Thomm Quackenbush and The Curious Case of Gef The Talking Mongoose (July 2023)
Writer Thomm Quackenbush was also on hand reading from his newest novelization of the UFO phenomenon
Strange Connections! Storytelling, Cryptids, Folklore, Paranormal, UFOs, and the Hudson Valley (August 2024)
Return to Pine Bush (July 2024)
Thomm Quackenbush meets Sonny Strait, who also wrote something titled "We Shadows" (May 2019)
Celebrating the Paranormal: The Pine Bush UFO Festival - A Short Film (May 2019)
Author Thomm Quackenbush Visits Red Hook Library (October 2015)
Quackenbush covered myths like the Legend of Leatherman, a vagrant who reportedly wandered in a 360-mile route every 30 days in a suit of shoe leather, and the area's UFO issues of the 1980s. Even Bigfoot made an appearance.
One of Our Own: Author to Share Bizarre, Bone-Chilling Local Tales (October 2015)
And at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22 the Red Hook Public Library is hosting a community event at the Enchanted Café in Red Hook at which Quackenbush will share his stories and take questions from those equally engaged in the supernatural and the bizarre.
UFO Festival lights up Pine Bush (May 2015)
novelist Thomm Quackenbush, whose talk will include why Dr. Ellen Crystall believes UFOs are attracted to Pine Bush.
Aliens Land in Pine Bush, New York! (April 2014)
Writer Thomm Quackenbush was also on hand reading from his newest novelization of the UFO phenomenon
Artificial Gods page 26 (December 2013)
Thomm Quackenbush lives in Red Hook, NY, which serves as the setting for many of his stories.
Almanac Weekly: Tivoli Free Library hosts YA author (June 2013)
What a treat when young people have the opportunity to meet the author of a book that they've read! On Friday, June 14 at 7 p.m., local Young Adult author of the Night's Dream series Thomm Quackenbush hosts a reading and book-signing at the Tivoli Free Library. Will he share about his experiences researching UFOs in Pine Bush? Or discuss the genre in which he writes? "Fantasy is sometimes just asking yourself, 'Well, what if you are wrong? What if the world doesn't work the way you think? What would that mean?'" You'll just have to come and find out!
Delaware & Hudson Canvas: Pine Bush (April 2013)
Thomm Quackenbush presents his Night Dream series. The third book in the series takes place, in part, at the Pine Bush UFO Fair.
Shawangunk Journal: UFOs Back On Track Again (March 2013)
Another author, Thomm Quackenbush, will present his "Night Dream" book series, the third book of which takes place, in part, at the Pine Bush UFO Fair.
Poughkeepsie Journal: Local Authors: Summer disrupted by UFO (February 2013)
Beacon native Thomm Quackenbush's recently released third book in the Night's Dream series, "Artificial Gods," takes place in Pine Bush, Orange County.
Any historical dinner party would be lacking if Oscar Wilde were not around to sprinkle bon mots and insult the guests in the most charming fashion possible. I would love to dine with Terry Pratchett before the darkness of Alzheimer's takes him further, but I doubt I will get the chance.
Thomm Quackenbush: WIP interview (August 2014)
My next book is Flies to Wanton Boys, explaining why the mythic aspects of the world (called daemons in my series) are so few and threatened with extinction unless Gideon, a reformed murdering body thief who only inhabit small animals at the moment, can convince Shane Valentine that she must have a hand in stopping the Purging from obliterating what remains of the supernatural. Unfortunately for him and for the daemons, Shane despises him for having tried to make her one of his flesh puppets and otherwise tearing her from mundane reality, so she is somewhat of a hard sell on playing messiah to a collection of nightmares and fantasies.
Thomm Quackenbush - Speculative Fiction Writer (April 2014)
I think that it helps that I see writing as my way of processing the world. Writing isn't even second nature to me. It is the only nature, everything reducing down to words and phrases. It is rare that I am not writing something in my head, trying to learn how best to phrase pain and boredom in such a way that I will smile in rereading it later. I do allot myself at least an hour of uninterrupted writing a night, which is to say that I glare at my fiancee when she interrupts it inevitably because she missed me.
Here is my interview with Thomm Quackenbush (March 2014)
Deciding I am finally ready to send it off. If left to my own devices, each of my books would be ponderous volumes that tell the back stories and motivations of almost every character, no matter how minor. After chipping the story away to the barest essentials, it's hard to finally let go and release it into the world (to be edited by someone else). If I could, I would treat my book like wikis, tweaking and rephrasing things I have learned to express better and never actually producing anything new. Instead, I write sequels to prove to myself, if to no one else, that I have improved.
A Page Straight From Thomm Quackenbush #apagestraightfrom (March 2014)
She knew that she was once human, but the memory was no more than a shadow. She had been born in what was now Malaysia. She had not been the sort to have cared about the naming of things that existed well without it, which was why she had long since lost any name but Sati, forsaken along with the life to whom that primordial version of herself belonged. To her, it was like asking a butterfly what it remembered about being a caterpillar. She could fly now and nothing could touch her when she left the cocoon of her body behind at night. There was no one alive who did not find her beautiful, something she doubted she would have been able to say when she remained earthbound.
Author Interview - Thomm Quackenbush and free Valentine's Day book (February 2014)
I've always seen the world a bit differently. It started from simply wondering what my life would have been like growing up in a different house or with different parents. It evolved into wondering if everyone I saw was truly human. There are some strange people out there and it was almost comforting to create stories where they were not simply having trouble adjusting to society, but were seven hundred year old satyrs or the embarrassed children of the gods. I want badly for there to be a magic in the world, deep within human souls but just out of reach.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW -THOMM QUACKENBUSH (November 2013)
I think it was nearly always known that I was a writer, even before that was a concept I could articulate. The moment that the Writing grade on my elementary school report cards went to the content of what I wrote rather than my abominable penmanship (it is still awful, thanks to typing), I always had A's without much effort. In fifth grade, largely because I did not care to make a schmaltzy card for the bulletin board, I wrote a poem called "Rainbow of Tears" that was composed entirely of things I thought sounded poetic, with no real grasp of the point of poetry. My mother still thinks this is the best thing I have ever written.
Nano Spotlight: Fantasy author Thomm Quackenbush (November 2013)
I've done NaNoWriMo since 2006 or so and I've "won" it six times, though some of these wins only occurred by the skin of my teeth, by typing slightly related gibberish (character bios, set descriptions, rules for the world) in the last few days before December 1st hit. Some of my better experiences with NaNoWriMo occurred in Panera Breads, hyped on diet soda, doing write-offs with other WriMos while barely speaking. I still have a pink seal eraser I won for writing 6,000 words of Artificial Gods in one sitting. Mr. Sealkins believes in me.
Into the Mind of an Author: Thomm Quackenbush (November 2013)
My most recently book, Artificial Gods, is about two sisters, Jasmine and Chrys, who are harassed by UFOs one summer and come to realize that these phenomena have been with them for their entire lives. It confronts a lot of the UFO mythology by touching upon the improbability of visitors from the stars and the occult connections between a self-proclaimed Anti-Christ's honeymoon, the inventing of rocket fuel, and the crash at Roswell.
Interview with Author - Thomm Quackenbush (October 2013)
At the moment, I am writing the final scenes for Flies to Wanton Boys, the next book in the Night's Dream series, in a spiral notebook using a carbonite pen that my girlfriend bought me for our anniversary. Despite being enamored with technology--albeit usually the most basic form of technology that will allow me to do what I need--I admit to being an absolute glutton for pens. This happens to be among the nicest I've ever held and can transition between black ink (main text), red ink (additions), and mechanical pencil (notes) with a twist. The benefit to paper and pen is that the writing flows more fluidly without the constant interruptions of Facebook and Tumblr. Even before I recommitted myself to the paper and pen method, I would write longhand on an old personal organizer because it seemed as though I find different levels of my story when I am not typing.
Alien Author/Expert Thomm Quackenbush On Ancient Alien Theory, Religion, Vimanas, and Artificial Gods (October 2013)
Yes. I find comfort in Drake's Equation, these nested fractions of probability that, though they reduce exponentially at each step, result in a statistical near certainty that intelligent life would have evolved somewhere in the vastness of the universe. It does not imply they would be within the distance where we could ever meaningfully communicate, but it is enough for me to know we are not alone. It would be much too lonely to look up at the empty stars, but I am glad I can back the sentiment up with math and science.
Artificial Gods By Thomm Quackenbush (October 2013)
The most fascinating fact of all might not be from the members of the United Friends Observer Society, but rather from my background reading. Jack Whiteside Parsons, a literal rocket scientist who undoubtedly is owed some credit for the United States "winning" the space race, was a fervent occultist. He was an acolyte of Aleister Crowley, who referred to himself as the Great Beast and the Anti-Christ, though even Crowley thought Parsons went a little too far with some of his ritual work. Before each rocket launch, Parsons would recite the Hymn to Pan. Parson and L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, lived and did spells together for years. All of this is mentioned in Artificial Gods, because how could I possibly leave it out?
Interview with Author - Thomm Quackenbush (October 2013)
I tend to be inspired by the strangeness of history and the natural world, to say nothing of a childhood filled with seeking out ghosts and UFOs. From the moment I could read, the content of those books tended to be classed as strange. By second grade, I could tell you the best way to attract and keep a unicorn and at least three synonymous names for Bigfoot. I could not manage to learn the times tables, though, until my reading time was threatened.
Interview with Thomm Quackenbush by Kristin Mazzola (September 2013)
...I knew I was a novelist in my heart and it seemed necessary to do more than blog and wait for a story to find me. I had a sketch of the world I would like to write, our world as far as most people could tell, but only because humans are conditioned against acknowledging the magical or supernatural. However, it wouldn't gel into a story. My sophomore year of college, one of my friends killed himself after a party. I wrote a fictionalized version of this, half as a coping mechanism and half to enter a local paper's short story competition. I did not place, which was no real surprise in retrospect. They were looking for drawling cowboys learning life lessons or condensed chicken soup for the teen's soul, not a story about suicide and recovery that doesn't name-drop Jesus. I just couldn't let go to the protagonist, Shane, and (to a lesser extent) her departed boyfriend. I slotted them into this universe I had been creating and it suddenly sprang to life.
Author Interview - Thomm Quackenbush by Paul Western-Pittard (August 2013)
As unsatisfying as this may sounds, I think I partially write simply because I was built to do it. Ever since first grade, when the Writing grade on my report card went from my chicken scratch penmanship to the content of the scrawls, it was understood by my parents and teachers that I was probably a writer. Other interests could be indulged-I had delusions of acting and filmmaking-but it was all just to get me back to writing.
This doesn't mean that I did not work very hard to become good enough to go from proclaimed writer to legitimate author. There is that Malcolm Gladwell factoid that an expert in any field is simply someone who has done it for ten thousand hours. I would not be surprised if I hadn't doubled or tripled that by now, via blogs and essays I undertook prior to feeling competent to write a full length novel. Rare is the time I am not at some stage writing, even if it is no more than elevated daydreaming. I still feel that I am just beginning, that I hardly know anything at all. I gleaned more on honing my voice while grumbling about the edits on my third novel than I did in all the years prior.
Interview with Thomm Quackenbush by Kara Leigh Miller (May 2013)
When I first submitted We Shadows to publishers, I received so many rejection letters that I started putting them on the refrigerator. The woman I lived with at the time found this morbid, but I figured each letter was one step closer to my fated acceptance letter.
Interview with Thomm Quackenbush by Lily Sawyer (April 2013)
I have always imagined writing a comic novel with my family as its foundation - somewhere between the movie The Royal Tennebaums and the work of David Sedaris - but I have yet to happen upon a way I can manage it without being disowned.
Interview with Thomm Quackenbush by R.M. Kelly (March 2013)
Continuing with I Citizen Mag's series of Indie Author Interviews we've got a great Q&A with Thomm Quackenbush. It's always a delight for us to get to know authors a little better through this series, the online community may seem large at times but it's a small world if share our love for indie writing and support exciting, new or unique authors.
Author Interview by Scarberryfields (February 2013)
My girlfriend is the only family member affected right now and she does not seem to mind too much. She is also a creative type, an artist who runs a successful Etsy shop and who is involved in the local artistic community, so we have come up with our "work hour". I retire to a tiny closet with my notebook computer and she makes an absolute mess of our living room floor as she makes her crafts.
It's a good system, except for when guests drop by before we can clean up.
Author Interview by Red Haircrow (November 2012)
The foundations for what I intend to write were often poured twenty-five years ago, when I needed to stand on a stool to access the UFO and ghost books my elementary school library possessed. I don't know why this topic interested me. Now, I find the research process to be one of pleasant rediscovery, as I happen upon references to things I half-remember from childhood and then dive in with vigor. In Artificial Gods, I had the plot more or less fleshed out before I stumbled upon a picture of one of the antagonists, a figure I was fairly sure I had made up. Perhaps I had brushed up against a book on Thelema in my childhood searching - I rather doubt it - but I think there is sometimes just a sort of unconscious repository of these ideas waiting for a blithe artist to trip into.
Little Hyuts Dream Series 1&2: Author Interview, Review by Jill Marie (August 2012)
I think the audience I am trying to reach is me as a teenager to early twenty-something. Fortunately, a lot of people are like me: hungry for something to read that respects our intelligence, but still willing to be playful. So often growing up, I read books that made me feel knowledgeable, but were needlessly dry and serious. Or I would read books that were "fun", but were written as though I were a sixth grader who suffered from multiple head injuries.
