There were also frequent story hours in the community where adults read to children. He remembered those reading sessions as being more than picture books like at school, but stories from novels that took focus to follow.
He said the experience was collaborative, someone telling the story and a listener bringing it to life in their imagination
"I do feel like I have been driven to horror as a medium because it does make me appreciate the more normal parts of my life," he said. "Horror has been a sobering cable, I guess. I like approaching horror and then walking away from it with some new perspective about other things that I should value in life."
Smith is married with a daughter and works as a culinary instructor at a career center that serves students in Marion and Johnson County. On the weekends he works as a chef in downtown Indianapolis. He loves cooking but said he came to it out of necessity after he made many bad choices when he was young and ran out of options post-high school. He saw the enjoyment food brought people, and at the age of 20 he decided to pursue a career. He moved to Chicago and went to culinary school.
"I was kind of in a corner and needed to do some kind of practical thing that was fun, makes money and makes people happy," he said. "But with the writing, I do feel like it came from — I don't know if lonely is the right word, but ... in the late '90s and early 2000s ... I didn't have a lot of people to talk to so I started pouring a lot into journaling and writing."
Smith enjoys writing short stories. While he didn't want to admit he has a short attention span, he said short stories have a potent delivery that is a satisfying. He said he liked the compactness and straightforwardness of a short story. There are no scenes that feel like it is there to fill a page count. It's just succinct storytelling.
Smith's stories pit everyday people against the unknown and the supernatural. There are the school children who see something following their bus in the cornfield. A teenager stays all night with his friend and discovers something hidden while snooping. There is a history of the tunnels that run under Indianapolis, and Smith also brings his culinary interests into play.
Smith studied writing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and was mentored by the late author Jim Powell.
Smith said it's easy for him to find the childlike excitement of ghost stories around a campfire. He's eager to sit down with local residents and share a tale. He called it both an honor and a lot of fun.
"You are a planting a seed in little minds that this is a special time of year," he said. "This is how the traditions of ghost stories really started."
The event is family friendly, and books will be available for purchase.
Civic Players get spooky
Expect a close encounter at Spooky Grandma's from 5-7 p.m. Oct. 15.
The Civic Players of Logansport will cosponsor Alien Night as they promote their upcoming theater performance of "All's Well in Roswell (Isn't it?)."
There will be alien themed activities for children, clips from old science fiction films will be shown, and visitors can purchase alien items to support the Civic Players. Cast members will be on site, and and tickets for the production, which runs Oct. 21-23, may be purchase for $10.
