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Interview Overview

In this episode of The Writer’s Chair, Daniel Willcocks sits down with Matt Serafini — screenwriter, author, and one of horror fiction’s most compelling voices — for a wide-ranging conversation that spans cult VHS discoveries, the psychology of social media, and what it really means to write a story only you could tell.

Hailed by Brian Keene as one of the best new voices in horror, Matt traces his path from devouring Zebra paperbacks in fifth grade to writing Feeders — his razor-sharp, darkly satirical take on social media culture and the platforms designed to keep us angry, engaged, and addicted. They dig into the origins of Monolife, the fictional app at the heart of the novel, and how Matt’s years working in university marketing gave him a front-row seat to exactly the kind of algorithmic doom loops his book sets out to explore.

The conversation moves freely between craft and culture — touching on the death of consequence in the streaming era, the pressure on today’s readers to DNF anything that doesn’t hook them in ten pages, and what authors like Jonathan Janz and Robert McCammon understood about the value of a full meal. Matt reflects honestly on the long road to publication, the temptation to chase blurbs over readers, and why the best thing any writer can do is simply put their head down and refuse to quit.

They also take an unflinching look at AI, authenticity, and why the writers who will survive the next decade are the ones who can offer something intrinsically, irreducibly themselves.

This is a conversation for horror readers hungry to go behind the book, and for writers at any stage who want a reminder that the work — done well, done honestly, done with genuine obsession — is still the thing that matters most.

Interview Transcription

Daniel: Welcome back, wordsmiths and story seekers. I am your host, Daniel Willcocks, broadcasting from the shadowy halls of Devil’s Rock HQ. Tonight I am thrilled to share — the right to share — with the authorial powerhouse that is Matt Serafini.

Hailed as one of the best new voices in horror fiction by horror grandmaster Brian Keene, Matt Serafini is a screenwriter and author whose books include Rites of Extinction, Feral, and Under the Blade, which Film Thrills called one of the best slasher films you’ll ever read, as well as his brand new social media horror, Feeders. Matt’s short fiction has appeared in multiple anthology collections, and he has written extensively on the subjects of film and literature for numerous websites, including Dread Central and Shock Till You Drop. His nonfiction has appeared in the pages of Fangoria and Horror Hound, and Matt lives on the East Coast with his wife and children. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt: Thank you, Dan. Thank you for that. That was quite a verbose and complimentary intro. I appreciate that.

Daniel: I mean, people say this every time, but this is stuff that you’ve done. These are your credits, and they’re pretty impressive, to be honest.

Matt: Well, thank you. I never think of it that way. To me, when you hear it like that, it’s just like, all right, let’s get on to the next thing. It’s great to be here, man. Thank you for having me. I’ve been really excited to chat with you because it’s been a while since we’ve chatted.

Daniel: Yeah, we’ve done some stuff behind the scenes. I’ve done some work on your website. We’ve chatted here and there, but we’ve never really had a proper sit-down conversation about your work. So I’m excited to have this. We’ll get to Feeders, and I’m very excited to introduce the audience to it.

But I wanted to start in a slightly different place, because on your website in your about section, there’s a line that captured my attention. You write: I spend a fair chunk of free time tracking down obscure slasher films and hope to one day parlay that knowledge into a definitive history book on the subject. Until I’ve had the opportunity to tell everyone about Ogroth, the Mad Butcher, I don’t believe my life’s work can ever truly be complete.

I know nothing of Ogroth. So by all means, feel free to educate me on why this resonates with you so deeply.

Matt: It’s a movie that defies description. It’s an early 80s slasher movie from France — I think it’s France. It’s almost a silent film. It was shot on, I think, 16 millimeter. And it’s this really weird regional French horror film where you follow the killer as he goes about a normal day for him.

I don’t want to say any more, because it would literally ruin one of the most outré films you can watch. I could blur it out — “oh, and then it’s this” — and you’d go, “I’ve got to see that.” But I don’t want to do that, because it really would ruin the pleasure of sitting down to watch it. It’s that whacked out. The less you know going in, the better. Just to say: it starts with this French slasher wandering the lovely French countryside, maybe he kills a couple of people, and then things really go crazy. I’ll leave it there.

Daniel: You’ve whetted my appetite. Have you ever seen Rubber? The tire movie.

Matt: Yeah. I saw that when it first came out. I had to cover it for Dread Central back in the day. I don’t remember much about it. I remember thinking it was crazy.

Daniel: I remember coming out of that film going, “I don’t know if I enjoyed it, but it felt good.” I don’t know if I’m getting those vibes from Ogroth. How did you first stumble across it? Am I saying it right, as well?

Matt: “Ogroth.” Yeah, I think you are. There’s another title — I think it’s The Mad Butcher was a VHS title. How did I find it… I think it was mentioned to me at a screening in LA, a rare screening. This was probably 12, 15 years ago. A good friend of mine who lives on the West Coast called me up and was like, “You, of all people, have to see this.” So I tracked down a VHS dupe — at the time there were websites that sold those — imported it, and watched it. Then did that thing where you just pass the tape to everybody and go, “You’ve got to see this.”

I think there’s probably a good YouTube copy of it now, and there’ve been a couple of DVD releases, though I don’t think any in the United States. It still flies under the radar. And I feel like we’re one good boutique label away from that movie taking off and making people go crazy. It’s a full cult classic in the making.

Daniel: I think so. And I hate to say that, because it’s presumptive — like, “I’m going to tell you what a cult classic is.” But I do feel like it’s close. Because it’s really entertaining. I know what it’s like when you hear that kind of effusive praise and you go, “Yeah, okay” — because everybody wants to discover a cult classic.

Matt: Yeah. And I’m not like that. I’m not saying, “This is going to be the one.” There have been so many times where I’ve watched those movies and been like, no, not even close. But this definitely is out there, and in a really entertaining way.

Daniel: Because we should say to the audience — you are clearly something of a film connoisseur. I remember the first time we had one of these calls, you had all your DVDs and VHSs in the background. You have a lot of — let’s say filmature. I don’t know if that’s a real word.

Matt: Good word.

Daniel: What is it about collecting that kind of stuff that grabs you? Why is that your go-to thing?

Matt: I think two reasons. When I was a kid, I remember going to the video store, and before the internet — not to come off like an old guy, but back then you didn’t have access to information the way you do now. When you were in a store, you were at the mercy of whatever was on the shelves, and then you were at the additional mercy of: I think this looks good. You’re looking at the cover art, which was probably awesome, but you still had to be skeptical, because a lot of times the cover was one thing and then the movie was nothing like what it promised.

But I loved that thrill — the discovery of parsing out your options, making an educated guess, bringing those titles home, and hoping for the best. Sometimes it worked out well. Sometimes it didn’t work out well at all. But there was that relationship with the movie. Nowadays, if something’s on streaming and it’s not good, you turn it off in 10 minutes. Back then, you were like, “I’m going to watch this because this is what I chose to watch this weekend, and I don’t have any other choice.”

So I like having a large collection — films I’ve already seen, films I haven’t seen yet — just to hold on to that feeling, that thrill of hopefully positive discovery. And also, I want to pass that on to my kids. Sometimes they are interested, they’ll look through the covers and go, “This looks cool.” Other times they couldn’t care less. Mixed results. But it really comes down to remembering that time in my life, which was just a little more — not that I don’t love the convenience of streaming, I use it all the time — but I do miss those days of, “I don’t know if this is good, but I like this cool artwork and I’m rolling the dice on it.” That was an exciting time to be a movie fan.

Daniel: The word that springs to mind is consequence. You paid the money, you got the film. Whereas now with streaming, immediately: no, next, next, next. Which makes for a much harder environment to try and create content that people will like.

Matt: Much harder. And it’s way more competitive. You could get into horror stories of the algorithm — that’s why every movie should have X happen by minute 15, blah blah blah. But even stepping back from that, I find it in myself before I even get there: a film that 30 years ago I would have given time, nowadays I sometimes find myself going, “I’m a little bored after 15 minutes.” I still try to give it its fair shake. But there is a little more temptation to cut and run if you’re not all in right away, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing.

Because I remember seeing films from back in the day where you did have to grin and bear it through the first 40, 50 minutes, but then things got really good — they were saving their limited budget to throw all the cool effects in the last 40 minutes. And as a kid you’d grin and bear it and be rewarded. Whereas now, if you cut and run, maybe you’re missing out on something that does have rewards later on.

Daniel: Do you think that’s made its way into novels as well? Or do you think you can still have that slow-burning experience?

Matt: No, I think it’s definitely made its way into novels. Because if you look at the robust readership out there nowadays — which is great — there’s almost too much, right? And people, I see it all the time: DNF. And it’s not even “I didn’t really like it.” It’s just: it didn’t keep the pages turning. The sheer amount of books you can load up on your Kindle, it’s never ending.

I remember reading certain novels back in the day — these big books — and thinking, not only am I getting a fiction book, I’m getting a history lesson. The example I always go to is Tom Clancy. I used to read those as a kid, and it was like: not only are you getting a crackerjack spy thriller, you’re getting the history of submarines, the history of maritime weapons, whatever. And sometimes maybe that’s a little too much. But I kind of liked it as a kid, because you were getting additional things out of it.

Nowadays I think it’s much more: short chapters, keep things moving. I think you definitely see that influence in books of all stripes.

Daniel: I think it was in a conversation with Jonathan Janz that he was talking about his frustration with the move toward novella-length works rather than the bigger tomes. I read The Reformatory by Tananarive Due last year — arguably the longest book I read in a long time, about 500–600 pages — and afterwards I immediately wanted something shorter, just to feel like I can complete something within a short amount of time.

Matt: They used to call it — there was a rebranding about 10 years ago where publishers called it “Book Shots” — just little novellas. And I actually thought that was not a bad idea. It was probably a cynical marketing term, but I was like, I know what you mean. Because in your exact example: I’d just finished The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. I love almost everything Stephen Graham Jones writes, so I’m an easy mark for him, but that book was a read where I had to keep my head completely engaged, because it’s just — it’s a lot. And when it was done I went right to a novelization, because I was just like, I need the complete opposite of this. It was a good full meal, but now I’m full and I want a bag of chips.

All things are valid. And to echo Janz — what I like about Janz especially is that he writes like a man out of time, in the best way. He’s keeping certain older traditions alive. Those are the kinds of books I grew up with, and I think that’s why I like Janz: I’m still getting these full meals that are written with, not necessarily aping the style of McCammon, but you can tell where his influences are.

And so I would actually agree with him. Sometimes when I’m writing and I feel a compulsion toward brevity, I resist, because I want to write the story I want to write. And if I want a little digression that I feel is earned in this piece of the story, I’m going to do it.

Daniel: Where does your horror history take you? How did you find your way into the genre? Who were some of those early influences that got you into the horror bug?

Matt: Horror was interesting because I had a couple of different waves where they impacted me differently. Of course, King — and I’ve said that on every piece of press I’ve done for Feeders so far. I think 95% of horror authors can just say King and move on.

A couple of pivotal books for me were The Keep by F. Paul Wilson, and Michael Slade’s Headhunter — which is a really nasty serial killer novel set in Vancouver in the early 80s. Michael Slade is a pen name. At the time it was three Canadian trial lawyers who parlayed their knowledge of criminal cases into this really chilling serial killer hunt. It’s really dark and really compelling — not afraid to go there.

Though it’s ostensibly a thriller, it wallows so much in horror imagery and iconography that I think of it as a horror novel. And those two books, The Keep and Headhunter, I read when I was way too young to read them. Really embarrassing, if my mom had known what she was buying me. She wanted to foster my reading habit, so she’d buy me what she knew I was interested in — but she never knew the content. She was giving me stuff that was really, really intense, and I was in fifth grade going—

Daniel: More of that, please.

Matt: More of that, yeah. But it was fantastic. From fifth grade on, I started begging her to take me to the used bookstores when she went out. She’d let me load up on a couple of books. Back then you could get all the Zebra editions for a quarter — read once and discarded. So those two books and those two authors, plus King and Wilson and Slade — those were pivotal.

And then in high school — since you’ve read Feeders, you probably won’t be surprised — I got my hands on a copy of American Psycho. Bret Easton Ellis in general was a huge influence, especially on Feeders. There was one review that said, when they read Feeders, they couldn’t believe there wasn’t a grateful acknowledgement to Bret Easton Ellis. To me, it’s like — that’s not a secret.

And then when I got into college, that’s really when I was wondering: do I want to write? Do I want to do this? And that was right around the time of Leisure Books. I was going into Borders and buying Brian Keene and all the books Leisure was putting out — J.F. Gonzalez, and Richard Laymon, whose stuff they were republishing. Those guys were really showing me: the genre is alive and well, and this is what I want to write.

Feral was written to be a submission to Leisure. And then Leisure ended up collapsing right as I’d finished the book and was about to start sending it out. But for people familiar with my backlist, those early novels were very much Leisure books. I wanted them badly to be Leisure paperbacks alongside those authors who said to me: you can do this, you should do this. Keene especially, who’s just been a really amazing friend to everyone who’s trying to cut their teeth in the genre. It’s amazing to have somebody like that who’s just there to encourage you.

Daniel: I’m putting myself in your shoes — you grew up reading Keene’s books, you’ve talked about him a lot in this conversation. And obviously he’s blurbed you, calling you one of the new great voices in horror. What does that feel like? Maybe validation is an assumed word, but to have that recognition from someone you’ve admired for so long?

Matt: I think validation is the word, but you have to be careful — I don’t mean it in a gloating way, like “validation, in your face.” But we’re all neurotic people. When you’re first putting your work out there and you’re asking, “Is anybody going to read this? Is anybody going to care?” — the number one question I get from people coming up to me is, “How do I start?” And it’s just: you just start. That’s really it.

But when you do get that first blurb, you take a second and go, “I did something.” So the validation is more for oneself — like, I did do this. Whether I do it long-term or not, it just feels like relief. Like, okay, I am here, and somebody I admire looked at my work and said, “Yeah, you’ve got the chops.”

As for reviews — people can love or hate, I’m pretty unflappable with feedback. I’ve gotten plenty of bad reviews. The only thing that really shakes me is if people say, “The man can’t write.” Even that, after a while, you realize: just not for you.

Daniel: Yeah, exactly. Do you agree with that? As a writer yourself, do you feel there are other things that happen when you get that kind of blurb?

It totally makes sense. I think it’s a bit of a journey. You go from those first reviews — and because you only have one or two, they really carry weight on your opinion of yourself, small sample size. But you get more and more reviews, and you start filtering: okay, clearly I’m doing something right for the people who appreciate it.

I’ve got a background in digital marketing, and you begin to learn that your book isn’t going to be for everyone, and it’s not meant to be. I don’t know if I’ve told this on the podcast, but the first time I ever properly sat down and was like, “I’m going to write a short story and give it everything” — it was about a thousand words. My granddad used to be in the fire brigade, so I was influenced by him. Not horror in any way — kind of biopic, fictional-ish. And I remember handing it to my mum and going, “What do you think?”

And she looked at it, and I’m going, “It’s a story about your dad, Mum,” thinking: I put so much effort into this. And she looks at it and just goes, “Huh.” And hands it back.

Matt: [laughs]

Daniel: Maybe she’s not my audience. All I learned from that was: so many authors do this — give their first books to friends, family, the next-door neighbour who’s a teacher. As time’s gone on, I’ve learned they’re not my audience. While their opinion matters in some way, that’s not where I should be pointing my attention for that validation. And when you do get those words from someone you admire, it does — for me, it was almost like the final sticker on the page.

Ultimately, readers are the ones who matter most, because that’s who you’re writing for.

Matt: Well said.

Daniel: But when you have that external validation from someone you know, you appreciate, you respect — it gives you that little flip. I had a short story last year accepted into my first what I’d call big publication. I’m next to Rachel Harrison, next to Adam Cesare — names of people I’ve been reading for ages. That gave me that extra cementing of confidence. But it doesn’t define how I write or who I write for.

Matt: That’s perfectly put. And that’s all the right reasons. Because in this game, it’s the readers. The readers are our lifeline. They’re going to decide whether we go the distance or not.

I had a moment early on — a couple of years in — where I was probably unhealthily obsessed with blurbs. I just wanted, you know — blah blah. And it wasn’t to feed my ego, but it was like: I just need to know I belong here. And then I realized, having this conversation with friends, that that’s not really what you want. What you really want is just to be able to do this and to keep doing it. And the way you do that is to get readers who will take a chance on your book.

There are some writers who really overemphasize the cool kid’s club aspect — all these people blurbing me, whatever. Blurbs, I think, do actually help sell books, so I’m not disparaging them. But it’s easy to get lost in that. And really: our readers are why we do this. We’re storytellers. If we don’t have anybody to tell our stories to, then we’re shouting into a hurricane.

Daniel: It’s almost like just a tool in the bigger game. And I’ll try to avoid going too deep here because I want to talk about your book — but you do have the layers: readers at the core, that’s who we’re writing for, without them we don’t exist. But at the same time, if you want to get into the higher-gravitas places — more in bookstores, awards, that kind of thing — then definitely that’s where it becomes more about peers. There is a game to it. There are rules to play and different ways to do it, which I think some people don’t admit, but they definitely exist.

I’ve been published for 10 years now, and it’s only really been in the last year or two that I’ve started picking up some of these blurbs to try and build that arsenal, to try and get to that next level.

Matt: And that’s a good thing to say, because that’s similar to my experience. I think some people get into it for a couple of years, get discouraged, and then go. And it’s like: you’ve got to be stubborn. If you really need to do this, put your head down and do it. Don’t give yourself a time limit. Because it’ll take however long it takes. Be prepared for it to take over 10 years. That’s how it shook out for me. And it sounds like you’re saying the same thing, which is fairly common from what I’ve experienced and talking to others.

Daniel: I think it was Josh Malerman I was talking to, and he was saying that before Bird Box obviously went off and did its huge thing, he had written about 20 or 30 books already — not published, not with agents, just a backlist. He was just enjoying it. And then he had this arsenal: “What do you want? Here’s a menu.”

Matt: He’s in many ways an anomaly. But yeah — and that’s a whole different conversation.

Which brings me, actually — this will be my really smooth segue. Are you ready?

Daniel: Go for it.

Matt: The last couple of months, I—

Daniel: [laughs] That was your smooth segue?

Matt: Okay, I’ll let you do it.

Daniel: No, go on, go on — I rarely get to a point where I read a book and I’m really into it, where I just devour it. And it always seems to go: I find a really good book, I eat it alive, and then there’s a bit of a slower curve over the next few books while I try to find something that resonates. And I was fortunate enough to have Feeders — which I genuinely really enjoyed — followed immediately by Malerman’s House of Glass, and both of them, one after the other. I felt very lucky in that moment.

But diving into Feeders — tell the listeners a little about it. What is it, what’s the story, and where did it come from?

Matt: Sure. Elevator pitch: Feeders is a dark web social media app that rewards really bad behaviour — the worst behaviour you can imagine. It comes onto the phone of a teenage girl, Kylie, who gets wind that a missing classmate had also used this app. At first it’s: “We’re going to figure out what happened here.” And then it becomes this downward spiral into what happens when it takes over your whole life. Because what she finds is that the app rewards her for doing certain things and acting a certain way, and she finds a certain liberation in that. And we follow her on this path. I’ll leave it there.

Daniel: I’ll add — I’ll read my review, if you haven’t seen it. I put this on Goodreads.

Matt: Oh, you did? Cool. Thank you. I tend to be selective because I don’t like going prowling through them obsessively. But go ahead.

Daniel: It was positive, I’ll say that first. I put: “Depravity, thy name is Monolife. Often I find myself yearning for the book that’s going to grab me by the ears and not let me go. I was hooked from the first page with this masterful reflection of social media that steps beyond the glass and showcases just how easily people can fall prey to their own ego. My first Serafini, and sure as hell not my last.”

As I mentioned, I worked on your website — I’ve seen all your books. I’m really glad this was the first one I jumped into. I’m only just now making the connection between your screenwriting background and this book, because of the pacing and the dialogue. What I liked most about it was that it felt current. It felt very, very relevant to what’s going on today. It’s very unashamed in the dark places it goes. And the relationship between Kylie and her best friend Erin is so relatable for a modern audience. How did you compile the pieces to create what you have?

Matt: It started with me looking inward as a writer. I was watching YouTube videos about promoting your work — you’ve got to have an online presence, you’ve got to do this and that. And the more I internalized that stuff, the worse I felt. This was around 2017. I just kept coming up with increasingly exhausting and stupid ways to try and do a social media post about my book. One night I just thought: I feel like I’m shredding my dignity here. It made me feel like garbage.

That was the first step. And at the same time, I’m watching all these different social media platforms, and I was having a conversation with somebody who was very performative online. I’m going to be careful — there’s not anybody in the scene, so I’m not worried about that. But we were talking one time and I asked about something they’d posted — this indignant social media fodder that always performs well. And they conceded to me: “Yeah, sometimes you just puff up your opinion, make it a little more extra.” And I was just like — that’s so cynical. But also: I feel like a lot of people do that.

And I remember thinking back then, looking at so much of what people say: there is a performative aspect to all of this. Because there’s no way you can be that outraged about everything all the time. It never ends.

At the same time, my background was in marketing. I was at the time a website and social media manager for a university. I remember going to these conferences and talking to folks about how social media platforms would keep you on their platform all day if they could — they never want you to leave. And so what the algorithms do is they keep you angry. Because if you’re angry, you’re engaged. And if you’re engaged, you’re responding to things, posting things — it creates this doom loop that you can’t get out of.

I remember wondering: do people know that they are in these doom loops? In a way of their own making, but also — we’re all victims of this algorithm. Some of us know it and don’t care. Some of us know it and try to step back. No judgment. I get it.

That was where I came up with Monolife. I thought: let’s tell this story about this platform that is so evil, as a way of contextualizing all these things. And then I started thinking about who’s an interesting character for this.

The first instinct that came to my head — that I cast aside — was to make it a standard supernatural detective story. Like, The Ring, Naomi Watts-type: “Here’s this app, what’s it about?” There are characters in Feeders who could have taken us on that story.

Daniel: Yeah, there’s a couple of them, actually.

Matt: And I was like: I don’t want to tell that story. What’s interesting is: what about a teenage Patrick Bateman? What if that was our way into this story? Those pieces came together, and I went off and started writing it, honestly not entirely sure where it was going.

Daniel: You’re very hard on yourself saying that. The main character Kylie is a teenage girl, and I always marvel at people who can write a perspective they don’t personally have. I don’t have the experience of being a teenage girl, and clearly you don’t either — but from what I read, it really does capture an authenticity to those dynamics. There’s more pressure on young girls than on young guys, especially with social media apps and all those expectations. How did you approach creating Kylie and bringing that authenticity?

One thing that surprised me — or maybe “surprise” is the wrong word — you started formulating this around 2017 and finished it around COVID. And then there was this acceleration of technology during the pandemic, the necessary push to connect digitally. But reading the book, I would never have guessed it wasn’t written yesterday. It feels like a today story, which is remarkable given how quickly social media trends develop. So how did you tap into that?

Matt: I had a really interesting experience in that I would hire college-age students — first-year college students — to come work on marketing with us. It was my job to read the resumes, do the interviews, hire them, and design their work plan for social media.

That was kind of my kingdom — working with these kids. And they were all interesting, all from very different walks of life, all first-gen college students. But they seemed younger to me than I thought I was at 18 or 19. I don’t know if that’s a generational thing or just perspective, and I don’t judge — I really liked working with them. They were all very nice kids, and they did a bang-up job doing marketing in a way that I couldn’t, because I was like: I’m an old guy, I’m not going to be able to reach a young demographic. I wanted kids speaking to kids.

But I’d get to know them as workers and as people. And one of the interesting things was that they all saw “influencer” as a valid career path. I’d be the cliché parent and go, “Well, make sure you have a backup plan.” But in a way they became the impetus for Kylie, because I realized they all had similar pressures, and a lot of it was physical: “I don’t like to put myself on camera because I’m not thin enough, or not pretty enough, or not hot enough.” But also pressures about the world — geopolitical, sociopolitical stuff. Or right down to: “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to afford to buy a house.” For as different as these students were, their answers were almost all the same in terms of what they were worried about.

So I thought: I’m not a 19-year-old girl, but I think I can bring this character to life having had years of experience working with these students.

There was also a changeover where they went from millennial to Zoomer — that was interesting, because then it’s like: I’ve got to tailor this now. The book took so long in editing that I ended up doing fairly extensive revisions on Kylie, because now she’s younger, she’s from a different generation. But yeah, that’s kind of where it came from.

Daniel: Because of what I’ve learned about your love of slashers and Bret Easton Ellis — and this will probably be unfair to people who haven’t read the book yet, no spoilers — how much did you enjoy writing the climactic scenes?

Matt: Oh man. They were wild. I knew — I lie a little bit when I say I didn’t know where the book was going. Pretty early on, I knew it was going to end there. And I had the inverse of Monolife’s rules in my head from the beginning. So I was always writing toward where it goes. I couldn’t wait to get there. I was just revving up and revving up — very excited to arrive.

And that last stretch was the most fun I’ve probably had writing anything. Because that’s the book. That was the reason to do it.

When I got representation, there was one agent — who I didn’t sign with — who said, “You’re going to change the whole last hundred pages of the book.” And I was like: no. That’s a non-starter. Everything in the book builds structurally toward what I hope is the payoff. I can’t redo that. That was the one thing I absolutely would not do.

Thankfully there was another agent who liked it. And even more thankfully, the publisher was fully on board, which kind of surprised me, but I’m very grateful.

Daniel: It very much feels like a euphoric unleashing — all the bits and pieces throughout the book coming out at once. I love supernatural elements, I love the unexplained, and there are elements of that in there, particularly in the climax. You have so many things happening at once that it’s dizzying — in a good way — trying to follow what’s going on, how this person is here, where that’s going. Definitely the kind of climax I enjoy.

For people who do read it: is there a particular message or experience you want them to take away?

Matt: I don’t want to tell anybody what they should get out of it. I’ve seen some pretty fun reactions so far — not just positive ones. I’ve seen some negative ones I’ve thought were pretty fair, and who am I to tell you what you think?

But one thing I’d hope people get out of it is maybe just: you don’t need to post 85 selfies a day. Keep that moment. Just don’t post it. You don’t need to put your whole life out there piece by piece, because you never know what’s out there.

I don’t want the book to be seen as a moral panic — old guy being like, “Get offline” — because I’m on social media. It’s largely had its positives for me. But at the same time, let’s just think about where we are at this moment. Because I’m not completely convinced the world we know right now in terms of social media is permanent. It’s already evolved. If you think back to MySpace and early Facebook, it’s evolved quite a bit. I get the sense people are exhausted by it.

I don’t know where it’s going, but I do get the sense that we’ll wind up in some new iteration of former spaces — quieter, smaller, less centralized. Part of that is because we all want a little more privacy. So: what do I want you to take away? Just a little introspection about that.

Daniel: I’ll tell you what I think might happen in the next couple of years — not really informed by anything, just what I’ve seen on my own feed. With the heavy introduction of AI-generated content, I’m seeing more and more videos on my feed that are produced with AI, to the point where I’m increasingly aware that the content I’m looking at isn’t people. And my prediction is: the market is going to get so flooded with AI content that people will find those smaller spaces. They’ll potentially find those more physical realities, reconnect with people in person. And I think that might bring us back a little bit to the smaller in-person communities that I do think society is missing right now.

Because in the last decade, 15 years, we’ve gotten to the point where it’s very easy to dehumanize somebody who is just a screen name and an avatar. And that doesn’t make me comfortable.

Matt: I agree. And especially with AI — I’m not going to be an AI doomer, because people really love to tell you they hate AI. I don’t especially love it either. I don’t like the aesthetics of it. And whoever coined the term “slop” for AI content was really right on the money — it just hits you as this slop. When real people are wasting my time on reels, that’s one thing. But when it’s just robot content — that makes me angry. Make a skit! I’m fine with that. But when it’s just — gone.

And I think that’s a pretty prescient prediction. As we reach that critical mass, people are going to look for whatever alternative exists as a human space. Because at some point you’re not going to know: is this other person even a person anymore? Or is it — you know what I mean?

Daniel: Exactly. And I’m aware we might be running a little overtime. Are you still okay for time?

Matt: Yeah, I’m okay for time.

Daniel: When younger writers or family and friends ask, “Are you worried about AI with writing?” — the answer I always come back with is: AI writing is out of the box. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s only going to get better. People are going to use it. The same way people would plagiarize and sell books on the black market — there’s nothing I can do about that as a single person.

What I try to impress upon people is the importance, particularly today, of creating communities and a fan base. Because if you can stand out as an authentic human creating content in a genuine way, and you build that base — they know to come to you for that content. Then that’s all I need: one person to come in today, another person to come in tomorrow. And then like anything else, it’s just out there. That’s not my problem. But if I can write and produce enough and keep enough people happy that they want to come back to me, that’s where my success will lie.

Matt: It’s very well said. Because what the individual can do is — you’re going to do something AI wouldn’t think to do.

My next book, which I haven’t announced and haven’t sold — we’re getting an exclusive here — my agent got back to me with notes, and he said: “Boy, this couldn’t be any more you.” He’s like, it’s got this, and this, and this — all things that are intrinsically together, intrinsically you.

And I think that’s what we all need to do: really try and curate what we as storytellers can give a reader that is intrinsically us. Because yeah, AI will get better and better at putting together a competent soup-to-nuts story, but it’s never going to be able to take what makes me me — my interests — and smash them together in a way that — and I think that’s what we need to rely on. That edge. No one’s going to tell you, this next book, from a high level it’s more of an action thriller than anything else, I went a bit out of the genre this time — still has horror in it. But from that level, yeah, there are all these books that sound similar. Once you start peeling back the layers though, you realize: yeah, only Matt would probably put those things together.

And I think that’s the value we’re going to give our readers as we continue to refine our — I don’t want to say “personas,” because that’s who I am. It’s all I know how to do. And it’s only a story that I think no one else would probably tell. And I think that’s the good of it.

Daniel: Is there anything else you’d like the listeners to know about Feeders before we go into a last little segment — the quick-fire round, which is just for fun and not as scary as it sounds?

Matt: I just hope people will give it a chance. To me, it’s the best horror novel I think I can write — which is why my next book is something else. Because when I got to the end of Feeders, I was like: I think I’m done. Not done done, but I just — I need a break. I can’t do a better horror novel than this. It came out exactly as I wanted it to.

But honestly, if you like anything that’s satirical, funny and fucked up — I hope you’ll give it a shot. However you want to read it. There’s a great audiobook by Devin Sabara. She really captured Kylie in a way I was delighted by. And I think it’s cool — I don’t know if she necessarily wants me to advertise this, but she was in a Hellraiser sequel. I think that’s wicked cool.

However you want to try it is good with me. Please give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Daniel: I second that. I highly recommend it. It was absolutely fantastic, and just so full of twists. You don’t get that often these days — there were so many moments of: one minute we’re here, and the next minute we’re somewhere I had no expectation we’d be going. There’s a lot of that all through the book.

Matt: Well, that’s fun. I’m glad it worked that way.

Daniel: So buy it, people — the link will be in the show notes.

Now, the quick-fire round. Ten questions, as quickly as possible. You ready?

Matt: Yeah, let’s go.

Daniel: Sweet. Dragons or robots?

Matt: Robots.

Daniel: You get turned into an animal for the day. What are you?

Matt: Cat.

Daniel: Typewriter or touch screen?

Matt: Typewriter.

Daniel: Jaws or Jurassic Park?

Matt: Jaws.

Daniel: Could you survive a week without your phone?

Matt: Yes.

Daniel: If Feeders was a drink, what would it be?

Matt: Hard and sweet.

Daniel: What’s one book you wish you’d written?

Matt: I’m going to throw everybody off — Michael Crichton’s Congo. I love that book. A lot of people who’ve only seen the movie will go to the book and discover it’s a much more serious version of that story. Really cool.

Daniel: I’ve yet to read a Crichton. I’ve got a few sitting there.

Matt: He’s really good. Congo is a fun one.

Daniel: Are you prepared for the zombie apocalypse?

Matt: Yes. But my house would make a really shitty place to try and hold them off, so — maybe no.

Daniel: Describe Feeders in three emojis.

Matt: Well, that’s kind of on the cover — fire, knife, skull.

Daniel: Wonderful. What one book would you recommend above all others, excluding your own?

Matt: The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis.

Daniel: Wonderful. And that’s ten. Bonus question: where can my listeners find out all about you and everything you’re working on?

Matt: Probably Instagram. I still have a Twitter — it’s a habit at this point. But Instagram is where I’m more active, posting daily.

Daniel: I’ll pop links to that in the show notes. And that’s a wrap. Thank you so much, Matt, for joining us this week on The Writer’s Chair.

Matt: Thank you, Dan. I can’t believe that was an hour. That seemed like three seconds.

Daniel: Always the best ones.

And an especially big thank you to you, our listeners, for tuning in. Before you dash off — if you’re craving deeper conversation, writing advice, or just fancy hanging out with fellow readers and storytellers, come join the Devil’s Rock community on Discord. I’m on a mission to build the largest online space for fans of horror and dark fiction — a home where writers and readers can connect, create, and thrive together. It’s free, open to all, and always crackling with inspiration. Head on over to devilsrockbooks.com/podcast for the invite link.

Until next time, my friends — write bravely and dream dark.