#josephfink

Somehow, someday

I’ll figure out how to live my own life

Not Dali’s, or Hemingway’s

I’ll find my own voice

Not Tolkien’s, or Sanderson’s

I’ll be at peace with my awkardness

And find expression of creativity

Without being a copycat of

HR Giger, Junji Ito, Joseph Fink

Because in the modern world

The future has already been imagined

Every great music, literature, and art movement

Has already come and past

I’m sitting here trying to decipher my ideas

From greats who probably already thought of them

In this society, what is the difference

Between original thought, and plagiarism

Was I ever even inspired?

Have I ever been creative?

La reunión de la PTA de anoche abre accidentalmente una grieta en el espacio-tiempo y Night Vale se enfrenta a las consecuencias.

Horror is not my genre. I scare easily and I tend to have nightmares and trouble sleeping if I expose myself to too much scariness. Since I like sleeping, I therefore tend to avoid things that negatively impact my snoozes.

That being said, I love Night Vale Presents and its affiliated podcasts. Why am I chatting about podcasts, you ask? Alice Isn’t Dead is a retelling of the Night Vale Presents podcast of the same name. If you’re unfamiliar, creators Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor started out with “Welcome to Night Vale”, a community radio station in a town where all conspiracy theories are true, and there are definitely terrifying monsters under the bed. Or in the closet. Or under the porch. Or lurking in the desert sands. Or floating overhead. “Alice Isn’t Dead” followed, the story of a woman who took a job as a truck driver in order to search the country for her missing wife Alice, whom everyone presumes dead but Keisha believes is alive.

The thing about Night Vale Presents is that it expects the horror of its world. Monsters are completely normal in Night Vale, and therefore less scary, while also being humorous and quirky. Instead of running away, you feed the demon cat that’s floating in the men’s restroom of the community radio station. It’s unique in its genre. “Alice Isn’t Dead” is sharper, a little more true to the name of horror. It was harder for me to listen to, because the Thistle Men are exactly the kind of monsters that would keep me up at night. So the podcast already does its job well.

Alice Isn’t Dead (the book) added a new perspective to the podcast. It’s told in third person, which already means that the reader is privy to new information that Keisha may not choose to share over her radio as she does in the podcast. It’s easier to picture what’s going on as Keisha travels across Southwest America, collecting the names that appear on billboards. It’s a little less suspenseful because it mirrors the plot of the podcast, but it makes up for it because it helps add clarity to Keisha’s story. My favorite part was the detailed flashbacks to Keisha’s life before Alice left, how they met, how they fell in love, how they got married and built a life together. I loved having a real sense of what Keisha lost, and what’s really driving her in her search for Alice.