A Short Interview w/ Jim Ruland

"Bonus material" for Jim Ruland's short story, "The House on Dead Confederate Street," published on Tuesday, 7/11.

The plan for Short Story, Long is to feature long short stories, each paired with original art. A new story will publish every week, on Tuesdays, and then, in between stories, we are going to feature some kind of “bonus material” for each — an interview with the author, outtakes or trivia about the story, etc. The stories are always going to be available for all, for free, with the “bonus material” saved for subscribers only. Paid subscriptions help pay writers and artists.

Read

Jim Ruland

’s story, “The House on Dead Confederate Street,” now if you haven’t already!

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Aaron Burch: Can you just tell me some about the genesis of this idea? I'd never heard of anything quite like this before — these kids having to work at a haunted house as their community service — and everyone I tell about the story is caught a little by surprise by it, but it's so ripe for a short story!

Ruland: It started with an idea to write a crime story in a haunted house that might actually be haunted.  I love haunted houses, wax museums, fairground funhouses, all of it. When I was in college my fraternity staffed a haunted house during Halloween week as a community service project. That bit where someone's hiding under the stairs at the entrance to the mad scientist's laboratory? I actually did that and it was even more fun than it sounds. Not to throw my family under the bus, but we've all had our brushes with the law. I had one sibling go to juvie and another had to wrap Christmas presents at the mall. For my community service stint, I did volunteer hours at my on-campus job in the computer center. So the idea of a bunch of misfit kids having to do community service at a haunted house doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.

AB: Father Burns comes into the story pretty late, but becomes incredibly integral (and his presence was kinda there all along, whether we knew it or not). Can you tell me some about where he came from, his role in the story, anything else?