Dathan Auerbach is a Reddit horror sensation turned novelist. His new book, Bad Man, is the haunting story of a man who cannot give up the search for a brother who vanished years ago.
Unbound Worlds: You got your start on Reddit.
Dathan Auerbach: I posted a single story, pretty small at the time, to a subreddit called No Sleep. It was supposed to be a one and done kind of thing. People seemed to really dig it, so I added to it and built upon that first story until I had reached what I hadn’t really meant to write in the first place: a series. That became my first book, Penpal. That’s kind of how this all started for me.
UW: Did you intend to become a writer or is it something that you fell into? Reddit was your start publicly, but was this something you were working on beforehand?
DA: No, I just did it for kicks. That subreddit was for amateur authors to tell what everybody, as a courtesy, took to be true stories. You just took them to be true. I really liked the idea of creating something for a community that I had taken a lot from. I had read a lot of the stories, so yes, I did it for kicks and to give back. Even when I was writing the series I didn’t think of myself as a writer or this as a launching pad or endeavor I was engaged in. It was something for fun.
UW: Let’s talk about your new book.
DA: Bad Man is a story that I’ve been working on for about three years. It started as a short story that quickly outgrew its skin and became a novel. It’s about a young man named Ben whose little brother goes missing. The story is essentially about how Ben should have stopped looking. It looks at the long aftermath of when a child goes missing. The story takes place five years after the disappearance. I wanted to look at what that does to a family, and to this young man who is really intent on finding someone, even though he should have stopped.
UW: Having a child disappear is every parent’s nightmare, but we all have people we love.
DA: Yes, and that’s what I like about both of my books. I love horror, but people have difficulties classifying my novels: whether they are horror or suspense. The stuff that speaks most to me is the kind of thing that cuts you deeply and emotionally. Visceral stuff is fun, gore is fun, but emotional turmoil is what I am most interested in. It is what I wanted to look at.
UW: How has your life changed since becoming a professional writer?
DA: It is more sustainable. It has enabled me to do something I’ve always liked to do and was a lot of fun. It is self-feeding: I enjoy writing, and any success I have enables me to do it more.
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