Appalachian Horror, Campus Hauntings, and Family Legends: A Conversation with Joshua Bish

Announcer [: 00:00:03

This is the Tri State Time Machine. Each week, your host, Vanessa Hankins and her guests share memories and stories about the past, present and the future of the Tri State area. That's West Virginia, Kentucky, and the Ohio areas. If you used to live here or you currently live here, you're going to catch yourself saying out loud. Wow, I remember that. Now here's Vanessa.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:00:27

Hey, guys, it's Vanessa. And this is the Tri State Time Machine. Today, we're diving into the eerie and enchanted corners of Appalachia with Princeton, West Virginia author Joshua Bysshe. Am I saying that correctly?

Joshua Bish [: 00:00:37

That is correct.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:00:38

Okay, I wanna make sure that I'm saying that right. Yeah, well, I was like, watch me say a bad word.

Joshua Bish [: 00:00:47

I grew up with it, so I'm used to it. Sure.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:00:51

Joshua is a campus police officer at Concord University, a former soldier with the West Virginia Army National Guard, and the creative force behind Appalachian horror novels like the lady in the flesh, room 316, blood of Psalm, and his upcoming book, Echoes in the Stone. His work is rooted in folklore, hidden histories, inherited trauma, and the supernatural atmosphere that our region is known for. Joshua blends his local legends, cultural memory, and psychological terror to show how Appalachia shapes its identity, storytelling, and fear. If you've ever felt that our mountains hold secrets just below the surface, I think this episode's gonna be for you. So, Josh, welcome to the episode. Is that okay if I call you Josh instead of Joshua?

Joshua Bish [: 00:01:29

That is perfectly fine.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:01:30

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:01:30

My mom calls me Joshua, but only when she's mad.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:01:32

Okay, I understand that completely, 100%. We'll jump right in. For those that are meeting you for the first time or hearing about you for the first time, who is Josh Bish? And what. What titles behind it, you know, are like, you got author, officer, veteran. Which one do you introduce yourself as?

Joshua Bish [: 00:01:52

Honestly, I'm pretty simple. I'm a husband, a dad. I live quiet. I'm grounded.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:01:58

I love that.

Joshua Bish [: 00:01:59

You know, when I wake up, I do like most people do, especially here in the mountain state. Go to work, come home.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:06

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:06

Sit in my recliner, turn on the tv and just live my life.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:11

Absolutely. We all love a recliner.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:14

Sometimes, whenever it's my turn to cook, I'll cook. And just like any other mountaineer, I think I cook good, but it's only for my house.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:22

Well, my husband's the chef in our family, so I can't relate.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:27

Yeah, it's pretty much it. Just simple, quiet little guy. Yeah, I do the writing stuff. Like I said, I'm a. I'm an Officer down at the Concord University. Before that, I was a deputy sheriff for Mercer County. I've been law enforcement 18 years. I was in the army for nine.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:47

I was originally with the first 150th out of Williamson.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:50

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:51

Familiar where that's at?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:51

I do, yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:52

You've been there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:53

I have.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:53

Okay. So you know about the flood wall?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:55

I do.

Joshua Bish [: 00:02:55

That's an awesome thing.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:02:56

Yes. Yes. It really is. Yeah. I worked a lot in Mingo when I was doing prevention work. Like when I was telling you, before we started recording with Greg PUCKETT, I had 10 counties that I covered, and Mingo was one of them.

Joshua Bish [: 00:03:08

So it's one of those. I used to. After graduating from Pikeview High School.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:03:12

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:03:12

Joined the military and stuff. This is right after 9 11. So I'm sure you remember how the maintenance state was back then. We was all.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:03:20

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:03:21

Yeah. Let's get up. We gotta.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:03:22

Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 00:03:23

Yeah, we got to do something. So I did that and I would drive after boot camp. I would drive the two hours up Route 52 from Princeton all the way to Williamson. It made it about a two and a half, three hour drive.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:03:36

I've done that exact drive.

Joshua Bish [: 00:03:38

And it's a cold road, so, you know, I always told people if. While you're driving that way, if you don't almost die from getting ran over or falling off. Horseshoe Mountain.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:03:49

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:03:49

You haven't really drove it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:03:51

I remember the first time that I went into Williamson. There's that area around the mountain where all those wild horses are. And I just couldn't believe it. I was like, oh, my gosh. And everyone's like, oh, yeah. This is just every. Like, this is common. This is every day.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:04:04

They're always out here, and you got to watch for them because they'll be in the middle of the road. And I'm like, what? Like, this is wild.

Joshua Bish [: 00:04:13

And then I was a young driver, and my car back then was an old. A 1984 Cutlass.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:04:19

Oh, nice.

Joshua Bish [: 00:04:19

It was a boat.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:04:20

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:04:21

And I was young. I didn't know how to drive, but I thought I did, Right?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:04:24

We all did. Yes, absolutely. 100.

Joshua Bish [: 00:04:27

I guess that's basically me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:04:29

Okay. I like it. I. I like that when I have guests on, they're always kind of like, oh, I don't want to talk about me. But it doesn't have to be big and flashy like you. You can live a simple life. And we. I'm the same.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:04:43

I live a very simple life. I'm not a social butterfly by any means. I think a lot of people have that misconception about me. But I would rather be home, around the fireplace, some hot chocolate with my kids hanging out, you know?

Joshua Bish [: 00:04:56

Exactly. Yeah. Like. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. I'm. I'm a homebody of sense. But I'll have my little spurts.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:03

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:04

Like, okay, I need to make sure.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:06

Get out of the house a little bit.

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:09

So, like the. Me and my wife, we go on cruises. We go.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:14

Oh, nice.

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:15

We travel a little bit, but for the most part, yeah, I'd rather be at home.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:18

Yeah, that's me. I'm the same way. So what was your introduction or introduction. Jesus. Into Appalachian storytelling?

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:28

Basically, it started with my dad.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:30

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:31

This was me. Give the. Your Tri State people a little idea of where I'm talking about.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:37

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:37

All right. I know the Tri State you're talking about West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:41

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:41

Where I live at Princeton. We only have a dual state.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:05:44

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:05:44

West Virginia and Virginia. And a lot of people in Mercer county, we tend to go south when we travel or we go to visit places. So my family has some land down in Ripple Mead, right off New River. Oh, nice going towards Virginia Tech. It's the very last bridge you cross on 460. It's right underneath it. It's been in the family as long as I can remember. And we would always go down there.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:06

That was our vacation during the summer.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:06:08

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:09

Thinking about it, I think we was poor.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:06:10

Yeah. Like most of Appalachia, it's okay. That's who we are.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:13

But it was fun.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:06:14

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:15

But my dad, every night he. We would. The entire family or whatever would sit by the fireplace and he was sitting. Make up random stories. Just.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:06:26

I wish I had that trait. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:28

And it was one that I guess I picked up on it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:06:30

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:30

I was able to start doing it, but I would sit and listen to him. And when I got older, I think I was about to graduate high school, we sitting around and my younger cousins stuff was around and he kept talking, telling these ghost stories about a random abandoned house that was in the middle of the woods out there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:06:47

Right. And it was just all the spooky things.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:50

It was corny. So corny. But just you get.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:06:55

Yeah. I was gonna say you get wrapped up in those kinds of stories. You really do.

Joshua Bish [: 00:06:59

And then, of course, all the kids would go to bed. He would sit out, drink his moonshine.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:07:03

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:07:04

Around the campfire. Look at me. And I said, in about two hours when the train goes by, because there's a train track right. Right near the. Where we would camp at. And he would say, half of those kids are going to come out screaming.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:07:17

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:07:18

When they do, I'm gonna scare the shit out of them.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:07:19

I love it. I love it so much.

Joshua Bish [: 00:07:21

And like clockwork, he would do it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:07:24

That's great.

Joshua Bish [: 00:07:25

I caught onto it with him that way. And then fast forward a few years after my time in the military, going overseas, coming home, getting fine of my calling in law enforcement, I would use. I would write down stuff I wasn't sure how to, you know, what you.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:07:43

Were going to do with it. Yeah, what am I going to do?

Joshua Bish [: 00:07:45

How do I do this? And a lot of it was like you said before, I didn't used to like talking about myself. I still don't. Yeah, swallow it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:07:53

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:07:54

But back then I say, I'm not going to put myself out in that. So I think it was about a year and a half ago, my daughter, she. I gave her my old laptop so she can mess with it as she was right doing her thing. And she found one of my file. My folders of creepy stories. That's what I look at the folder and there was only maybe 2, 3 pages worth of like little short stories. She would read those. She said, dad, why don't you do something with this?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:08:20

Oh, I love that.

Joshua Bish [: 00:08:21

I looked at her, her name was Amaya. And I looked at her, I was like, I don't know what to do. She says, she point blank, she just turned 17, I think. And she says, grab your fucking balls and do it. One. I'm gonna beat your ass.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:08:36

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:08:36

Two. Okay.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:08:37

Yes, exactly, exactly. I love a girl that knows exactly what she wants to say and do and puts it out there into the world.

Joshua Bish [: 00:08:45

Bad thing is she's about five foot nothing, skinny as a bean pole, but.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:08:49

That'S always the ones. I love that. I love that you grew up with Appalachian storytelling because, you know, I have one gentleman in my life. My mom had adopted a cousin of mine because her mom wasn't fit to take care of her. And she had this really awesome. They never got married or anything, but they were sweethearts and they had a child together and all that. And he was the most amazing storyteller and he could just make up things on a whim. And I always just thought that was such an incredible trait and was so jealous.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:09:22

I always wanted to be a good storyteller. So I think that's awesome that you got to grow up with that. And then you got to, you know, now you're. You're putting your storytelling out into the world. So I think that's awesome. So on our intake form, you said that you would travel to the 1900s because storytelling was at its strongest. What fascinates you about that era?

Joshua Bish [: 00:09:41

The most fascinates me about the 1900s is the family mindset.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:09:46

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:09:47

I mean, especially around our area. You know that the stories weren't just for entertainment. They were explanations.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:09:53

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:09:54

Why the world turns. Turns?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:09:56

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:09:56

They filled the gaps before science had answers. Folklore existed because people needed a way to understand, you know, how the world work, protect the families and pass down warnings. Not just simple little.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:10:10

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:10:11

Tales.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:10:11

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:10:12

They were simple, direct and purposeful. They weren't meant to impress. Just like my dad's stories, you know, they didn't impress nobody. That was corny.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:10:20

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:10:21

But they was something you would remember.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:10:23

Absolutely. I love that. And I would, I think I would agree with you. I've never thought of it in that way, but you're right. Storytelling was at its strongest in that point and that, that was the way, like, even in newspapers and stuff, even if it was folklore, things like that still would get published in the local newspapers. And, you know, everyone knew that it was folklore and didn't get all worked up. Like, now everyone goes to social media over like some fake crazy thing and the masses believe it. They.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:10:51

They don't stop for two seconds and use their common sense and they, they just go wild with it. So I agree with you. I. I think I would totally love that era for that very reason.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:02

Oh, yeah. That's another way I look at it is the, you know, not just the storytelling, you know, because it does. Yeah. It bridges that gap between science and fake.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:12

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:12

And that's my thing is I like the fake stuff.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:14

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:15

You know, absolutely. That's. Let your just like when we was growing up, tell my age a little bit. You know, we would go outside, especially when school wasn't in. We didn't have the traffic lights or anything like that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:27

Right. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:28

We didn't either know, until the lights went off or whatever it was when the sun went away.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:32

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:33

And we would use our imagination to go play, to go do whatever we needed to. And like you saying, I think that's what pushed like this, the newer generation, you know, because they don't have that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:44

They really don't.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:45

All they have is social medias.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:47

And they really do.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:48

They've.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:48

They've lost their imagination.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:49

If it's posted on Facebook, Instagram, whatever social media thing they look at, it's. They believe it like it's written in gold.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:11:56

Uh, huh. They really do.

Joshua Bish [: 00:11:58

And so fun story.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:00

Absolutely. I love stories.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:01

So whenever I first started, because where I'm self published.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:05

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:05

Okay. What that means is I go through IngramSpark or Amazon, KDP.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:10

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:10

Which means I submit my manuscript, they read through it, they approve it, they say, okay, we're going to sell your book. So what that means that I write it, I edit it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:22

You're doing all the work.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:23

All the work.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:24

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:24

I. I drew all my covers, all my illustrations.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:27

Oh, that's so cool.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:28

And also that means I have to promote them myself.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:31

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:32

Which. It's a headache, but I still like it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:35

It makes you be an extrovert whether you want to be or not.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:37

It does. And we'll get into that part.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:39

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:40

But longer story short, when I was first started publicizing the lady in Flesh, my first book, it's based off of, it starts off in the 1600s.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:12:52

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:12:53

And it follows the traditional Native Americans of the time that was. That would. They was Inuits. They would. They wouldn't settle in one place. And actually where it's. Where Concord was actually built on was what they called Yanaway.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:13:09

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:13:10

Which was a place of worship that was their. Their.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:13:13

Their sanctuary.

Joshua Bish [: 00:13:14

Yes. They're very.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:13:15

I was trying to think of the best word for that.

Joshua Bish [: 00:13:17

And they would actually have their spirit walkers and their healers go up and do their fasting where Concord was actually built. This is. That's so cool.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:13:26

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:13:26

That's in my books.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:13:27

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:13:28

Not just what I base it off of is that type of stuff. So as I was. I decided to make a blog. You know, try to be. Through my research, I've seen a lot of the more grounded, independent authors. They've. They found that way of. Hey, I'll.

Joshua Bish [: 00:13:44

I'll just create a blog, go through my creative process of how I did this. So I did that and I put a teaser of the first four chapters. Just a little.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:13:54

Yeah. Just enough to give you a taste.

Joshua Bish [: 00:13:57

Just enough to go make you think, wow, that's good. And. Oh, what is wrong with him?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:14:02

I love it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:14:03

And so at the end of the fourth chapter, needless to say, I'm not going to spoil it, but it's going to be. If you're a parent, you will hate me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:14:11

Okay. Noted, noted.

Joshua Bish [: 00:14:14

It'll be intriguing. So I put a little snippet of that on the blog thing. I get an email from some random religious group. Oh, no, heard of them, didn't know what they were.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:14:29

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:14:29

And they were saying. And that part of my story is fiction. Right. Happened because how would I know how what one person did?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:14:36

Right, Exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 00:14:38

They didn't write because they used folklore back and talked about it and it just. They threatened lawsuit. They threatened all kinds of stuff.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:14:47

And I said, people are wild.

Joshua Bish [: 00:14:48

It's crazy. They believed it 100%.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:14:50

Oh yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:14:51

And I, I ended up calling their attorney and he 100 said, hey, just. Just ignore it. I'm sorry.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:01

Yeah, this is what they fish.

Joshua Bish [: 00:15:03

And he's like, I did a little research. You know, how the court systems work. You know, this is going.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:07

And. Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:15:07

It got thrown out, it got dismissed, but it was still.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:10

People are. People are wild.

Joshua Bish [: 00:15:12

It's like, it's a. And I have a big old disclaimer. This is not real.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:17

Yes, exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 00:15:19

There is like my, my series, it's based on a tear in. In the world.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:26

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:15:26

Where monsters come through.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:28

Yes, I love that. I love that. Well, and like, that's the thing about, like people nowadays. They just. They lack that. That common sense and they get so fired up before they even like read the disclaimer. Like, did you see that part where I said.

Joshua Bish [: 00:15:45

And together they had to go to my website, which the first image of my website is obviously a horror thing.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:51

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:15:52

Something really is scary looking.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:15:54

It's Right. They had to have known. Yeah. Well. And I have found that a lot of. And listeners don't get mad at me, but I have found that a lot of these religious groups that have made it their goal just to like search the Internet and pick fights that usually they're. They're all out of their minds.

Joshua Bish [: 00:16:15

Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:16:15

They're just completely out there.

Joshua Bish [: 00:16:17

And you know as well as I do, we live in the Bible belt and it's. Even the. The hardcore religious in our area are not that yes way. It's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:16:29

Yes, I agree. Yes, please, please use the brain. God gave it to you for a reason. Do you have a favorite local legend or ghost story that shaped your writing or do you think it was just the stuff from your dad? All of it?

Joshua Bish [: 00:16:44

I think it was a mixture of all.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:16:46

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:16:48

Mainly there's not one's really specific. Families will just tell and explain the stories that, you know, they felt would entertain the kids at the time and as well as make you think.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:17:01

Yeah, 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 00:17:02

You know, it's just like. Like helping. I guess the modern term would be building that critical thinking.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:17:09

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:17:09

You know, something that we actually pay lots of money to actually build now.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:17:13

Right. 100. I love that. So how was working as a campus police officer influenced your interest in fear, tension and Psychological horror. I know that there is a lot that as a law enforcement officer in any realm, whether it be sheriff, you know, on a college campus, a state trooper, whatever. And I was telling you, I work with a lot of law enforcement in several different realms of my life. And the things that they go through mentally is just astounding to me. But then secondly, there's this other fold of it of shit you can't make up that you're like, wow, how did that happen? Like, how do people survive day to day when these are things that are happening in their life? So, you know, there's both sides of it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:18:03

You're seeing these really terrible, awful things, but then you're also these things that if, you know, if you don't laugh, like you're just left in this like, what the fuck just happened.

Joshua Bish [: 00:18:13

Yeah, exactly. And I think that just goes to show that I tell everybody if even those that are, that don't like law enforcement just because they're long, just because, yes, anytime I get an opportunity, I was like, if you get a chance, talk to a police officer, state trooper, deputy, sheriff, whatever, whatever form of law enforcement. Yes, talk to them outside of work.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:18:36

And they're all so different. You, they, they get like put into this capsule of them all being the exact same person with these exact same personalities. And you know, this almost like people assume that they, they hate these communities that they're putting their life on the line for. I'm like, that makes no sense at all. Think about what you're saying when you say that. You know.

Joshua Bish [: 00:18:58

Well, now I can, I can honestly say when I first started in law enforcement, this was been back in 2007. I started with the Princeton Police Department.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:19:07

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:19:08

Keep in mind this is also the mid 2000. Okay. My starting pay was $10 an hour.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:19:16

Oh, I believe it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:19:18

I knew I wasn't going to get rich, but it was a lot more money that I was making already from working at Walmart at the time.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:19:24

Gotcha.

Joshua Bish [: 00:19:25

I think $6 an hour. So at that time when I got.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:19:29

Over living big, I was, oh wow.

Joshua Bish [: 00:19:31

I can finally get the good toilet paper.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:19:33

Yes, exactly, exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 00:19:35

But it' my main thing is befriend one. Maybe not even befriend one.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:19:42

Just get the know. Yeah, take the time.

Joshua Bish [: 00:19:45

Because a lot of people always ask me respect whenever they, especially if they come over my house for the first time. You see me out working, you know, I got a kind of a fake mohawk looking thing going on.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:19:56

Yeah, I got it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:19:56

And I got a full beard. I look like your average dad bod. Mountain man.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:01

Yes. I would agree with that. By looking at you right now. I would agree with that.

Joshua Bish [: 00:20:05

Okay. But you come in my house. My living room is decorated with Marvel, Star Wars.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:12

Love it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:20:13

Bunch of nerd stuff.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:13

Yeah, big nerd.

Joshua Bish [: 00:20:14

My living room, my wife loves this part. It's all horror. I've got a Pennywise doll that sits on top of my dress.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:20

See, I can't do clowns, so I couldn't. Don't invite me over.

Joshua Bish [: 00:20:25

My kitchen is decorated. Nothing but fallout theme stuff.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:28

Oh, my son would go crazy. He loves fallout and then.

Joshua Bish [: 00:20:33

And play Dungeons and Dragons and all that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:36

He's the Dungeons and Dragons guy. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:20:38

I tell a lot of people, actually. I use this line in one of my books with one of my main characters. I'm a nerd. Yes. But I'm a cool nerd.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:45

Yeah. I love it. I love it so much. Have you ever experienced anything or something like specific on campus that has made its way into your books? Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:20:55

Yes. That's actually what pushed me to write the Psalm series.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:20:59

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:00

The setting is in Athens, West Virginia, and it is Concord. On Concord, there's a dorm. It's called Sarve Hall. It's very old, to the point it's filled with. No, they don't let kids stay in it anymore. It's filled with asbestos and stuff like that. So you can imagine that. But they also.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:19

They can't really tear it down because it would cost more to tear it down.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:21:22

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:23

Have special stuff come in.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:21:24

All those permits and the.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:26

They're still in the process of what do we do?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:21:28

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:28

And it's understandable. Well, there's stories. When I first got there four years ago at Concord, I was put on midnight shift. Like in. Like anytime, whenever you're right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:21:38

Any rookie. Yeah. Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:40

It doesn't matter how. What kind of experience you got.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:21:42

You start at the bottom 100.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:43

I was walking around midnight shift one time just. And I just looked up at the building. I was like, that's a creepy built. And it was foggy, the atmosphere was perfect.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:21:54

Perfect. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:21:54

I was just like, wow. A couple days go past and I start asking people about it and I hear a story about a room in Sarvey hall and it's in room 316.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:04

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:05

Which is also the name of the second book.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:07

Right, right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:08

But in that room there's a mural of Marilyn Monroe that some student painted years ago.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:14

Totally random.

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:15

Yeah, just one of those. Like what?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:17

Yeah. Why?

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:19

Okay. So they got paint on the wall and they would Explain to me. It's like no. Even maintenance. When they would paint over it or try to cover it or whatever, it never stayed cover and it would just fade on back through.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:29

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:30

Maybe in the practical mindset person.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:32

I need to see it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:33

I was like I said, yeah, I.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:35

Need to see this.

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:36

I waited one midnight shift after all the kids was. I think it was a spring break. No, nobody else was on campus but me. Right. So I go in and I start, I walk up to the third floor, find room 316 and as I turn open the door, I'm go. There's no power on the bill.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:53

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:22:54

So you have my flashlight. My flashlight beam hits on this mural and it kind of glows.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:22:59

Oh, wow. Scared I was gonna say, I would have been out of high tailed it at that point. I wouldn't have said so.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:05

And I looked at it and it's very well done.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:08

Oh.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:08

I mean one of those. Whoever did it, I hope to, I hope to God they became an artist.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:13

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:14

I mean it's actually beautiful.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:15

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:16

It's like. It looks just like Marilyn Monroe.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:18

That's all things.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:19

It's just. And it's huge. It takes up the whole wall.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:22

Oh, wow.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:24

And I went and touched it and it's kind of engraved into it. So I was like, well that makes sense because if you're going to paint over that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:30

Right. It's going to keep.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:31

Right. I was like, okay, I understand that. It's pretty cool.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:35

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:35

And then of course now a couple days later they, I started hearing ghost stories of the, you know, some kid killed themselves in the university. You know, typically I was gonna say.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:44

They'Re on every college campus. I feel like. Yeah, okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:46

And they haunt the building. That's why they can't use it no more in high school. No, they can't use it because you'll get cancer.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:51

That's what I was going to say. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:52

But okay, we'll stick with that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:23:53

We'll stick with that. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:23:55

It's one of those. Me having my mindset at the time of trying to start these writings. I said, well, let's use this.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:24:03

Yeah, 100%. I love that. And what a cool. Like I just love the folklore, especially on campuses because they, you know, you have all these students from all over that maybe don't have any roots to Appalachia at all. And then they get into West Virginia and go to college and that's all they're getting.

Joshua Bish [: 00:24:23

My favorite are the ones are the student. The foreign students.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:24:26

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:24:26

They come in from all these Other countries that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:24:29

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:24:29

I'm just wondering, how did you find this university?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:24:32

Right, right. How did you land here in Huntington, West Virginia, or Athens?

Joshua Bish [: 00:24:38

Wow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:24:38

Right? 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 00:24:40

Yeah. But another funnel was that same building, I think was about two years ago. The veterans group on campus. They organized for a professional ghost hunter onto campus to do a little walk around. Because Concord has some history.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:24:56

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:24:57

It's got history from World War II that would actually bring POWs there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:25:02

Okay, cool.

Joshua Bish [: 00:25:03

And the Civil War time frame there was, you know, the pit battle, pigeon roost was right there in Princeton.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:25:10

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:25:11

And that's when Princeton burnt.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:25:12

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:25:15

So fair warning. I've always said this. After the age 40, a male either becomes a car nut or a history nut.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:25:28

I was gonna say. You're totally right, though. You're totally right. That's so funny.

Joshua Bish [: 00:25:33

So I like history.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:25:35

I've got two years where my husband goes one way or the other history.

Joshua Bish [: 00:25:38

It's cheaper and you can travel.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:25:40

Yes, exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 00:25:42

All right. But we had those ghost hunters come on and. Because at the time I was also enrolled, I was taking classes, I was taking part of those. The benefits of working at it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:25:51

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:25:51

Getting a degree. Okay. And plus, I was a veteran, so I was. They always talked to me. And I also had the keys to everywhere. Right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:00

You're a good friend to have.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:01

So we would go through. We walk through and in the Fine Arts building, where the theater is, we. The. The guy that was walking us around, I can't remember his name, but they said he was a big. To do.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:14

I was going, okay, sure, okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:17

He asked me. He's like, when you walk arounds, whenever you go foot patrols or whatever, what place gives you the most creeps? And I was like, well, other than Sarve, I really don't want to take y' all there, cuz that's cancer.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:27

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:27

And I was like, in the. The students call it the dungeon. It's in the Fine Arts building. It's underneath the stage. It's where all the. The elevator is for the stage.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:35

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:35

And all that. It is creepy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:37

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:37

And they keep all their props down there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:40

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:41

You know, they got caskets, they got cop.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:43

They got all the things. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:44

So, yeah, go down there with him with this group. He pulls out all these fancy little toys. Of course, you know, just one of those. I'm like, that's pretty cool.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:52

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:52

Pulls out a thermal camera that's got the screen on it. So you can.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:55

Those are really cool.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:56

It is neat.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:26:57

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:26:57

I'm standing next to him and he's flashing around the room. There's maybe 10 students with us.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:27:02

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:27:02

They're all on one on say to the right of us. I'm sending to his back left. And he took. Takes the camera fans over where we had just walked from. I know how thermal cameras work. You know, you after you touch something and you move your hand, it's still going to show up. I was expecting something like that. So he'd get through all the kids and I was like, right, and I'll.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:27:19

Play along 100, you know, just, you.

Joshua Bish [: 00:27:22

Know, help him out. Now in the doorway where we just walked through, it was a spiral stair staircase. There was a, a heat signature coming down. And it stopped kind of right there in front of us. And then we have the lights off. So it's dark as get out.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:27:37

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:27:37

He is the glow from his camera light so he could see it. And I hear him kind of breathe weird.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:27:44

He got freaked out.

Joshua Bish [: 00:27:45

Yeah. So I turned, pulled out my flashlight, shined it over there. Nothing. Oh, and just one of those. Yeah, you know, I don't want a poltergeist. We're leaving. Yeah. One of those wow.

Joshua Bish [: 00:28:00

Moments of that. And I've seen how those kids reacted.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:28:03

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:28:03

And then after that, the stories that they would tell, you know, just like the. What was the game they used to.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:28:09

Play back in elementary school where you telephone.

Joshua Bish [: 00:28:11

Telephone.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:28:11

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:28:12

You start with the story, tell something on the left side. By the time I got all the way to the back of the class.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:28:16

Oh, it's changed drastically. Yes, yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:28:19

And after that I would hear kids in the cafeteria, in the food area, in the eating areas, how they would come up with different stories of what happened. And I was just going, oh, I could use this.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:28:29

Yes, 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 00:28:30

Oh, this is mine now.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:28:32

I love it. That's awesome. I love, like, I just love when you get the opportunity to work in an environment where you can pick up other people's brains and conversations and because it's like you get this, I don't know the best wording for it, but you get this opportunity just by listening in. Because I'm a people watcher 100%. So like I'm listening to people like it doesn't matter. I'm being the grocery store and I'm like, oh, what are they talking about? Like I have nothing better to do with me, you know, and you get that like outside and then like you're left with your. The gears turning of wow. Wonder like, wonder if she ever figured out like if her boyfriend was cheating on her or you know, like whatever.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:29:18

But you, you make up your own stories in your mind of however that conversation panned out, like after you were no longer listening, you know.

Joshua Bish [: 00:29:25

And I think a lot of the people watching, I do that also.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:29:29

It's my favorite, especially on campus because.

Joshua Bish [: 00:29:31

Where I am a little bit older.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:29:32

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:29:32

And I have life experiences 100%. 100% of the story. But I'm sure you can do it as well. Sit down.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:29:39

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:29:40

Watching them and just seeing their body language, you know, seeing the whole their arms across all their mad.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:29:44

Oh yeah, they're protected right now.

Joshua Bish [: 00:29:46

They're wide open. They don't give a damn.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:29:48

Yes, exactly. I went back to Marshall as a much older student when my little sister went to Marshall as a freshman. And we ended up having two or three classes together. And our experiences in those specific classes that we had together were night and day like the world that she was in, experiencing as a freshman. And then me as like a 28 year old coming back in and being the old woman in the class. And you know, about 28, you're not old by any means, but you look like the old woman in the class. You know.

Joshua Bish [: 00:30:17

Try doing it at 40.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:30:18

Oh, I can't even imagine going back now. I just turned 40 and I can't imagine.

Joshua Bish [: 00:30:22

Well, I will say this, this is not on topic of these.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:30:25

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:30:25

However, it's I guess life topic.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:30:27

Absolutely. We, we love life conversations on this show.

Joshua Bish [: 00:30:30

I did the, I tried to do the typical. What you're supposed to do after graduation. You know, I tried this thing but you know, army thing kind of.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:30:36

I did the same thing. It just didn't work. It wasn't for me at the time.

Joshua Bish [: 00:30:38

It was hard. It was really.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:30:40

Yeah. It was very hard for me. Which school was not hard for me. But college was hard for me. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:30:46

Now fast forward to when I started at Concord after. Because I, I did try Bluefield State.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:30:52

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:30:53

Whenever I first got out of high school and did the army thing and stuff. I was trying but it was just hard. Life got in the way and I just couldn't 100. I just didn't give a damn.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:31:02

Same.

Joshua Bish [: 00:31:03

You know. Then fast forward to when I'm 40 and. Well, I started when I was 39.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:31:08

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:31:09

And it was just so much easier.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:31:13

Good to know.

Joshua Bish [: 00:31:14

Classes was just, I guess maybe because I understood, you know, a little bit more about life and I didn't stress as much over it as.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:31:24

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:31:24

I did back then.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:31:25

Yes. I think that was a big difference between me and my sister. She. Where she was a freshman. She was doing the whole bidding for a sorority and partying and, like, you know, living her best life. Meanwhile, I've got a kid at home, so, like, I'm paying for this out of pocket. I'm not getting grants. I'm not get.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:31:41

You know, I'm not getting any of that. So, like, I had to be stressed, because if I failed, I'm paying for this again. So it was. It was a rough. It was a rough go for me, 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 00:31:51

But overall, I think even dealing with the professors, it was just so much easier.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:31:56

I could see that.

Joshua Bish [: 00:31:57

I just. Because a couple of them. It was just like my. I took one of the history classes just for fun.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:04

Why not?

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:05

No.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:06

Oh, well, that. That's a bummer then.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:08

But the professor. Oh, I loved him.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:10

He was awesome.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:12

And Dr. Berkey is his name.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:16

Sounds really friendly.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:17

Very awesome.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:18

You can't have a name like that and not be, like, friendly as. I'll get out.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:20

Yeah, he actually. He runs the radio down at Concord.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:24

Oh, nice radio. Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:25

And he's. He's big in the Civil War stuff, which is. Which is pretty cool.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:30

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:30

Yeah. But I'll never forget, we was. I think we. About three quarters of the way through the class, and we was starting Modern History. Now, that's weird. Whenever they started the Modern History, we opened up the books, and lo and behold, there was a picture in the history book that they're using that has the first of 1 50th unit in it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:50

Oh, how cool.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:51

I was gonna say. What the.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:52

Yeah, but that is cool, though.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:54

They had a picture of the FOB we was on the Ford operating base.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:32:58

Gotcha.

Joshua Bish [: 00:32:59

That's what we called it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:33:00

Huh.

Joshua Bish [: 00:33:01

And there was a picture of a Bradley fighting Bradley and a Humvee with. I couldn't. Didn't recognize the soldier, but he had the signet. The. Right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:33:14

He had the patch.

Joshua Bish [: 00:33:14

He had the patch.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:33:15

Yeah, the.

Joshua Bish [: 00:33:16

It looks like a big band aid.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:33:18

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:33:18

It's just one of those. I was just going. I looked at him And I said, Dr. Berkey, I live this. Do I have to do anything?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:33:25

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:33:25

He says, nah, you're good.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:33:27

Yeah, you already know this. You're all right. That's so funny.

Joshua Bish [: 00:33:30

I was just like, wow. But then also, that kind of made me sit back and think I'm old.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:33:36

Well, yeah, I had. And these girls were so lovely. But I had two girls on last week from wmul, the Marshall radio station, and they went through. One was the acting manager, and one was now a I think she said she was a professor. If I. If I get that wrong, I'm sorry, girls, but I think she is now a professor, but still, like, works with WMUL and all that. But they kept saying, a long time ago in the 1900s. And I was like, what? What? I was like, what do you.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:34:05

What do you mean? Like, I stopped recording. I'm like, what do you. What are you talking about here? She's like, oh, like the 90s. Like, get the out of here. Like, both of y', all just leave. Go now. Out of here. I was like, I had to.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:34:20

Like, I was like, surely they're not meaning what they're saying, but in their. Like, that is a long time ago for them. You know, they weren't born a lot of them. So I'm like, okay, I'm. Yeah, I'm old. Like, it is what it is. But, you know, and I say this so often on the podcast, I love getting older. Life is getting better by the year.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:34:39

Like 100.

Joshua Bish [: 00:34:40

Don't you think we're aging better, too?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:34:42

Oh, yes. 100.

Joshua Bish [: 00:34:44

I don't understand it. I remember when I was growing up, I would see a guy my age, 40. He would be overly bald, haggard, just.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:34:53

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:34:54

Shape. Which granted, I'm not the best. I'm not that right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:34:58

100. It is. It's wild. It really is.

Joshua Bish [: 00:35:02

Even the women.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:35:05

Yeah. I still think it's funny because, you know, I had my son when I was 16, so for the first half of my life, I was very used to, oh, my God, you're a young mom. I can't believe you have a kid, blah, blah, blah. But now that I'm 40, I'm like, oh, my son's 23. And people are like, how? And I'm like, oh, yeah, by the way, When I was 16, I had a kid. But, you know, he's grown now, and this is where we're at. And they're like, you don't look old enough. And I was like, well, I'm really not, so.

Joshua Bish [: 00:35:37

So it makes sense because the light of the tunnel was right there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:35:40

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:35:40

I will warn you, though, I'm 40. My. At the. At this very moment, mid December. I don't know when this will actually come out.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:35:47

Hoping the beginning of January.

Joshua Bish [: 00:35:48

Yes. But mid December, I have a 22 year old. He's out in California. He's in the Air Force.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:35:53

Nice.

Joshua Bish [: 00:35:55

My daughter, she's about. She's about to be 21.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:35:58

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:35:58

My youngest, he's 18.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:36:00

My youngest is 12.

Joshua Bish [: 00:36:02

And I just got A message that the due date for the new one is in three weeks.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:36:06

Shut up. Congratulations. Well, you were until you weren't. You know, I've heard, though, like, because everyone always asks me and my husband if we're going to have another one, and I. I'm. I would not be sad if it happened, but I'm like, I'm ready to travel. I'm ready to, like, do the things that people do once their kids are raised, you know? And, like, I've been toying around with the idea, and this is kind of like my grief journey. All of our listeners kind of know about it, but I've been writing down my kind of life story, and when I go back and read it, I'm like, whoa.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:36:43

Like, I have lived a life at 40. Like, I have lived a life. So you're just adding another page to that story. I love it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:36:50

And the worst part is I have a grandson.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:36:53

They're gonna. They're gonna grow up together. That'll be nice, though.

Joshua Bish [: 00:36:57

His aunt. Because she's a girl. Yeah, girl.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:01

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:37:01

Will be younger than him.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:03

I. I grew up with kids that always, like, had that situation, and they'd be like, oh, my nephew this. And d d d. And I'm like, but he's 20 years older than you. What? How does that. You know? And it was like this big tangle, and I never understood it until I got older, and I was like, oh. I'm like, now it all makes sense. But back when you were a kid, you were like, that's stupid.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:24

You're. You're making that up.

Joshua Bish [: 00:37:27

Don't understand. But I'm like, okay, yeah, this is.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:29

Where we're at in life. This is what we're doing. I love that. Well, congratulations. That's so fun. Maybe you'll get another story out of it. Oh, a new perspective.

Joshua Bish [: 00:37:39

I've got an idea.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:40

I love it. I love it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:37:42

My wife won't like it. You know, it's going to. Needless to say, everybody's familiar how the alien works, right?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:48

All right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:37:49

What if that baby just decides to eat?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:54

I love it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:37:55

100.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:37:55

That will be awesome. That will be real. I can't wait for that one now, like, you've got me on pins and needles. Which, by the way, listeners, he brought me all of his books, so if I don't have a show for a while, I'm busy reading, so I'm excited about that. Well, let's talk about the creative process and walk us through, you know, the origins of how you got into these books. We can do them one at a time and you can lead the way.

Joshua Bish [: 00:38:17

All right. Yeah. We'll start with the first book. It's the lady in Flesh. Actually starts at the end, not the beginning. Whenever I was starting the process of writing it, I wrote the end first. That's what I like to do.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:38:31

Very interesting.

Joshua Bish [: 00:38:32

You always hear. So you're a reader. Would you say you're an avid reader?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:38:37

I used to be. Not like I would like to be anymore. I don't have the time. Like I used to. Used to be a stay at home mom and had all the time in the world.

Joshua Bish [: 00:38:45

I'll tell you, it goes in like a roller coaster. Sometimes you're avid, sometimes you're not. It's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:38:50

It's. I feel like. I feel like I've fallen off. I have a really good friend that, not to get off subject here, which is not really off subject, but she does this monthly book club club and she's like, girl, you need to join the book club. And I'm like, I can't handle one more thing a month that I've got to be at from 7 to 9pm on a Thursday. You know, I'm like, I can't do it now. I want to read. And I've been doing little bits here and there, but I've really been trying to see what it looks like writing down my story.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:39:20

So I've been doing that more than I've been reading.

Joshua Bish [: 00:39:22

So reading helps.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:39:24

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:39:24

It really does.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:39:25

I need to make myself get back in.

Joshua Bish [: 00:39:26

Not. Not as far as like, oh, that's a good idea. I want to use that. No, it's the pro. Their own process. My big thing was I like Stephen King.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:39:34

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:39:36

Who doesn't. Individually. No. I don't like the dude writing. Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:39:40

Yes. He's a creative genius.

Joshua Bish [: 00:39:41

Very. Yes. I remember watching something one time he said he likes to start in the middle of his books.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:39:48

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:39:48

And he's. That's why he can come out with them. Like almost a book a month. It seems like right crazy to me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:39:55

It really is.

Joshua Bish [: 00:39:55

But I like at the end I'm like, okay. Like just like with lady in Flesh. Okay. Didn't. The main character in it is. Her name is Winona. When it starts out, she's a Native American healer in the 1600s in southern Appalachia. By the end of it, that's what I already had written.

Joshua Bish [: 00:40:16

She is this the lady in Flesh.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:40:18

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:40:19

I will go ahead and tell you. You can see it from the COVID She's not a nice lady.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:40:22

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:40:23

She Is not right. Okay. But I wanted. But when I had the idea of her, I was like, I wanted 100 to feel real.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:40:32

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:40:33

Not mythic. Not mythic right away. So I grounded her in history. So that's where I went back to. Well, how did she get here? How did she get these ideas? Well, she came. Okay, well, here's a good idea. Because growing up where I did in Princeton, right. It was called Lily Grove where I was at.

Joshua Bish [: 00:40:48

And there's Indian barrel ground. And we used to camp there when I was a little kid.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:40:52

Like, that's cool.

Joshua Bish [: 00:40:53

And. No, it's not.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:40:54

Oh, I think it is. I think it's super cool.

Joshua Bish [: 00:40:57

It was so wrong.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:41:01

Just like me breaking into graveyards when I was in high school. Yeah, absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:41:08

So what I did, I started doing a lot of research, which, granted, you know, my family line, there's some native American stuff in there. And I remember as a kid, my aunt, she used to take us to powwows.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:41:19

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:41:19

So I got a little experience with pow wow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:41:21

Yeah, they really are. My sister in law was dating a gentleman whose family is very rooted still to this day. And like, I didn't realize that people are so active still.

Joshua Bish [: 00:41:33

Oh, yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:41:34

You know, and like, I mean, their headdresses, their. The stuff, I mean, and they do it just like, I mean, obviously they're not killing buffalo, but they still are painting the leather, burning the leather, you know, I mean, making these beautiful works of art to wear. And like, it's just, it's amazing.

Joshua Bish [: 00:41:50

And just the atmosphere.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:41:52

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:41:53

If you haven't been go, I would love to.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:41:55

I told her. I was like, I'm so jealous. I was like, I want to just be a fly on the wall.

Joshua Bish [: 00:41:59

Yeah. But like I say, you know, I grounded her in the history of a Native American healer.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:42:04

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:42:05

You know, I had, I went and did a lot of research because I wanted to keep it accurate, you know, not just the how modern world and entertainment, you know, glorifies it all, how they perceive it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:42:17

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:42:18

You know, no, that time frame. No, it was not romantic. Right. Not pretty. You know what the. These young people, whenever they wanted to become a healer, which they wanted to do this, they would literally strip them down and make them go out on their own. And they would have to go. They would fast, they would starve.

Joshua Bish [: 00:42:36

A lot of them would die just from exposure.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:42:38

Just navigating survival.

Joshua Bish [: 00:42:40

And like, luckily now we know what happened to their bodies. Right. We know what their bodies went through from the dehydration, from the exhaustion. They would hallucinate and they would come up with these. Wow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:42:50

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:42:50

I'm magical now.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:42:51

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:42:52

And that's what I went through on that trying to do this. And that's where I found actual Winona. It was. She was an actual Lenape healer in the 1600s. And then the Lenape tribe that would wander through southern West Virginia. And that's not a well known Indian group.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:43:09

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:43:10

Of the Napa. Normally when you think. You think all Cherokee.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:43:13

Right? The typical.

Joshua Bish [: 00:43:14

Yeah, the typical ones. This one was a minor sick and they were savage. It was truly savage.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:43:19

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:43:20

There was a. During the Protestant times, before Princeton was actually formed and all that good stuff. The little villages one was called New Prosperity. This is also in the book.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:43:29

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:43:30

And where I'm so excited to read this. This Prosper or the Puritan colony. And they would kidnap people.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:43:39

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:43:39

They would sacrifice them on the grounds where Concord sits today.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:43:43

Yeah. That's like. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:43:46

Sadly it is actually true. And it's in there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:43:49

Oh Yeah. I believe it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:43:51

100 doing the research of it all, I found the actual writings from the Puritan preacher. I'm not sure. I can't remember what they was actually called off top of my head. But his name was Ren W R E N. Okay. He plays a role.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:44:05

I know a wren that's so funny. Spelled exactly the same way.

Joshua Bish [: 00:44:08

Oh, it's so. It was fascinating. It's one of those things. I grew up in that area, you know, I didn't know that's. But then reading about it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:44:15

Yeah. Oh, you get so. You just dive so deep and get so wrapped up in your community's history. So I get that 100% history of.

Joshua Bish [: 00:44:26

Mercer county and Princeton alone. But it was shocking to me. I was surprised.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:44:31

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:44:32

Which a lot of people, especially down there, we knew civil wartime. Princeton burnt. Right. It got burned down and it got rebuilt. But then also we know during the Great Depression times.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:44:44

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:44:44

It was rough, but also it was the coal fields area. So it was rough. But it was.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:44:50

And Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:44:51

Yeah. But then moving on, you know, with the. That, you know, where she trapped, ends up, you know, doing all this stuff at Concord grounds. And just building on to that with that, I threw in my spin of, okay, well instead of her having these hallucinations, let's make those hallucinations real.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:45:10

Oh.

Joshua Bish [: 00:45:11

And sadly, I went into, you know, because of my past, you know, I have some. Some trauma in my life to where I've seen some stuff you shouldn't see. You know, partake in things that the terrified me. I get some pretty Vivid dreams. So I said, well, let's put one of my nightmares.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:45:30

Put them on paper.

Joshua Bish [: 00:45:31

Let's put it on paper. And that's where my other world comes into play. The shadow realm. That's what I call it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:45:37

Awesome.

Joshua Bish [: 00:45:38

And that's where the monsters come from. That's where the evil entities come from. And it's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:45:42

I love that as humans we find these ways to like navigate our trauma. And I love how you have like spun yours to like be this creative process for you.

Joshua Bish [: 00:45:54

I think. I think that's why I like horror so much. Because, you know, you have all these other genres. You got the fantasy, you got the romance, you got the freaky romance. When you sit and read that in the real world, you're trying to picture it into the real world, you can automatically say, man, that's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:46:11

Yeah, that's so dumb. Just like the not keeping my interest.

Joshua Bish [: 00:46:14

Awesome Hallmark videos, right? Where the one girl comes back to visit her grandma and the boy falls in love and. Yeah. And throws away this.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:46:22

Gets a figure million dollar farm that she didn't know that existed and all.

Joshua Bish [: 00:46:27

You know, like, okay, yeah, that's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:46:29

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:46:30

But then whenever you're looking into horror, think of the last scary movie you watched. What was it?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:46:35

Oh, I can't even think. I think my daughter and I, because I. I love scary movies as well. I'm not a big, like huge into them. But like if I sat down to watch a movie I want to watch a psychological thriller is like my thing. So we sat down and we watched. What did we watch? Oh my God, the Red Rum Shining. Why could I not think of that? But that was the last one that we.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:47:01

I think I want.

Joshua Bish [: 00:47:02

Okay, so you went into it. You knew. But it's still. Oh, some.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:47:07

Still 110 it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:47:10

I feel horror is more truthful than storytelling because it brings out your. Your emotion, your true emotion. Even if it is a psychological. Even if it is psychological. Even if it is the jump scare stuff or just.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:47:25

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:47:26

Or just the stuff that you're going. Looking at going, oh, that is just nasty. Like the terrifier.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:47:30

Yes, that's some nasty shit. See, I've never seen that and I don't know that I want to do.

Joshua Bish [: 00:47:35

It's worth it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:47:36

Is it worth it?

Joshua Bish [: 00:47:36

Okay, don't just remember the first movies was independent made.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:47:41

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:47:41

But they're still good.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:47:42

I was going to say one of my favorite horror movies when Blockbusters were shutting down, our local one was shutting down. You could go in and buy VHS and DVDs for like a dollar, 50 cents, whatever. So there was this local section. He was my boyfriend at the time, husband. Now we were like, let's just watch all these like local horror movies. So turns out it was so funny, this movie. And it's so bad. Like there's this line that we steal every, like all the time use in our day to day life.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:48:14

They're running from the killer and you know, the, the obvious thing is get in the car and drive away, never come back. But they always run back into the house. That's just how it goes. So the one of the actors and I can't think of the name of this movie. There's. It's a three part mov. Like there's three movies or VHS's that came with it. And he's like, get in the 4x4.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:48:37

We need to go. And it's so bad. But they are our favorite. Like if we're like, oh, if you haven't seen it, oh, come over. We're having a movie night. Yeah, they're the best, 100%. And it turned out like that. The kids were actually from across the river here in Chesapeake, Ohio and it was like their senior project.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:48:54

They made these, this, this movie which. But on a vhs, it was three long because they couldn't fit it all. So it's so funny. But yeah, we, we love.

Joshua Bish [: 00:49:03

That's what I'm saying. You know, you look back on the horror ones, you. Yeah, you know, it's. Yeah, you know it's fake, but also it brings out that real emotion. You know, you're sitting down, you're watching a true scary movie, you know, whether you're a psychopath and watching it alone. I do that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:49:20

Probably guilty.

Joshua Bish [: 00:49:23

But then after you do, what do you do after you finish that, that movie where you finish hearing that story, that horror story, what do you do?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:49:31

What if that really happened?

Joshua Bish [: 00:49:32

You sit and you think, well, what if? Yeah, but with these other like genres, you know. Yes, there's some good ones or some great ones. They're not my cup of tea, but you know, they're good, Steve.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:49:41

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:49:42

I don't feel you really think that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:49:44

Well, and you don't. Like, if you sit down and watch like a. For old school sake, a Steven Seagal movie, that shit's never happening. That kind of action, like that kind of. It's so you don't even. You turn it off and you're done.

Joshua Bish [: 00:49:57

Exactly.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:49:57

You're not dwelling on it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:49:58

No, no, you don't. And then you ain't got to deal With Steven Skull giving you that. I'm sorry, this is off topic again.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:50:07

No, you're fine.

Joshua Bish [: 00:50:08

My favorite Steven Skull movie was called Executive Decision.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:50:11

I never seen it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:50:12

He died two minutes in.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:50:13

Oh, well, there you go.

Joshua Bish [: 00:50:16

Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:50:16

That's hilarious.

Joshua Bish [: 00:50:17

Yes. Okay. And okay, back to the creative process.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:50:21

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:50:22

All right. So with the process, like with room 316, you know, I'd already set the tone and the lore with the lady and flesh, you know, I built the world. So I thought with 316, that's what I call. I don't go room 316. I always shorten my titles. What I'm talking about. So just my own process.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:50:42

No, you're fine. You're fine.

Joshua Bish [: 00:50:43

I wanted to see what the. That ancient wound that is open from the lady and flesh would look like in the modern world.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:50:50

O.

Joshua Bish [: 00:50:51

You know, Concord University, Sarve hall. And the real stories from room 316 gave the perfect setting. You know, I've already have the real world. There it is. Yeah, I've been there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:51:01

It exists. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:51:03

This is where the folklore becomes psychological. Anxiety, isolation, the fear of being alone in unfamiliar spaces. It's less about spectacle and more about slow dread. Out of my book so far, it's the shortest. It is novella. You know, It's. It's under 120 pages, but I think it's the one that really puts it into modern terms and. Modern.

Joshua Bish [: 00:51:31

Right. What's wrong with him?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:51:35

I love it. I love it so much. I wish I would have brought my son on today. Like, he would have been, like, right here. Like, full attention, right in it. He's going to be fighting me for these books.

Joshua Bish [: 00:51:46

I'm sure I got plenty more. And then, like, then I break it down to the third book in the series. You know, Blood of Psalm. This one was actually the hardest. It was emotionally hard for me, the lead character. I'll go and say in this book series, you know, it's not Winona. It's not some of the girls you meet. It's gonna be.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:11

It's Stephen Kent. You'll meet him in the book.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:13

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:14

And he. I gave him. That's my hardest part, is figuring out names in these books.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:19

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:20

And these stories. What kind of name should this person have? Right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:23

Well, because the name carries so much weight.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:24

Does.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:25

And it's so much weight.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:26

Carries personality, too. You know, just like if you're sitting down at a restaurant, you can look. That's a Justin. That looks like a Justin.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:34

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:34

Oh, that's A Karen.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:36

Yes, 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:38

I hate to Say it like that. But that's how. That's how we are as human.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:41

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:41

Are very observant.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:42

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:43

And we break it down by name. So my namesake in it, you know, his. His name is Stephen Kent. And anybody knows my past knows that name actually means something to me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:52:52

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:52:53

I won't go in too much detail because I'll. Because I know the people that know that name. Whenever they find out what actually becomes with Stephen, they'll go. They're really gonna get pissed.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:53:03

Right. Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:53:04

All right. But this is where everything collides. The ancient mythology, the modern consequence, and the characters who's escaped from them. It pushes me to write honestly and vulnerably, with faith, identity, sacrifice, without hiding behind the atmosphere. The atmosphere alone is big in Blood of Song. It's. It is the true catalyst. When I was initially writing it, I didn't plan on having any more after it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:53:30

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:53:30

However, how it ended. I know I gotta keep going.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:53:33

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:53:34

With that series.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:53:34

Gotcha.

Joshua Bish [: 00:53:35

You know, it's. You know, it's where the shadow realm fully reveals itself. And how it reveals itself. I use kind of modern scares, especially with schools and universities. In your own mind, what is one of the scariest things that happens at a school nowadays? Okay, well, what if instead of shooting, what if it was this tear or this other realm where these monsters that like to eat and kill people?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:02

I like it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:03

And because, you know, we're West Virginia. Fun fact. West Virginia has school shooting back in 94. Do you remember where that was?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:09

I do not.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:09

That was Princeton.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:10

Oh, okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:11

People don't know that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:12

I knew that there was one, but I didn't know where.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:14

My backyard.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:15

Oh, wow.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:16

But that was. This is before it was mainstream news.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:18

Right, and all that. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:20

You know, but, you know, and I was. I did the research on it because I was still in school when this happened. I was in junior high when this. That happened. So I remember what we did. We didn't give a. Because we was, you know, we didn't know any better.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:33

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:34

And I was thinking, well, what would the response be? Well, me being in law enforcement, I know what our response would be. Here in West Virginia, we law enforcement here, we are very tight knit. We don't care what agency you're with, what county. We may even have problems with each other. But if one of us asks for help.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:52

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:53

Oh, my gosh. It's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:54:54

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:54:56

Prime good example was 2018, 1919, Bluefield, Virginia. It's the sister city to Bluefield West.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:05

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:06

They had a police officer that Got shot.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:07

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:08

And it happened right on the state border. And they put out that call that no officer wants to hear. I was a deputy at the time. I was all the way on the other side of Mercer County. Merce county is big.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:18

It is.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:19

It is really big. It's one of those. You don't realize how big it is until you try to drive it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:23

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:24

And by the time I got over to Bluefield, we had officers from Beckley, Kanawha, Huntington. I saw cruisers from all over the place.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:37

Oh, I believe it.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:38

Look for this guy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:39

Family. Yeah. You guys come together.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:41

It was. It made me feel good. One of the community in Bluefield and Bluefield, pretty rough area, but their community.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:49

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:49

And they said this happened to one of our guys, and it was crazy. We had people, local citizens, going door to door with us trying to find this guy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:56

Oh, wow.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:57

It was one of those.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:55:58

I said, my, how times have changed.

Joshua Bish [: 00:55:59

Yes. What is this? Ain't no. Y' all hate me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:56:03

Yeah, exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 00:56:04

Okay, cool. High five. Yeah, that was that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:56:07

Love this. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:56:08

Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:56:09

But.

Joshua Bish [: 00:56:10

Yeah. So that's what I thought about. Well, what would happen, you know, this thing burst through. I was like, it's gonna be chaos.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:56:16

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:56:17

And it's brutal chaos. And I don't hold back.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:56:23

I know what I'm doing on Christmas break now. I'm, like, diving into these books. I'm so excited.

Joshua Bish [: 00:56:27

And I expect a text from you. Either saying, yes is wrong with you. How could you. You remember the book? The movie Misery or the book where the.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:56:37

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 00:56:38

Where, you know, if you want to break ankles, it's fine. And now my last book that I've got out so far, you know, echoes in the Stone, it's kind of. It's a. It's a pull away from my series, so I wanted to change up a little bit.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:56:52

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 00:56:53

You know, this one was. I'm using again, actual West Virginia history and characters. Like. Are you familiar with who Dr. Walter Freeman is?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:57:04

I am not.

Joshua Bish [: 00:57:05

Okay.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:57:05

You know.

Joshua Bish [: 00:57:05

You familiar with the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:57:08

I am. Yes. Okay. So I'm. I was just forgetting the name of the gentleman, but yes. Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:57:14

Okay. I wanted. He is, basically, he is the lobotomist. Back in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, this man was on top of the world. He was a scientific breakthrough that figured out the lobotomy, where they would stick the ice pick in your tear duct and decide to hit it with a hammer and either make you pleasant or dead or just completely mess you up.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:57:36

Yep. One way or the other, you probably weren't leaving this island.

Joshua Bish [: 00:57:39

No, no. Okay. You know, I want to explore that idea and the idea of this building, you know, with him, you know, it's not just haunted. There's a reason it's haunted and why. Maybe something's still there. Hunting.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:57:54

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:57:54

You know, so I built on a West Virginia folklore, one of our cryptids.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:57:59

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:00

Okay. Do you know what our cryptids are?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:02

I know a few of them.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:03

Okay. Don't count. Mothman. He don't count.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:05

He doesn't count.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:06

This is outside.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:06

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:07

This is central West Virginia. Okay. You got. There's plenty. I was shocked as how many there I was say.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:13

I didn't know that there was like quite a few. I just thought there was just a couple.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:16

I looked at it, I said, holy. What?

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:18

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:19

Okay, this one. Now, without spoiling too much, I'm not going to name the creature, but if somebody does their own little research, they constantly. They have to constantly eat. They never get full and they never die.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:31

Oh, okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:32

I will say there's been a couple movies with these creatures in it, but it's not your typical types.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:38

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 00:58:40

And I got Bill into it. You know, what if Freeman was actually one of these creatures? Oh, yeah, the real Freeman. He died in 1992. I incorporate that in the book. But one of the characters point out that his body died. More to than just the body.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:58:58

I. I feel like people think I'm crazy when I talk about this stuff. And not to get off subject, but I've talked about it on the podcast before. I lived in the Frederick building here in downtown Huntington. My in laws own it and the history that that place has. You can't live there and not start to question what you do and don't believe anymore.

Joshua Bish [: 00:59:23

Exactly. That's another thing I like about the. The horror stuff. Whether you believe in ghosts, afterlife or.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:59:30

Not, even if you don't, makes those.

Joshua Bish [: 00:59:33

Gears turn sick going, stop, yes, stop. I'm going to go drinking.

Vanessa Hankins [: 00:59:38

I mean, there are experiences that I had living in the Frederick that you. You had to be there to believe it. And then it almost makes you question. And I never did drugs, but like, did I? And I don't remember it because how the hell did that happen? Like, how is real life? You know, it's wild.

Joshua Bish [: 01:00:01

It's. It's fascinating to me. That's why I really enjoy it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:00:04

Yes, I do too. And I. I always have, but no one else in my family ever did. So like literally it took until, like living on my own, which was quite early. Being a teen mom. Before I got, like, really into it, because living in a house with five other children, you didn't have the free reign to watch the tv. And, you know, we didn't have Internet like we do now. I mean, we had, like, AOL dial up, but it wasn't like what we have now.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:00:28

We didn't have Reddit, we didn't have subs. We didn't have, like, all these places that your mind can get lost in like we do now. But I. It. My curiosity was piqued very early on to the point to where, like I said, we were breaking into. And it wasn't, like a Halloween thing. We weren't, like, trying to break in and do, like, seances. But, like, I became, like, obsessed with hearing these stories about different monuments and the family curses and all these things that came along with these people.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:00:58

And I'm like, I have to go there. Like, I have to see the final resting place. Like, I don't know what it is about that, but, like, it's like, I have to be there. Like, I have to experience that. And you don't want to do it in the middle of the day because you don't want to offend families and. And making you get. Yeah, you got to go in the middle of the night when the gates are locked and it's, you know, the sun is down.

Joshua Bish [: 01:01:19

Nighttime, you think, well, I'm not supposed to be here.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:01:21

Yes. It makes it better. 100%. 100%. All right. When you are blending your folklore and your cosmic mythology, what does the writing process look like for you?

Joshua Bish [: 01:01:36

It's still evolving.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:01:38

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:01:39

It's always starting at the end. That's set in stone for me right now. That's what I like to do.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:01:46

That's what works for you?

Joshua Bish [: 01:01:47

Yeah, that's what works. You know, I don't write linearly. I chase the emotional core, then I build backward and outward to it as I do these forms. I take notes constantly as I'm doing it. Like, I'm like, well, I was working on. It goes in the stone. I would be sitting there at my desk typing.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:02:09

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:02:09

Next thing I know, I'm thinking, oh, what if this character that's in this whole other series does this? And then I go to see. I got. I got smart. I have one screen, and I have another screen.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:02:22

I have two. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:02:24

This screen I'm actively working on. Because I don't know if you're like me or not, because growing up in the early 90s or late 80s, my handwriting is atrocious. I Can't. I can't even.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:02:33

Mine has gotten better. As a professional, because it needed to be better. But before that, it. Yes. Doctor's handwriting is what I call it.

Joshua Bish [: 01:02:41

I've tried to handwrite my notes to it. So I'll just rather type it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:02:45

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:02:46

I'll spin over and type that idea. Then I'll come back over and get back to what I'm doing. Right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:02:50

Yeah. Because you'll lose it if you don't. Like, I'm adhd as I'll get out and I have to write everything down or type it out or I put notes in my phone. Notes in my phone is like. It's a crazy place. Whenever I die, when people get in there, they're going to be like, what the fuck?

Joshua Bish [: 01:03:05

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:03:06

I've got.

Joshua Bish [: 01:03:07

Yes. That's one thing I do love about our modern technology.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:03:09

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:03:10

The notes in my phone. Just like yours. Bad part is I got a Christmas list in there for people many years ago.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:03:17

Yeah. Yeah. I need to delete some as well. Yeah, I'm right there with you.

Joshua Bish [: 01:03:20

Yeah. But, you know, back to this, you know, my process with blending the folklore and with the everything. It comes from that belief system and tradition. You know, cosmic elements come in when history and psychological. Can't explain it. You know, as a society and as a people right now. Yeah, we think we're pretty smart. You know, we have a bunch of this stuff.

Joshua Bish [: 01:03:42

However, go back 200 years. Those people thought they was very smart, too.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:03:46

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:03:46

You know that we have things now that explain things that they didn't know. Who's to say in 200 years, people's gonna have stuff that makes us look like.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:03:53

Absolutely. I think about that all the time. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:03:56

I'm grateful. I'm happy for that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:03:57

Yes. Without growth, like, where would the world be?

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:00

Exactly.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:04:02

So which book pushed you the most as a writer? Do you feel like Love Song? You said it like, no hesitation.

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:10

It's. It's without question. You know, it demanded restraint. I'll go ahead and say I'm. It was the. It's the first book that I ever wrote where I guess something catastrophic really happens.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:04:23

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:24

And it's. I pulled from reality what really happens. And there's some. There's some scenes in there I really don't want to say too loudly.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:04:33

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:33

Because it's. It'll. It will spoil it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:04:35

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:36

But also it'll take away, I feel, unless whenever you're reading, you have your own picture of what this looks like. Right. Why? I think movies that are Made out of books. Yeah, they're good and stuff, but they also.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:04:48

They never compare to the book. They never do, do you know?

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:51

Even the good ones.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:04:53

I agree.

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:53

That was a great movie. It still didn't stand up.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:04:55

Yeah. Still wasn't. Yeah, 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 01:04:58

So when somebody, when somebody reads it and they get to it and if they listen to this and they read that and they see it, they'll picture. You can pick it out 100% of like, oh, that was hard.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:05:10

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:05:11

How did he do that?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:05:12

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:05:13

A lot of whiskey. And then looking at my wife, Kiara, she was. Granted, she's a little bit younger than me. A lot of bit younger.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:05:23

Lucky you.

Joshua Bish [: 01:05:23

Yeah. So I'd have her read it. I was like, hey, is this okay? You sure you want your kids to read that? If that gives you a hint.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:05:33

Yeah. Exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 01:05:34

Family Guy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:05:35

Yeah. That's so funny. I think though, like, with that creative process that you, you. There's something in you that comes out that you. You hesitate to share, but at the same time you're so proud to share.

Joshua Bish [: 01:05:52

Yes. Basically, how it goes with it is I believe myself to be a gentleman. I'll open the door for my wife. I'll let her go through first. If another random woman decides to. That she's fallen too closely behind us. And I'll hold it for her too. Yes, ma', am.

Joshua Bish [: 01:06:09

No ma'. Am. That type of thing. And with third book, that's where it kind of made me uncomfortable.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:06:16

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:06:16

But also I felt like that was growth.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:06:18

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:06:19

In my part, with the writing, with telling those stories, to be able to.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:06:23

It's so hard to remove yourself like your actual true selves. I could see that because I'm.

Joshua Bish [: 01:06:28

I still feel as the older generations do because that's how I was raised. You don't meet with another woman by herself.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:06:39

Right. 100.

Joshua Bish [: 01:06:42

You don't talk about certain subjects with a woman. You don't. Or with children.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:06:50

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:06:50

You know, you don't let your kids see you talk about this and. Which unluckily for my kids, you know, they grew up in the lifestyle of being children's. Of a cop.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:07:03

Right. So they, they know things whether or not they've seen you wanted them to.

Joshua Bish [: 01:07:07

Yeah. And that's just part of the life, which I'm kind of grateful for because they get to see how the real world is, but also they. I don't. They just shouldn't see that stuff. Right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:07:17

I get it. I am. I kind of pride myself on. Because I grew up with a lot of trauma. You had you'd shared that, you, you know, gone through a lot of trauma. I. My grandmother raised me, and recently I lost my mom. And we had a very.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:07:33

I don't even know the words for it, honestly, but we had a very strained relationship as adults, because as you get older, as an adult, you start questioning things from an adult point of view rather than a child's. So we had a very difficult relationship. So that's been really hard, losing her. But that trauma. And my husband grew up, not to say that he didn't have things that he feels like are trauma, but nothing compared to the life that I lived as a child. And I'll go out of my way to make sure that my children have no clue what that side of life was like for me and things like that. And he's like, I mean, it's a part of who you are. And I'm like, but they don't have to experience that, so why should they? 100.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:08:16

Like, I. And I'll. I'll stand. I'll die on that mountain. 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 01:08:20

It goes back to this, the nice old saying, you know, you want. Want for your kids, which you didn't have at one.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:08:26

Yes, absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 01:08:27

As a parent, I think that is the. That should be the main goal, you know. Yes. You want to teach them how to do this, how to do that, but also you want to show them better than you did.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:08:39

Yeah, I want. Like, I. Like when I lost my mom, I remember this very vivid moment of just being in the room and, you know, everybody's sorry and, oh, my gosh, she was wonderful, and she was all these things. And this was just a couple years ago. So, you know, I was approaching 40, and I just remember my anxiety. Like I had. I had a panic attack is what happened. I mean, I didn't know in the moment what was happening, but, like, I just knew I needed to get outside where I could breathe.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:09:08

And I got out to the parking lot and I just screamed at the top of my lungs and just like, just let out this breath. And I was just like, okay. Both can be true. She can be this amazing human to all of these people, but she can also be the person that I felt. And I don't feel that way anymore after a couple years of therapy and stuff like that. But she can also be this woman who turned her back on me and wasn't there for me for, like, the things that moms need to be there for their daughter for, you know, and things like that. Because my grandmother was so old school that she was backwards in the way that she taught me because she was going by the way she was raised. So I'm jumping a generation of how I was raised completely.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:09:53

And, you know, it's. It's enlightening as a parent to be able to have the option to guard them in the way that we are able to. I. I love that.

Joshua Bish [: 01:10:05

Then this is going to sound kind of fourth wall breaking type thing. But you also got to look at what if shielding them from these type of traumas.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:10:17

I battle with that a lot.

Joshua Bish [: 01:10:19

Doesn't actually help them grow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:10:20

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:10:21

More curious of those bad.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:10:22

I think that's the reason I started writing again. Like, because I wrote a lot when I was in school and I was never like. I won little contests here and there, but I was never. I didn't look at myself as a writer and I by no means looked at myself that way. Exactly. So, like, I started writing and I told my therapist, she was like, would you like to read it to me? And I said, I don't think I want to read it to anybody. I just want that history to be there so that maybe one day when my kids are like, I wonder why mom did that, they're gonna have the answers. Because I have it written down.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:10:54

Because I don't have those answers. I can't ask my mom anymore. I can't ask my grandma because she's gone too. You know, and it's weird getting older and losing people. And I think that's the beautiful thing about writing. And I'm so glad that you do take pieces of real history and put in your books. Because if that stuff's not written down, we lose it.

Joshua Bish [: 01:11:17

Prime example. Let's go back to history again.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:11:19

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:11:19

Let's look at the Vikings. You know, their culture and mindset. Looking at it from now's purpose. Always cool. Especially the show Vikings.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:11:27

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:11:28

Gosh, I'm sorry. That's the awesome.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:11:30

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:11:30

Great. But we don't really know.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:11:33

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:11:34

But because it was word of mouth. Just like with Native Americans, we know what's on going told.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:11:39

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:11:39

And just like the game we played in elementary school.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:11:44

Just like television changed. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:11:47

Or how much does it. Because of the society we're in now gets covered up. Because they don't hurt somebody's feelings.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:11:52

Right. And you know, not to get too controversial, but I feel. And I don't know where you stand. So I'm not trying to be controversial with you either. But I feel that way when we have people battling in the world about what's right. What's wrong? And they want to throw the Bible up. Well, my thing is about religion. If all of these things are true, if God exists and all that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:12:20

And again, I'm not saying I believe one way or the other. How are we to know that the people who sat down and wrote those books even had firsthand knowledge of the things that they were speaking on? Because they could be like Joe Blow from down the road. That was like, oh, I'm going to put this on paper. And who cares what everyone else's opinions are or what really happened? But here's my narration of what happened, you know, so it's.

Joshua Bish [: 01:12:43

It's a. We're at that time of stage, I feel now, where we ask those questions.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:12:47

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:12:48

And those questions need to be asked. Can they be answered? No. No, that will have answered. No, but it's still good to ask.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:12:55

That's. I tell my sister that all the time because she was. She was going back and forth. And again, we're kind of getting off subject. But as she was going back to and forth with religion, like, and major differences, she was going from Islam to Baptist because we were raised Southern Baptist. And I'm like, what a. What a leap. You know, what, What a huge leap.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:13:13

And, you know, she. She read the Quran front to back, I think she said twice. And she still, to this day, like, she believes that it's a very beautiful piece of work. She loves the Quran, but she's coming back to her Southern Baptist roots after experiencing that life and realizing what we already knew when she went down that road. But it's like I told her, if all these things are true. And again, not saying one way or the other that I feel. And I kept it that way because I wasn't trying to push my beliefs on her. Why can't we just be good people? And that's enough.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:13:51

And that's what I teach my children. We're going to be good people.

Joshua Bish [: 01:13:54

Oh, yeah. That's the main thing. It's like I was raised Baptist. Like, you not telling myself. When I was in the army, when I was in boot camp, during Sunday, they let you go to whichever church service you decide to go to. So during. When I was in boot camp, I was Baptist Catholic.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:11

Well, it's intriguing. Religion is very intriguing.

Joshua Bish [: 01:14:14

It is. You know, but at that time, you know, I was. I was raised Baptist. My grandfather, he was a. He actually built a church in Lily Grove.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:22

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:14:22

And he actually went on the radio singing songs and all kinds of super cool.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:26

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:14:28

So. But while I was in Boot camp. I befriended a guy named Benitez. He was from Puerto Rico.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:34

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:14:35

Awesome, dude. Yeah. So anybody that's ever been to boot camp, you ever talk to during. Especially that time period in boot camp, it was kind of like jail. It was.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:44

It was rough.

Joshua Bish [: 01:14:45

It was rough. They didn't hit. Yeah. Okay.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:47

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:14:49

We got to the point where there's a lot of more downtime than people talk about.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:53

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:14:55

And we wanted to play chess, so we made a chess set. Oh, cool.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:14:59

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:15:00

And sitting and talking and stuff. So that's. That's the thing. But he was Puerto Rico big time Catholic.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:15:06

Huh.

Joshua Bish [: 01:15:06

And I started going. So I transitioned to Catholicism to the whole nine yards.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:15:12

Oh, yeah. That's a. That's a whole. That was a three of his own. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:15:16

You know, so that's. That's what was on my dog tags. That was what I was. And remember, I came back home and my grandmother, she was big time, big time. Grew up in the 60s and 70s. So, you know, that's right. Very culture of being a Baptist. I remember told her, she's.

Joshua Bish [: 01:15:36

Well, I'm just happy you found you're in something. I said, okay, cool. And fast forward. I think this is about 2012 or 13. My daughter Amaya, she's just starting her teenage thing and she's starting to question that whole religion.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:15:48

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:15:48

That stuff. And this is one of those things that really made me think, and I think it kind of also helped with my writing was she says, she said, dad is there? I was just sitting there going, it's like, well, Maya, I believe there is. Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:16:02

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:16:02

Am I going to tell you what to believe?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:16:04

Exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 01:16:05

And she's like, and this is when, if you remember, this is when the first Marvel movies really started getting big. She's like, dad, you've got a bunch of these magazines and books and stuff that's got Spider man in it. And I said, yeah, who's to say 2000 years from now somebody finds that and don't think that we're worshiping him. Oh. And I just. And she was, I think, 10, 11 years ago.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:16:27

How profound. From a child.

Joshua Bish [: 01:16:28

My recliner. And I said, you're. Stop it, Maya. I don't know.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:16:39

Yeah. Like I don't have the answer for you.

Joshua Bish [: 01:16:43

But I said, but as a parent, I was happy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:16:46

I was proud because she's questioning absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 01:16:48

Wanting to get answers. And at the same time, it made me think.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:16:55

Right. I love when I worked with youth a lot when I was working in Prevention. And I. There's nothing I love More than kids questioning authority, religion, like anything that they could question. Let's talk about it and how she.

Joshua Bish [: 01:17:15

Did it, especially at a young age, which shocked me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:17:18

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:17:18

Not a bad shock, but one of those of. She's got a head on her shoulder.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:17:22

Yeah. Job well done, dad. Absolutely. You're welcome. I love that. I love that so much. Let's talk a little bit about how you blend, you know, the history, the trauma, the myth make. The myth making.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:17:39

What does that intersection look like in West Virginia for you?

Joshua Bish [: 01:17:43

West Virginia history and trauma are tightly woven. Yeah, very tightly woven. But there is really. But it's really spoken about directly. You know, a lot of people here live through institutions, institutional abuse, dangerous labor, especially back in early days. Loss, neglect, you know, it didn't come with language or closure. So instead of being documented, it was absorbed by myth and became carried through the voice of folklore, of tales. You know, you see it in places people avoid.

Joshua Bish [: 01:18:18

You know, it's stories that gets passed down and warnings instead of explanations. Myth isn't fantasy. It's how trauma survives when history isn't written down or acknowledged. I like that the intersection is where stories live. And, you know, going back on that, but you know, with our area, with the, you know, institutional abuse, the battle of Blur Mountain.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:18:45

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:18:46

You know, when the state police got founded, you know, dangerous laborers. Look at McDowell County.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:18:52

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:18:52

Nothing bad about anybody. McDowell, y' all are some awesome people.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:18:55

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 01:18:57

But you already know, somebody says, I'm from the county, that's all you gotta say.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:19:02

Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 01:19:03

You know, one, they're tough as nails. They're. And. But they're also very family oriented.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:19:09

Very. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:19:10

Which is awesome. You know, then the neglect. Have you been to odd?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:19:15

I have not.

Joshua Bish [: 01:19:15

Have you heard of odd?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:19:16

I have. And it's a random, Random way that I have. But our modern technology will speak for it because a friend of mine had posted a Snapchat and you know how it puts, like, where you're at. And I was like, where the hell is that? I've never heard of that.

Joshua Bish [: 01:19:33

Okay, well, that's in Raleigh county and the Mercer county border. So need to say occasionally working Mercer county, we'd end up in ODD also, though, right?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:19:42

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:19:42

But it's one of those places you got to get lost to get there. And it's. I mean, but it's pretty barren and it's rough. It's. You can see neglect, you can see the loss, but also you can see the true. The grad sitting on a porch, a dirt porch, wearing a white tank top, wife Beater shirt, shirt, cut off jeans, literally cut off jeans.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:20:10

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:20:11

With his beer gut hanging out with his finger in his belly button. Yeah, I've seen that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:20:15

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:20:15

And it's just you looking, going, well, he's content.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:20:18

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:20:18

And then sitting next to him is a cute little four or five year old little girl, dirty as I'll get out, living her best life, having the best time. But I guarantee you that little four year old knows how to do crops and how to take care of herself.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:20:33

Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 01:20:33

And it's just, yeah, you got that loss, you got that neglect, but also you got that grit.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:20:38

Yeah. We always said in the prevention world that West Virginia specifically, you know, we're 100 years behind in most of the areas of our state, easily like 98% of our state where we're still very behind. And you are, you can still step into communities just like odd, just like you said. And you will see that this is still a way of life for many people in our state.

Joshua Bish [: 01:21:01

Yeah, exactly.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:21:01

You know, or all of Appalachia for that matter.

Joshua Bish [: 01:21:03

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you got, you know, just like the. Sadly, the people in Ohio, they don't understand how the highway works. They don't know how to get out of the left lane.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:21:11

Yes. The left lane loafers is what I call them.

Joshua Bish [: 01:21:14

Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:21:16

That's my nice way of yelling obscenities on the interstate or highway when I'm in Ohio. You left lane Loavers.

Joshua Bish [: 01:21:24

Well, fun fact, Virginians, where we're from, they're like that.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:21:27

Oh, really?

Joshua Bish [: 01:21:28

Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:21:29

Oh, yeah. Don't drive there a lot, but good to know. I love that. Why do you think that Appalachian Horror feels different from other types of horror?

Joshua Bish [: 01:21:41

Appalachian horror is personal. You know, it's slow, just like how we talk. I understand. I have a twang.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:21:48

Oh, it took me a long. So I'm originally from Georgia and when I got here to go to school in third grade, I would spell and write the way that I spoke. So it was talk and, you know, like I had to go through speech there two, two and a half years of speech therapy for people to understand me. So I've worked really hard to sound like the nutcase that I do today.

Joshua Bish [: 01:22:14

Exactly. But you know, the tales, they're slow. Just like how, you know, how pronunciation, how we do things. It's rooted in place. It doesn't come from monsters jumping out, comes from memory, silence and things that are never resolved.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:22:28

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:22:29

You know, a lot of horror stories tries to scare you. Appalachian horror tries to stay with you. You know, it Asks you to sit with discomfort instead of running from it. The fear isn't external, it's inherited. Because we all have those stories of how grandpa and grandma used to do things. My granny, that's what I called her, is Granny and poppy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:22:48

My grandma was granny as well.

Joshua Bish [: 01:22:50

Granny lived to 110.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:22:52

Oh, wow.

Joshua Bish [: 01:22:53

She was a trooper.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:22:55

That's amazing.

Joshua Bish [: 01:22:55

Yes. And Poppy, he lived to 100.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:22:58

It's phenomenal. You got good genes, probably. You're gonna live a long life.

Joshua Bish [: 01:23:02

I don't feel like I don't want to do that. But it's. It's weird because you know how, you know they live rough.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:23:10

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:23:11

They came into our area. Were they actually frontiered there? They came in on covered wagon, built the houses and community in the grove. You know, Granny, she dipped, she drank, she smoked, she cussed. And Poppy was the same way. The only difference was he had a cane. And at the end there, he ended up having a walker. But still. Yet it was that community mindset.

Joshua Bish [: 01:23:36

Poppy and granny found out you did bad. They're gonna whoop your ass.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:23:38

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:23:39

And they did.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:23:40

Oh, yes. I remember picking out my own switch. People like, it's so funny. And I think that's something that I. I can't relate to a lot of people my age because they weren't raised by their grandparents so. Well, I say grandparents. My grandfather died before I never got to meet him. But they never picked out their own switches.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:23:58

That's what's wrong with people these days.

Joshua Bish [: 01:24:02

Gonna be even better.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:24:04

No. Yeah. I learned that lesson the first time. I never made it again.

Joshua Bish [: 01:24:07

Yeah. Those little whipping willow trees. I will burn one down today.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:24:10

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. 100%. That's so funny. I love talking about Appalachia. I really do. I love it so much. You mentioned having real experiences around the tri state.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:24:21

Can we hear one?

Joshua Bish [: 01:24:22

You can. All right. Have you go back in time a little bit. I'm still a deputy sheriff at Mercer county.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:24:27

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:24:27

I'm working midnight shift with my partner at the time was deputy Ellison. His name's Jeff. He's awesome. He was actually before deputy, he was a game warden or. Oh, cool. Up here.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:24:40

I always thought that would be a really cool job.

Joshua Bish [: 01:24:41

Yeah, I don't know.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:24:43

I feel like it would. I like nature, but I want to.

Joshua Bish [: 01:24:45

Be paid to be in there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:24:46

I guess that's true. I'd take the fun away from it. I could see that.

Joshua Bish [: 01:24:49

Anyway, he is a great guy and he's very stand up and, you know. But we got a call one night we go answer the call. It's middle of winter. We get done with the call, we end up going back to the courthouse in Princeton. Now, in the courthouse in Princeton, it's on. In the center of town. And it's a turn. It's a turnabout.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:25:09

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:25:09

You know, it's one way around it, and that's it. Okay. So after getting the call and coming back, we noticed the courthouse there on the top. There used to be a jail way back in the.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:25:23

A lot of counties.

Joshua Bish [: 01:25:24

A lot of counties. It was a county jail before the regional jail system got created. Well, now they use it for county storage. Pretty much the collect me all for whatever you need at the courthouse.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:25:33

Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 01:25:34

And there's only two accesses to this. There's an elevator and a stairwell. Both of those are only accessible through the sheriff's department, which is in the basement of the courthouse. Okay, well, we get going, and as we're coming back up to the courthouse, we notice the light at the very top of those steps. You can see it from coming up the hill. We're going, well, maybe. Well, somebody forgot to turn off that light. And those steps, it's about eight total flights.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:00

And they're the old steps, so they suck.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:02

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:03

And they're real bad, you know, and it's dusty, it's metal. It's just.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:06

Ah, yeah. Not a fun time.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:09

We'll just leave it. We ain't gonna worry about it. So as we pull in to park, to get out, to go back in the office field, fill out some paperwork, we stand out on the sidewalk. We call it the front porch.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:19

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:19

And we just start talking because it's better to sit out there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:21

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:22

Musty old jail.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:23

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:23

And as we're talking, we notice the light turns off. And we both look up, watching it. Then it turns back on, like, within five minutes. And we kind of both look at each other. Now when we both look like, damn.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:36

It, we've got to figure out what this is.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:38

Somebody's up there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:39

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:39

And then, lo and behold, right in front of the window, we see a figure walk across the light. Me and him both.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:47

Yeah, we thought we were done tonight.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:49

Yeah, basically done. It was kind of a slow night, which you're not supposed to say, right?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:26:54

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:26:54

It is what it is, so. Well, we better go up there. So we start. We. We go full cop mode.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:00

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:00

Go up steps. Who in the hell's in our house?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:02

Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:03

We get up, and as we're going up, the light turns off again. And those stairs are dark.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:09

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:09

Creepy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:09

I could only imagine.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:10

So we. So we get up to the top, finally turn the light switch back on. And it's not a loose switch. It's the old.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:18

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:18

You hear.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:18

You hear the click. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:20

And we go through that whole place. Not a soul, not a thing. Not even. And there's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:24

There's one of those things where you. You have to be there. You wouldn't believe it.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:28

Yes. So we both get done. We're starting to walk back down. We're making jokes like. Well, it's, you know, it's just everybody. Every courthouse has a ghost store, you know.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:36

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:37

Marshall county was the last hanging county in West Virginia.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:40

Oh.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:40

So there's some fun knowledge.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:41

I think Huntington was the first.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:43

Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:27:43

Yes. Okay. I was like, maybe I'm making that up, but I'm pretty sure.

Joshua Bish [: 01:27:47

But you know, and as we're going back down, though, granted, it's kind of. It's winter time, it's cold outside, we have our jackets on. We just ran up eight flights of steps, burning up. We're wearing our duty gear. And now this is one of those key things about find you a friend that's police officer and asked to put on his good duty gear when he's not working. You will appreciate how his back feels.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:28:07

Yes. As heavy as can be. Just like a firefighter. It's a lot of gear.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:11

It is. And it adds up. Especially running up a flight of steps. So we're sweating, we're hot. Then all of a sudden, it gets to where you see your breath coming down the steps mean him both. And Jeff's in front of me. He stops. I stopped and I pocket got cold.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:25

Hurry up, let's get down.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:28:27

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:27

And he looked up. And when he looked back. When somebody's looking at you, you can tell. They're not looking at me. They're looking behind me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:28:32

They're looking past me. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:34

So I turn around and we look up. And looking over the damn rail was a face. We just got chill bumps.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:28:41

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:42

So we do. We didn't do the rational human thing. We did the scary movie thing. What happens to the cops in the scary movies?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:28:49

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:49

We don't make it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:28:50

Exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:51

We go back running up. Like what is was hiding on us, huh. We got not a soul. Even where he looked over, there's about an inch of dust.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:28:58

Oh, no.

Joshua Bish [: 01:28:59

I didn't even touch. So we left. We went. We end up going back down. Got in the cruiser and we didn't go back to the courthouse that night to the chief deputy at the time Daryl Bailey, he's passed now, but he was one of the old awesome. Just.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:29:11

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:29:12

One of those people. You could talk and be like, yes, sir, absolutely.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:29:16

Those are the best.

Joshua Bish [: 01:29:17

We tell him the story about what happened. He laughed and he looked at it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:29:21

Happened to me before.

Joshua Bish [: 01:29:21

He's like, oh, that's just Bob.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:29:24

That's my skelly's name too. That's Bob over there.

Joshua Bish [: 01:29:27

And he just walked away. He looked and said, yeah, that's Bob. And we're just going, big deal. Can we get an explanation?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:29:32

You're right. Exactly. What's the story? Tell me more.

Joshua Bish [: 01:29:35

Anytime we I try to break it up to him, he's like, yeah, it's just Bob. Don't worry about it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:29:39

Oh, that's crazy. I need more details on Bob. Why is he here harassing us?

Joshua Bish [: 01:29:46

Was we just that exhausted? But we both seen it, we both experienced it and. But then again, some of the things Jeff says he sees is he's one of those. He believes in Bigfoot.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:29:55

Oh yeah. This one of those. Poor guy. Yeah, maybe if you spend that much time in the woods though.

Joshua Bish [: 01:30:04

He's from Richlands. He says he's seen Bigfoot.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:30:08

That's hilarious. That's so funny. And we are not trying to offend you Bigfoot people. We really aren't, I promise.

Joshua Bish [: 01:30:14

No, we all like monster hunters.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:30:17

So what is the wildest DM or direct message for those of you that may not know what that is about? Sliding into the DMS that a reader has ever sent you.

Joshua Bish [: 01:30:28

Other than the. The crazy religious group, there was a one that was more meaningful and more kind of humbling. Made me kind of. Oh, wow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:30:41

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:30:41

Was it was a reader, he said this wild. Okay, then what was his. I can't remember. I think his first name was Eric. Eric Anderson.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:30:53

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:30:54

He sent me a two page message.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:30:55

Oh, wow.

Joshua Bish [: 01:30:56

Just out of the blue, it showed up in my, you know how the in Instagram account, how it sends, you know, people you don't know into the maybe spam folder.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:05

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:31:05

And I'm sure you know as well as I do with, especially with being creative and social, we get all kinds of those.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:12

Oh, all walks of life.

Joshua Bish [: 01:31:13

Yeah. That's like, hey, let me help you with this.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:15

Yeah, exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 01:31:18

But he sent me a two page message after reading the lady in Flesh. The message was that he really enjoyed it, it really spoke to him and he really enjoyed the whole independent author aspect of it. And it was that sparked something in him to create a YouTube channel.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:34

Oh, cool.

Joshua Bish [: 01:31:35

And it's and he did. And he sent me the. Afterwards, he's like, I'm gonna do a video of me reviewing. He became A. A YouTube book reviewer, I guess.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:45

You okay? Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:31:46

And it's called the. The Veiled Archive.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:48

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:31:49

And it's still small. It's still growing.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:50

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:31:51

You know, but you can. You sit and watch him doing it. You can see the passion in his heart and in his face while he's reading these.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:31:57

I can only imagine, like, how. How this made you feel, because I think that's awesome.

Joshua Bish [: 01:32:01

And so his message was, you know, this inspired me to do it this way with this platform, and he asked me permission.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:32:09

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:32:10

And I was just. It humbled me a little bit.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:32:13

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 01:32:14

I said, you know, this was maybe three months after my book, my first book.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:32:19

That's so cool. The timing makes it even better.

Joshua Bish [: 01:32:22

It does. It was one. Because I was at that point of, like, you know, because as an independent, you got to do everything.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:32:26

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:32:27

You got to say, hey, like this, please. You know, hey.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:32:30

And if you're begging people. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:32:31

Leave me a review. Go ahead, people. I'll go ahead and tell you. Reviews on anything is what.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:32:36

Oh, gosh. I. I say that all the time to my listeners, and I beg on social media. I'm like, listen, if you like what we're doing, just give us a review. You have no idea how much. Even. Even if it's a. You know, it was so.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:32:49

So I'm okay with that. A review is a review. I'm perfectly fine with that.

Joshua Bish [: 01:32:54

And that's what we learned from. Yeah, but. But how he did that and how he. He said, you know, it was that. It just made me go, wow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:03

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:03

He compared my book to H.P. lovecraft. Oh. And I like Lovecraft.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:09

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:09

Not the person. The person. He was a pretty shady guy, but his books were.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:13

My son is very. I was gonna say. I've. I've heard the name, so I'm very aware of.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:21

But it made me just.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:23

I'm not doing this for no reason.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:24

That.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:25

This. I. I did this for a reason. It's. It's reaching someone.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:28

Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:29

And if. And if your work reaches, like, literally one person, that's it. It's it.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:34

Yes, I could care. I. I can 100 say I could care less if I sell a single book.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:40

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:41

As long as somebody reads it and it either sparks something good or something bad.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:46

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:33:48

I want to tell my stories.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:33:49

That's how I feel about the podcast. I, like, I. People are always shocked to know that, like, I make absolutely No, I lose money on this because I'm paying for editing and, and I could probably figure out editing myself if I had more time, but I can't. So I'm paying somebody to do that. And people just don't seem to realize that your passion outweighs any of that.

Joshua Bish [: 01:34:09

Yeah, my writing started as a hobby. Now I think it's an addiction.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:34:14

That's. I feel like podcast is. That was.

Joshua Bish [: 01:34:16

For me, it's worth it. You know, it's one thing. My oldest, Josiah, he told me this, he said, you know, dad, you know, rather use. Even if they don't make it. He says they're published forever.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:34:30

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:34:31

And I'm just going, that's terrifying. But thank you.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:34:34

Well, it's so cool because, you know, and not to still hone in on the dead mom thing, but I think it would have been so cool to have. Because growing up we didn't have the access to videos and photos and all those things. And my parents right after high school had experienced a really bad house fire. So every photo that we had up until that point, gone. You know, so I keep in the back of my mind, my kids are going to be able to still hear my laugh. They're going to be able to get a piece of my personality and it's, it's going to be out there forever.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:08

Yeah. This is like, yeah, like you say, my dad, he passed four years ago and his name was Stephen.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:16

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:17

So take that little Easter egg.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:19

Okay. Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:20

Okay. And yeah, there's a lot of something. You don't really, you don't think about.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:27

It until it's too late.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:29

I remember the night before, the day, the night he died that day I went over and visit with them and it was the typical. Hey, you want to go do this for us? Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:38

Yeah. Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:39

Okay.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:41

Exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:41

Then after he passed and it hit hard, it hit my mom hard. So I had to do the strong son thing.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:47

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:48

Be the.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:48

I'm the oldest daughter. So I had to, yeah, same boat.

Joshua Bish [: 01:35:51

Had to put that face on. I think it finally hit, I think about a year and a half later.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:35:59

I'm coming up on year two and it has probably been harder than the first year.

Joshua Bish [: 01:36:04

I finally broke down and at that time I'd gone through quite a bit with it, but see back up a little bit more. I just recently got divorced at that point.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:36:13

That's another big life changing 18 year marriage.

Joshua Bish [: 01:36:17

But it wasn't a bad ending.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:36:19

Well, there's still, there's, there's no good way to divorce. Even if it's amicable there. There's no good divorce because.

Joshua Bish [: 01:36:26

Completely amicable. But, yeah, you're right. It's still.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:36:28

You feel like I let them down. Yeah, they let me. Like, we let each other down.

Joshua Bish [: 01:36:32

But, you know, it was kind. Kind of bittersweet now, that part of it was. Now I'm remarried, got another kid on the way.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:36:39

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:36:40

And Kiara, now, she's amazing. She's. Granted, she's very pregnant right now. It looks like a big old water balloon.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:36:49

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:36:50

You know, but, you know, then at that time, you know, like I was saying, you know, my dad just died, got divorced, was living in a single efficiency bedroom apartment in Athens.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:37:02

Been there.

Joshua Bish [: 01:37:03

It sucked. And also at that time, I was still going. I was just starting my college. I was finished.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:37:10

Trying to finally get a lot on your plate.

Joshua Bish [: 01:37:12

A lot on my plate. But it was just the push with it. Yeah, that's what helped.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:37:18

I think I could see that. I could see that 100%. And, you know, again, not harping on the dead mom thing, but it. It pushed me to not only try to put my story down on paper, but also I have started writing my children letters, and I send them to an email, and I'm gonna have everything written down for them to get into this on, like, should or when I. When I do pass whatever time that may be. Because losing my mom was very unexpected. It was very tragic, it was terrible situation, and there was just so much left unsaid. So I have now made it my personal goal to pay attention more.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:38:01

Not that I didn't pay attention to him before, but pay attention to more of the things that they ask me and the things they're wanting, especially my son being 23 and getting his own place and navigating, learning to cook and things like that. So try to pay more attention to those things and leave them little tidbits. Like, if I went to lunch with both of the kids today, I might go home that evening, and something's weighing heavy on my mind. So I said, I'm gonna write him a letter and send it to that email, you know, so it's. It's been a learning experience. But also my grief story is, like, finding that way, you know, and it's. I think writing and the podcast have really been just the push that I needed. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:38:46

Very much is.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:38:48

I. I get it. I get it 100%.

Joshua Bish [: 01:38:50

That's why I think in every book, you know, especially nowadays, you see the dedication page, and every one of mine is to my kids.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:38:57

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:38:57

My wife, because it's one of those. It's one day. Yeah. I will be gone. There's no denying it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:39:03

Here's what I am leaving you. Yeah. I love that. I really do. I think there's. There's beauty in all writing, whether you can relate to it or not. I just think that there's beauty in it. So, anyways, I'll get.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:39:18

I'll get real emotional if I keep on. Can you or will you explain to me what you think that Appalachia is trying to tell the world through the stories that we tell?

Joshua Bish [: 01:39:34

I think Appalachia is trying to tell the world that it's more than what people see from the outside. It's not just poverty, not coal or stereotypes. It's people who survived hard things and learn how to carry them quietly. Our stories aren't loud, but they're deep. They're in endurance, family loss, faith, and memory. A lot of Appalachian stories are warnings or lessons not meant to entertain, but to protect and to remember or to explain something that didn't have easy answers. When you really listen to them, they're saying, we're still here. We've always been here.

Joshua Bish [: 01:40:14

It's the. You know, it makes me think of when my oldest son first went to California. He's stationed out at Travis Airport Air Force Base.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:40:24

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:40:24

Close to San Francisco and Sacramento. Kind of like right in the middle.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:40:27

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 01:40:28

And I went to go visit him about two years ago, and we went. I did the tourist thing, right. We got on the Amtrak, went out, took it over towards San Francisco. Because I want to go see.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:40:41

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:40:42

I want to see Chinatown. I want to see what?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:40:45

Absolutely. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:40:46

I want to experience that. Well, little did I know, southern West Virginia country boy that I am, and my son Josiah, he's. We get off the train, but we have. We didn't know this, but we had to take a bus from that train station over the Bay Area to get to where we need to go.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:41:05

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:41:05

We didn't know that. So we get off the Amtrak and we just start walking. We end up in Compton.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:41:13

Okay. Fun.

Joshua Bish [: 01:41:17

Jesus Christ. Stunk. Nasty. Just.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:41:21

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:41:22

Horrible. But we finally get over the bay. We ended up taking the train that goes under the bay. Oh, and there's still just, you know, water dripping in. Makes you. Anybody that's drove any. I think any bridge or tunnel that goes under, you always get those drifts, but it still gives you that butthole of yes, yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:41:40

Like, at any moment, this can implode on us.

Joshua Bish [: 01:41:43

We finally get off. I did the. We did the tourist thing. Went over to Al. Alcatraz. Went to the wharf, you know, went to a little Chinatown.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:41:50

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:41:51

Wow. That was a lot of people. I'm never going out again.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:41:54

Yeah. I could only imagine.

Joshua Bish [: 01:41:55

Yeah. You know, but this goes back on. Stereotype things.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:41:58

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:41:58

After we get done, we finally get back on the train, get back over to the Amtrak, take the Amtrak all the way back up to Sacramento to where we parked the car. Because I was, again, I was not going to drive in that big city.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:42:09

Right. I hate driving in big cities.

Joshua Bish [: 01:42:11

Kiss my ass.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:42:12

Yeah. It's not. Not for me either.

Joshua Bish [: 01:42:14

So fast forward a couple days. I'm leaving. I go Sacramento, get on the plane. I did the cheap route. I went spirit, but I made it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:42:22

Yeah. You're alive. You live to tell the tales.

Joshua Bish [: 01:42:25

But as I'm sitting there in Sacramento, in the terminal, and I'm, I'm. I'm quiet and I don't like to talk to people and especially if I'm traveling alone.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:42:36

Yeah. I'm the same way, you know, but.

Joshua Bish [: 01:42:38

Then this got older. Guys started sitting beside me. And he just said, hi, how are you? I said, hey, how are you? And he heard my accent.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:42:46

Where are you from? Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:42:47

And that's how that started. Then across the way from us, there was this guy wearing flip flops, short shorts that guys wear nowadays.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:42:56

Huh.

Joshua Bish [: 01:42:57

And you could tell he was just looking at us, and I could see something curling in his brain of something smart ass to say. And the gentleman I was talking to, he was from Virginia. West Virginia.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:08

Small world. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:09

Oh, cool. Yeah. He's like, yeah, he was out there visiting his son, too.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:12

Oh, small world. Very small world.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:14

So we start talking, start comic and cracking jokes with each other. Just made an airport friend.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:19

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:20

Which is weird, but also it happens.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:23

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:24

This young turd across from us looked over at us. He's like, well, I'm surprised you was able to find the bathroom ways out here. Wasn't out there in the woods. I looked at him and so when.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:34

We ended up walking, he thought he was so funny.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:37

And he. He had that look.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:39

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:40

And I looked at him. It's like, you know, people always say that about West Virginia. It's like. But I just came from San Francisco. It's supposed to be the golden area.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:49

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:49

Well, the fancy. But I said, when we was walking through Chinatown, there was a. In the middle of the road, in the middle of the street.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:43:55

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:43:56

And it smelled like death and it was nasty. Oh, my God. And it was funny as though. But then the old man lit into him.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:44:04

Oh, good.

Joshua Bish [: 01:44:04

And it was one of those I said. I said, oh, oh, boy. Went away, walked off.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:44:08

Oh, yeah. Because they have nothing to say once. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 01:44:15

One thing I'm sure your listeners will agree with this. As Appalachians, West Virginians, Kentuckians, Ohioans, even the Virginians. Sorry asses. We can pick on each other.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:44:31

Yes. But. But nobody else is gonna pick on us.

Joshua Bish [: 01:44:33

It's just like your. Your sibling. I will. I will kick my sister until she don't get up again.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:44:40

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:44:41

However, somebody else with her.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:44:43

Don't even look at her the wrong way, let alone kick her.

Joshua Bish [: 01:44:46

It was just so nice. It was awesome.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:44:48

Yeah. I get that. And what an unexpected kindness to find in a stranger in the. You know, to have your back.

Joshua Bish [: 01:44:57

Yeah. And it was just like, well, thank you. But I was really shot through me. His little comment.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:45:02

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:45:03

And I was just like, y' all ever.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:45:06

Right? Like, you're not gonna find that here in West Virginia. You're gonna find beauty. You're gonna find mountains and rivers.

Joshua Bish [: 01:45:11

And we see somebody doing that in the middle of the road, they're getting ass whooped.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:45:14

Yeah. Like, you don't act that way.

Joshua Bish [: 01:45:16

Treat them like a doll and rub the nose in.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:45:17

Yes, exactly. 100. That's so funny. It's just funny that people. And I find it's. It's uncultured people that seem to have these opinions of Appalachians. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:45:29

Never really seen it. It's just. And it goes to show.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:45:33

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's talk about why preserving these traditions is so important to you. I mean, we've touched on it a lot. But I would like to hear your answer.

Joshua Bish [: 01:45:49

Because once these stories disappear, part of the people disappear with them. Appalachia has always based. Was based on history through voices, not books, not by writings about voices. If we stop telling those stories, especially the uncomfortable ones, we lose more than folklore. We lose understanding. For me, writing is way to honor where I came from. It's a way to keep those voices alive and remind people that there's value in the quiet, in the old stories and in the places that others overlook. If we don't tell our own stories, someone else will.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:46:31

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:46:32

They won't get them. Right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:46:33

You're right. You're right. 100. Like, you're so right. I can't agree anymore. Do your roles overlap in unexpected ways with the, you know, the different jobs that you do and the stories that you tell?

Joshua Bish [: 01:46:47

They overlap more than people might expect with law enforcement. It puts me in close contact with people on some of their worst days, I always say whenever I'm trained was be training a new officer. Some of those, my biggest line with them is like, look, yes, you're a police officer. Yes, you can take someone to jail. However, whenever you're dealing with some of these people, remember this is their worst.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:47:10

Day, worst day of their life.

Joshua Bish [: 01:47:11

They will, depending on this outcome, they will remember you the rest of your life. You're not going to remember them past tomorrow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:47:18

Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 01:47:19

So how that does it, like, gives away to a process that without turning it into, like, spectacle. With this, they do overlap with law enforcement. It puts us in close contact with people. And some of the times, on the worst days, writing gives me a way of processing that without turning it into spectacle, because I can use what's told to me on a case or something. I can spin it and turn it into something that's not real.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:47:47

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:47:48

That helps process. You know, I write about how fear looks on people, how silence feels in certain moments, and how trauma. Trauma lingers after everything else moves on. And that way, writing helps me be a better officer. I feel. And being an officer helps me write more. Honestly, there's a lot of things, like, whenever I'm doing a report, it's always been. It was taught to me as a young officer's life, as if it's not on the narrative.

Joshua Bish [: 01:48:17

It never happened.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:48:18

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:48:19

And that narrative is what we write.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:48:20

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:48:21

Comes from that individual officer.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:48:25

And there's some of y' all out there. No offense, but some of them are garbage. They're not helpful at all.

Joshua Bish [: 01:48:31

Oh, yeah. I'd hate to look at my. One of my old reports. When I first started, yeah, I didn't know what I was doing. I just did. And it's. I could imagine how I would probably look at it and going, wow, you're an idiot.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:48:42

Right. And, you know, I was telling you before we started filming or recording, I always say filming. I. I don't know why, but my audience knows that I'm special. But when I was doing the highway safety stuff, you know, our job, a big part of our important part of our job was logging the fatalities in the state of West Virginia. And, you know, you've got to get everything exactly right because you have to remember that law enforcement, any legal entities, everybody from then on out, they're taking those facts for a fact and determining the outcome of what is or is not going to happen. To, say, the person that caused the accident or maybe someone was ejected, maybe one person was not. You know, we even went as far as there was one case that went unfinished, you know, it just was never closed because they knew that there was an ejection, but they never found the body.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:49:42

You know, and not to be like morbid, but you can't close that file until that. Because it didn't happen if it's not in that report. So it's, it's, it's important. It's very important.

Joshua Bish [: 01:49:55

I think that's what helped me with the writing. Because my biggest thing, whenever I initially started doing it, it would be just like an outline of what I want to do and then breaking it down into like, like the details.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:50:09

Yeah. See that's my. That's how I write.

Joshua Bish [: 01:50:11

You know, it's. And that's a lot harder said than done. It is something else, like sitting in front of me right now is this microphone. Yeah, I could say microphone. What's that coming to mind of you? A microphone. Well, what's my.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:50:24

They can all. That's what I was gonna say. And then we've got the old school one over there. Like a replica, you know, they're, they're all different. So everyone's imagination goes to their own place.

Joshua Bish [: 01:50:33

Like just in me saying microphone to you, be like, okay, microphone. But in my mind I'm thinking, wow. Yeah, it's a microphone. But it's got a sticker for the Tri State time machine right on the left hand side of it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:50:42

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:50:42

It's got a. Not two knobs parallel to it. You got the connector at the bottom. You got a nice base with a steel. The barcode on it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:50:49

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:50:49

Although yours have.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:50:50

Mine's sparkly. Yeah. Mine's got a disco vibe going on.

Joshua Bish [: 01:50:55

You know, I feel that's the. How the rolls, how they overlapped and they make each other better.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:51:01

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:51:01

From my ability to break down the details of it from experience with writing the narratives, with writing those big reports, those important ones that I know that those details matter. Yes, they do matter. They are the most important things.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:51:17

They really are. And sometimes I always took it a step further in my own mind. I didn't for the work because we weren't allowed to, obviously, but. But I always pictured those reports whenever I was, you know, transcribing them and doing all that. What would I want if someone's family member got ahold of this? What would that look like? What should that look like? In the most respectful way, the most factual way, you know, all those things. So, like it matters. So if you've never. If you don't know anyone, that's worked in law enforcement or you've never worked for like someone like highway safety or anything like that? It's things I didn't know going into that job, that that was going to be the most important part of my job.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:52:00

I mean, and that comes with photos. It comes with all the things.

Joshua Bish [: 01:52:02

So that's one of the things that I've always said big media gets 100% wrong about our profession. Yes, it's one of those. Yeah, there's some excitement, maybe 5, 10% of it. The rest of it is boring. Sitting behind the desk, typing or writing and cataloging and taking. Taking pictures and figuring out which there to use during that sentence. Is it there, there, or there?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:52:29

I love that. That's so funny. What unique insights does law enforcement give you into human behavior and fear? You've kind of already talked about it a little bit, but I'd like to hear more.

Joshua Bish [: 01:52:39

Okay. The biggest thing I've learned is that real fear is quiet. It's not screaming or running. It's hesitation, compliance, avoidance. It's people freezing, minimalizing what they're feeling and trying to hold themselves together. The kind of fear that is what I write about. It's more unsettling because it's real. You see it in the eyes, in the pauses, in the way someone avoids a doorway or won't sit in the corner room.

Joshua Bish [: 01:53:10

Law enforcement teaches you to notice those details and horror lives in those details. Case in point is a lot law enforcement officers behavior, going out to eat. I'm sure you've seen it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:53:23

Can't have your back to the door.

Joshua Bish [: 01:53:24

Yeah, our backs are never to the door. We tried our best to be the farthest from the door. And we will have clear line of sight to that door. And we will constantly know where the exits are, will be moving that entire time. Rather, we're on working or not working. My wife, I had to explain this to her because whenever we first went on our first date, whenever we first met, she kept saying, what are you looking at? And I'm just going, oh, yeah? Yeah, I need to explain this to you. You don't know.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:53:57

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:53:58

And I told her and she's like, that's silly. Nobody's going to come in here, hurt us. I said, how do you know?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:54:02

You never know.

Joshua Bish [: 01:54:03

And then I gave her a point. I actually went back. We went. I told her a story about what happened. And one of those things, more things happen to police officers when they're off duty than there actually are.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:54:17

I have heard that and I've seen some statistics and I'm just like. It's wild.

Joshua Bish [: 01:54:23

About seven, eight years ago, I had a guy come to my house, try to break the door down with a knife and tried to stab me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:54:28

Just angry because you had arrested him or something? No.

Joshua Bish [: 01:54:31

Oh, no.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:54:32

Just randomly.

Joshua Bish [: 01:54:33

He saw my police cruiser in the driveway, and he said, well, there's my opportunity.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:54:36

Yep.

Joshua Bish [: 01:54:37

And a fight ensued. And luckily my kids wasn't home yet, but they was on their way home.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:54:44

From school, middle of the day, goodness gracious time.

Joshua Bish [: 01:54:47

She just got home. She got to witness me throwing him off the porch and handcuffing him while I'm wearing my suit. SpongeBob. That's the best, actually. Because where I lived at the time was two blocks away from this courthouse in Princeton.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:02

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:02

I walked him wearing no shoes. Spongebob. Pajamas, pants, no shirt. Will walk him the two blocks from my back door to the courthouse.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:13

That's. That's the kind of photo that goes viral on CNN and NBC and all that at these cops in West Virginia.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:19

Yes. Little would they know that I was in the middle of. I just got off shift. I was laying in bed, g go to sleep, and I heard the door bang open. And just luckily my kids wasn't home and wife wasn't.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:32

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:33

And. But it was one of those, like, that's scary. I'll never forget at the time, the sheriff we had. His name was Don Meadows. I don't know if you.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:41

I've heard that name.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:42

He's one of those people. You know what you get?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:46

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:47

He's 100 blunt, and he has one of them.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:50

I like those people. I like to know where I stand.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:52

And voice and vocals. That. It just echoes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:56

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:56

No matter how much foam you got around this man.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:55:58

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 01:55:59

It will echo. And as. And his biggest thing, he was sitting. We called it the control room. When I walked the guy in and he looked at me, he said, well, God damn it, what the Are you doing that?

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:56:10

Those are my favorite people of Hank.

Joshua Bish [: 01:56:12

Hill mixed with a smoker and a drinker and a man. That's. You remember how. You remember. You know how big Jim Justice.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:56:19

Yes. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 01:56:20

About the same size.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:56:21

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 01:56:22

It's just one of the. Bigger than what you think.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:56:24

Just not using a scooter to get around holding his own weight.

Joshua Bish [: 01:56:28

Yeah. Let's have a bulldog.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:56:30

Oh, that's so funny. I love this. This has been, like, the best conversation ever. It really has been. I have to tell. If I don't tell you this, it's going to eat me alive. We were in Marlington My in laws had a place in, like, out right outside of Snowshoe in Clover Lick. So we're in that area, and there's three houses that are inhibited year round.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:56:59

That's it out this holler. And we go to bed for the night. And, you know, we don't lock doors. You don't close windows because you got the windows open. Because those houses are all built to let air flow through them, you know? And so it's summer, we go to bed, and I hear this ruckus. And, you know, my husband, we were not married at the time, but he's got a couple of his buddies with him, so they can go fishing and do all the man stuff. And they're just passed out because they've been drinking all day. They've been living their best guy life.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:57:31

And I'm like, trying to wake him up. And I'm like, do y' all hear that? You hear that? And I look out the window because there's not a lot of curtains on the main floor because you let all that natural light in. It is a gentleman. He saw our cars in the driveway, and there was a few guns in the back because they were shooting guns and stuff like that. So they were in the back of the Jeep, and we just had the soft top on it. So I'm like, he's gonna figure it out, and he's gonna get one of those guns because we don't have any of them in the house. They're all out there. So finally, get my husband, one of his friends, Greg, awake, and he is, like, yelling obscenities through the door.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:58:05

And he turns into crying. He goes from being angry to crying. Can you please help me? I need help. I don't have any shoes. I'm so cold. And mind you, it's summer, so he's not freezing by any means, but he did not have shoes. He's just going on and on, and we're trying to get him to calm down. We don't even know if the house line even works in this house.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:58:27

So we finally find the phone, get it plugged in, call the cops. Turns out we got really lucky. The family that lives two houses down, which I said, there's like three or four houses that are even lived in up there. It was the nephew of her. So he knew exactly what house we were talking about. And he was like, I'm coming around the mountain now. I should be there within 15, 20 minutes. Yada, yada, yada.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:58:50

We just broke up a method party. He's had to have come from there because he's out of his mind completely. And I just remember when we finally got the door open, he just charged and he. He had no idea what he was doing. And I think people that are in these, like, state of minds of whether here's my chance to make a name for myself, like your gentleman, or I just have no idea what I'm doing. They just act out, man. And they are. Because they are fearless in that moment, they are fearless.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:59:20

And I remember how scared I was because at the time, my son was like 6 years old. I didn't have my second child yet. And I'm the only one coherent. And I'm just little old me. I'm like, what am I going to do? This big meth addict, you know, like, he was a big guy walking around barefooted in the middle of absolutely nowhere. And I just remember the law enforcement. I don't remember their name or anything, but he ended up calling, like, two or three sheriffs for backup. And it took them forever to get there, but they just kept talking about how they just thought it was incredible that he had made it on the mountainside as far as he did to get to us from that party, because they were like, there's nowhere else he would have come from.

Vanessa Hankins [: 01:59:55

Nowhere else he would have come from. And then about a month later, we had gone back up, and we were asking the woman that lived a couple houses down, you know, what became of him. And she said that he went to jail for quite a while because he resisted arrest. And they got him for, like, several other things because he really technically didn't do anything wrong. He didn't break anything. He didn't hurt anybody. He was just meth out, you know. But they could not believe that he made it barefoot all the way down.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:00:22

So he went into recovery and drug court and all the things, and apparently is like living this great life. And I'm very happy for him. But I just remember in that moment being like, what in the actual hell is happening? And I bet, like, you hearing that door breaking.

Joshua Bish [: 02:00:37

Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:00:37

Especially right after your shift. Like, I can only imagine what was going through your head.

Joshua Bish [: 02:00:41

The point where I've taken everything off. I'm laying in bed, right. And I'm at that point of. I'm about to fall asleep.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:00:46

Huh.

Joshua Bish [: 02:00:47

And that's the best time.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:00:48

Yes. It really is, like, euphoria. Like, it's.

Joshua Bish [: 02:00:51

I ended up not sleeping that day.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:00:53

Oh, I'm sure. I am sure. Especially dealing with all the. I'm sure you got lots of your buddies texting you and calling you nice pants.

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:01

Yeah. Yeah. The biggest thing, because.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:01:05

Like, you're lucky I had them on, given the situation.

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:10

The only reason I had them on because the bedroom was close to the front door of the entrance, and I knew the kids was going to be coming home from school.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:01:15

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:16

Want them to burst open the door? Typically, if I know they're not coming. Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:01:19

Right.

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:20

It's straight nude.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:01:21

Right. My husband's the same way. That's why, like, I wasn't trying to relate to that, but, yeah, my husband's the same way. That's so funny. What can you tell us about Echoes in the Stone?

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:34

Okay. I actually brought the synopsis with me.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:01:36

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:37

Okay. So it's a little bit easier.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:01:38

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:39

So, as you can imagine, with writing these stories, I've got a ton of different things, and sometimes I'll implant stuff. That's. No, that's not it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:01:46

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:01:46

So here, just. This is the synopsis. Echoes in the Stone is a haunting Appalachian psychological horror novel about memory, trauma, and the unforgiving history buried beneath West Virginia heels. Ellie Glass, a struggling journalist from the fading steel town of Weirton, receives a mysterious email hinting to lost medical files regarding the infamous Transatlanty lunatic asylum in Weston. Desperate for a story and running from a past shape by her mother's mental illness, Ellie follows the lead deep into the asylum's shadowed legacy. Inside Weston, she uncovers a forgotten history of overcrowding, human experimentation, and brutal transorbital lobotomies performed by Dr. Walter Freeman. Patients, cells, surgical theaters, and silent corridors reveal more than history, historical tragedy.

Joshua Bish [: 02:02:46

They echo with voices, movements, and presence no tour guide will acknowledge. As Ellie descends further into the asylum's past, the line between memory and haunting begins to blur, and she questions whether the madness she feels is within the walls or within herself. It is atmospheric, immersive, and grounded in real West Virginian history. Echoes in the Stone explores the weight of generational trauma and the ghosts, both real and physical, that cling to the places we try hardest to forget.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:03:22

I'm stoked for this one. O. That one's like. I'm. I'm left speechless a little bit. I. I'm very intrigued. Very intrigued.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:03:32

Now, you brought us a reading of this one, correct?

Joshua Bish [: 02:03:36

No.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:03:36

No. Which ones? You brought us a reading.

Joshua Bish [: 02:03:38

I brought you a reading of something different.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:03:39

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:03:40

Something that I actually. So after you messaged me about this, of course I did my research and everything, and I said, yeah, but I was thinking, God, I'd love to do a Book.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:03:53

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:03:53

About this area. It's like, well away from my psalm series. What kind of monsters are up here? What kind of folks?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:01

Folklore. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:01

Kind of stories. I was like, well, Mothman's close. You know, that's. But that's Point Pleasant.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:05

Yeah. You know, we. We still claim him around here.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:09

And then I was sitting there just going like, what else is up there that's scary and creepy? Oh, Camden Park.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:14

Yes. That's in my backyard.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:15

Yeah. Then I started doing a little bit of research about the Camden park mound.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:20

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:21

And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So actually, I did do an outline.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:24

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:25

I'm actually, I'm in the process right now writing book four for the psalm series.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:29

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:30

And how. I've got it planned out for this next year. And we'll finish that book. That one's Looking Around March.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:36

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:36

Of being completely. Then I'm going to start on another standalone, like I did with Echoes in the Stone.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:42

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:42

Now, keep in mind, it's not. This isn't the work. This isn't the actual title. This is just what I've wrote down so far.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:48

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:48

It's my outline, and it is only two pages.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:51

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:52

All right. Are you ready?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:04:55

I'm ready.

Joshua Bish [: 02:04:56

Okay, then also, I want your take on it. And tell me it's like, no, that sounds like, complete off.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:05:02

Okay. Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 02:05:03

All right. So far, the working title is called the One that Watches from the Park. People like to talk about the Mothman as if it belongs to Point Pleasant, like it showed up once, scared people, and stayed put. But around Huntington, folks know better. Camden park sits just outside the city, right where the roads bend and the trees start to close in. During the day, it's noise, kids, rides, the smell of food drifting over the asphalt. But after the gate close, especially on foggy nights, the place feels wrong, not abandoned, just watched. There's an old story locals usually tell aloud.

Joshua Bish [: 02:05:47

Back in the late 60s, not long after Point Pleasant sightings, a group of teenagers decided to sneak into Camden park after dark. This was before cameras, before regular security patrols. They parked along Route 60 and slipped in through the trees near the back of the park. Instead of using the gate, they said the first thing that hit them was the silence. The rides weren't crackling like you'd expect. The Big Dipper stood there, all that wood and steel frozen against the sky, its tracks twisted upward like ribs. The coaster hadn't moved in hours, but the air around it felt tight, like something was holding its breath. They walked past the old pond near the Big Dipper, the one that reflects the lights during the day.

Joshua Bish [: 02:06:33

At night, it was black, steep. No ripples. Just a dark mirror pulling the moon apart. They were laughing at first, nervous jokes, daring each other to get closer to the rides. Then one of them stopped and said, do you hear that? It wasn't footsteps. It wasn't wings. It was breathing. Slow, deep, measured.

Joshua Bish [: 02:06:59

Like something large was still standing. Standing and letting them know it was there. They followed the sound toward the edge of the park, near where Big Dipper curves back toward the trees. That's when they saw it. Standing just beyond the coaster supports. Not perched. Not flying. Standing tall, broad.

Joshua Bish [: 02:07:21

The shape was wrong in a way that the brain tries to fix but can't. And the eyes. The eyes didn't glow like lights. They reflected. What light? Little there was red. Wet. Animal. Someone whispered, it's just an owl.

Joshua Bish [: 02:07:41

Owls don't stand upright, not like this. And they don't step forward without a sound. The thing moved closer. No leaves crunching, no branches snapping. Just closer. When it spread its wings, not to fly, but to show how wide they were, the shadow of them pressed over the wooden beams of the Big Dipper. That's when they ran. They bolted.

Joshua Bish [: 02:08:06

Past the pond, past the ride supports, back through the trees. One of them tipped and swore. Something brushed against his shoulder, close enough to feel the air move. None of them looked back. None of them ever went into camp and park after dark again. Years later, park workers started telling their own stories. Lights turned on near the Big Dipper after closing. Ride control panels flickered with no power.

Joshua Bish [: 02:08:32

Security guards, when they finally started coming, refused to patrol the fence line near the coaster and the tree line overlooking the river valley. One guard quit after reporting a man with weapons standing near the tracks looking out towards the Ohio River. And here's the part locals don't laugh at. Every so often, late at night, someone drives past the park will say they saw something perched on the Big Dipper on highest support, or just standing beyond the ride lights, always watching the road, always facing the river. People say the Mothman appears before tragedy, collapse, accidents, floods. But in Appalachia, there's another belief. Sometimes these things aren't warnings. Sometimes they're witnesses.

Joshua Bish [: 02:09:23

And Camden park sits right where the road, the river and the wood meets a crossroads. A place built on noise and laughter planted over something much older. So if you ever drive past Camden park at night and see a red reflection where no light should be, locals will tell you the same thing they always have. Don't stop. Don't stare. And whatever you Do. Don't go near the Big Dipper after dark, because some things don't leave the valley. When these stories stopped, they just learned how to wait.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:09:59

Because we know in Appalachia, if you've seen it or you heard it. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. Oh, my God, I have chills. I'm excited for this. Like, very excited. I get, like, stoked about some Cannon park stories. So I grew up just to give a little history of why I get so stoked.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:10:20

My uncles all worked after they worked for the state and through their younger building, like Eastland, Lake, Beach, Fork, all that, you know, they all took to the next big job in the community working at Cannon park, you know, so hearing their stories over my childhood, that just, like, I know you were. You were reading and not paying attention to me, but I'm over here like, oh, that's good. Oh, God, that's real good. You know, I'm, like, in it, so I can't wait for this. This is great. And I think people are gonna love it. I think they're really gonna love it.

Joshua Bish [: 02:10:55

Like I said, that is just the outline. Now, how I'll do it. I'm going to break that outline into acts.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:11:01

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:11:01

I'll break probably around two or three different acts, and then those acts will be chapters. Typically, I like to do five chapters per act, and it also depends on how long I want to go. And of course, I have no characters yet.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:11:14

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:11:16

An idea of the story. I don't know if it's going to be a happy ending or a sad ending or a bad one.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:11:23

So a little advice from little old me. There is the gentleman that we just had on the podcast recently. We. I don't know if you listened to the Kingdom park episode. His name is Clinton Burley. He will have. I think he. I think he will be very useful to you in building your characters.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:11:41

He grew up with his dad as the manager of Cannon Park. So, like, he. You need to listen to that episode. I don't want to ruin it, but it was probably. Sorry to anybody else. I don't want to offend, but that was probably my favorite episode this year. Favorite episode to record. I still listen to it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:11:59

Like, I haven't heard it because it's just. It's so cool. But, I mean, maybe even listen to that episode will give you enough, like, foresight to, like, get the gears moving and. But he. He knows so many details about Canaan park and, you know, rides that have come and gone, how they came about, the History of like when Canon park had a zoo. And I mean it's crazy the knowledge that this gentleman has. So I, I think like if you connect with him, he's, he's talker Clinton. You know, you are, I'm not, I'm not badmouthing you, but you hang on to his words.

Joshua Bish [: 02:12:36

Okay.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:12:37

So I think if you find him, I'll, I'll send you his social media stuff and you can connect with him if you like. If you don't, that's fine too. But he's, but he's awesome and he is a storyteller too. So I bet you guys will just job very well. 100. I'm very excited for this.

Joshua Bish [: 02:12:53

Oh yeah, Yeah. I still got a lot of research to do. I want to make sure I get the ride. The ride's name right.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:12:57

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:12:58

Which I know I got the reflecting pool because I remember that. Because I remember when I was little we came up this way too. Because Camden park was the big trip.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:05

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:05

We was poor.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:07

Yes, absolutely. Same same. If it wasn't for family working there, I don't know that we couldn't feel afforded to get in back then. Even though it was cheap back then.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:16

During that time it was either Dollywood or Camden Park.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:19

Yes, yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:20

Closer or. Oh, can't forget Tweetsie Railroad.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:23

Oh, yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:23

Did you ever do that one?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:24

I did not, but I always heard about it. Yes. They're still open apparently. Oh really?

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:28

Because my new wife, we've been married six months now.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:32

Now. Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:33

And this is December, so I'm getting them. So congratulations. Later on in the month. No, I got the timing right, but so I gotta. With her. I got a four year old stepdaughter.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:45

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:45

And I'm just going.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:46

So you're finding things again.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:48

We didn't get to do it with my kids because.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:50

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:50

Working a lot. And I'm thinking, oh wow, let's take her down to Tweetsy.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:53

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:13:54

Have the little cowboy shootouts.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:13:56

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. See, and that's going to be the fun thing about you guys having like the new kid and all that. You're gonna, you're gonna have the time that you didn't have before to like make all these and imagine what her little brain's gonna be like by the experiences you're gonna have with her.

Joshua Bish [: 02:14:11

Oh yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:14:12

That's so exciting. That's so fun. So, so fun.

Joshua Bish [: 02:14:15

When I'll get, when I do start my big research on that because I'm still on the process of book like.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:14:21

Right. Yeah. And like I said, when you're ready. He's just. I think he will be a wealth of knowledge for you and he just, he knows so many things that like you wouldn't even think about for a park. But it's so cool. Anyways, any upcoming signings, events or releases that our listeners can look out for.

Joshua Bish [: 02:14:39

Okay. Yes. Okay. See Echoes of the Stone. It got released December 12th.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:14:45

That just happened. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:14:46

The ebook and paperback and hardcover.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:14:49

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:14:50

At this moment it is in the process of being converted into an audiobook book being read by Daniel Larivieri, I'm sure. I'm sorry, Dan, if I'm saying your last name wrong. He lives in Kentucky. Okay. He is a retired Air Force veteran.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:15:07

Nice.

Joshua Bish [: 02:15:07

And so far understanding. I sent you a yes. Listen of it. Did you get a chance to listen?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:15:13

I haven't listened to it yet, but it's got to be in the car thing and I haven't really been going anywhere. I've been doing like all the holiday prep around the house. So I haven't been been in the car long enough to give my focus.

Joshua Bish [: 02:15:24

It's that audiobooks in the process. He actually emailed me today. He's done with the rough go through but he's got to go through and re listen to it. Make sure everything's.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:15:34

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:15:34

The editing part.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:15:35

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:15:35

The fun part. As creators we hate.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:15:37

Yeah, exactly.

Joshua Bish [: 02:15:39

That. That's looking probably around late January, early February when it comes out.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:15:44

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:15:45

Room three 16s audio book is halfway through with her with that narrator, Ashen Maria.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:15:52

She said she's a. She's a West Virginia girl, right?

Joshua Bish [: 02:15:54

Yes. She lives in Charleston. She narrated the first book lady in Flesh. She is my dedicated narrator for the psalm series.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:16:03

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:16:04

Her voice is perfect. She. I. I know I'm just starting out.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:16:10

There's something about a woman voice for psychological thrillers. I don't know. I don't know what it is.

Joshua Bish [: 02:16:17

But in my. I'll go ahead and say it in, in the psalm series, you're seeing the story through the lady.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:16:23

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:16:24

You're getting the story from her. Even though it's in third person, it is her. And how she. How Ashen presents it and talks and does some of these things with her voice to change it to.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:16:39

It's a talent.

Joshua Bish [: 02:16:39

It's one of those. Even though I write the words, what's coming. I know this line is coming.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:16:44

But hearing it from somebody, it gives me the.

Joshua Bish [: 02:16:47

I'm just like, oh. And I say it. Same thing with Daniel. He sent me a couple things to listen to as he's going through it. And I'm just sitting back with goosebumps going, wow.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:16:59

Wow.

Joshua Bish [: 02:17:00

With both of them. They're going to be something big. I feel with the whole.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:17:04

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:17:05

Creative process with the, the narration.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:17:06

It's exciting. I can only like, I can only imagine what that would feel like because I, I, I really, I thought that to myself, like, once I feel like I finished my, I guess, biography, I'm like, it's, you're not going to get that full impact unless I hear someone else read it, you know.

Joshua Bish [: 02:17:27

And then also it's, it's a process figuring out who you're going to have be the narrator.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:17:33

Sure. I'm sure.

Joshua Bish [: 02:17:34

I go through audible. That's who I have. That's what I go through and figure they. You will get. I'll say, like with the. When I first put up Echoes in the stone, within 12 hours, I had 122 auditions to listen to of people wanting to be.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:17:53

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:17:54

And in order to do that, I put up a script.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:17:56

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:17:56

They have to read. That comes from, from the book, not the whole book. Because that's how thieving happens, Right?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:01

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:02

No.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:02

Yeah. None of that.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:04

Yeah. But then I would have to sit and listen. There'd be about like five, six minutes each of listening and. Oh, it got to the point I am tired.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:13

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:13

It was a few of them. Yeah. It's one of those. Okay. I understand you have a dream, but.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:19

This maybe is not the career for you.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:21

Yes. Yeah. You might be able to do it for yourself.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:23

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:24

You know, say happening. But then there's those, like with Daniel. Just one of those. I was like, holy shit.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:30

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:31

Oh, my God.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:31

This guy's got the talent.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:33

Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:18:33

This is exactly what I need.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:34

Yeah. And then to brag on him a little bit. He don't know this. I'm not going to say the name. There's actual people on this audible that you go through where you upload your manuscript and stuff that they actually read. There's some highly people that you like. Holy. That guy.

Joshua Bish [: 02:18:53

That girl. I got one audition from a lady. She was a big to do. She was one of those. I was thinking, oh, that's a guarantee.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:03

You want to read my book.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:05

It was one of those. That, that was a Be a guaranteed paycheck. Guaranteed. But her voice didn't fit.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:13

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:14

And she said Appalachia. Wrong.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:16

That's a no.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:17

Yes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:18

It's a no. Immediately.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:19

That was my, that was my immediate thing. And then.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:21

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:22

And whenever I'd sit And listen to them. I'd, you know, I'd highlight the name. I'd Google. Who are they?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:26

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:27

Just make sure it's a real person, not one of the A.I.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:29

The bots. Yeah. I hate the word. I hate the world sometimes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:35

But then. But seeing that and then. So, Daniel. So, you know, because I'm sure you're going to hear this. You did beat out somebody from Hollywood.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:45

Oh, look at you go, Daniel.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:47

But I'm telling you, his voice is perfect. It's got that smooth, buttery, that story. You're listening from the Dr. Freeman.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:56

Nice.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:57

You know that?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:19:58

Yeah, I got that.

Joshua Bish [: 02:19:59

Elegant.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:00

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:01

You know, early 40s, 50s. I'm better than you talk.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:04

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I know exactly what she means.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:08

And then whenever he talks in the monsters.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:14

I'm so excited for these things.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:16

I can't talk enough about Daniel Ration there.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:19

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:19

And they both. Yeah. Daniel's retired from the Air Force. Ashen. She still works full time at a factory in Charleston. She does YouTube and all this. And she's just very talented. I can't get enough.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:33

It.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:35

What a cool thing to, like, how do you just, like, wake up one morning, oh, I'd like to read novels for people.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:40

Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:41

Like, what a cool career.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:42

And then have the ability and.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:44

Yeah. Have the skill set. Yeah. That's incredible because I. That's one of the hardest things for me is listening to myself.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:53

Oh, God, I hate it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:20:54

It's the worst.

Joshua Bish [: 02:20:55

I hear it and I'm going. Because in my own head, you know, I know. I know now because I've heard my. My own voice on recordings during court and stuff.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:21:01

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:21:02

On the radio. That in my head I sound pretty deep.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:21:06

Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. I tell people that all the time. Like, and there are very. Like, I listen to every single episode, but there are a few that I listen to over and over. And I just. It's kind of like you zone out and take yourself out of, like, this isn't me. I'm just listening to something, you know.

Joshua Bish [: 02:21:26

Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:21:26

So I get that 100%. Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:21:28

Let's see. Upcoming events.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:21:31

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:21:32

Okay. I'm going to appear at the Appalachian Word Fest in Silverville, Tennessee. That's down in Pigeon Forge. Gatlinburg. For those that don't know. Silverville. That's the county.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:21:40

I was going to say Appalachia. If you. If it's Myrtle beach or Nashville or 10 Serville. What's the other one that everybody goes to? The Smoky Mountains. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:21:52

Yeah. And this is in the heart of the smokies. So far, there's 70 plus authors going to be there all over Appalachia. You got people like me for horror. You got some with thrillers, romance, mysteries. And according to the website, they got a couple big wigs. Okay. That they got question marks in front of the guess who this is type stuff.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:22:13

Oh, yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:22:14

Just like, okay, cool.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:22:16

Yeah, just. Just. Just tell this, like, just let me know.

Joshua Bish [: 02:22:20

But it looks like it's going to be fun. I've got a book signing at the. After that on March 13th in Princeton at the Hatter's bookshop. And that one's probably going to be the same time that I'm hopefully getting book four released for. Nice fingers crossed.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:22:38

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:22:38

As I get done with it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:22:39

If your timeline pans out the way you want it to.

Joshua Bish [: 02:22:41

Yes. But luckily it's winter time, and so far, our winner has shown like it's going to work. Work.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:22:45

Yeah. Our winner has been a beer for sure.

Joshua Bish [: 02:22:50

I always say, you know, I know you probably do it the same way as I do during the summertime. Man, I can't wait to winter.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:22:56

Yeah. I can't wait till this. Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:22:58

And then it hits and I'm. One week.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:23:00

And I always say, that's my favorite part of West Virginia is experiencing all the seasons. But, like, while we're experiencing, I'm like, get me out of here. Why do I live where my face hurts in the cold?

Joshua Bish [: 02:23:11

We have it all in one day.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:23:12

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Actually, when I went outside day before yesterday, I was like, what in the world is going on? Like, some terrible weather event is coming our way for it to go from, like 17 degrees to, like. I think it was like 46. I was like, what?

Joshua Bish [: 02:23:29

We had four degrees.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:23:30

Oh, no, that's not for me. And it may have got that cold during the night, I don't know. But just. Oh, no, no, no, no.

Joshua Bish [: 02:23:38

What was it like three, four years ago we had that Arctic blast.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:23:40

Yes, yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:23:41

It was at Christmas time. Because I remember Concord literally froze up.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:23:45

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:23:45

All the pipes froze up and a few busted. And the water rushing out of the buildings was frozen.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:23:50

Oh, nice. One of those.

Joshua Bish [: 02:23:51

I was like, it's real pretty, but. Oh.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:23:53

Oh, this is gonna be a lot of. Yeah, that's gonna be a lot of work for somebody. Absolutely. That's funny. So where can people buy your books? Follow your work and stay connected.

Joshua Bish [: 02:24:03

All right. All my books are available on Amazon. Just. You can type in my name and on the search bar and it'll pull up all my books. Yeah. Paperback, hard book. Kindle Edition. The.

Joshua Bish [: 02:24:16

And you can also do the audiobooks from there. It'll pop up on the little thing or you can go to audible. Yes, do that. Now granted, right now it's only laid in the flesh on it, but right now, last I looked, it got released September 30th and it is during the. Very well.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:24:29

Awesome.

Joshua Bish [: 02:24:30

It is doing very well.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:24:32

Good, good, good, good.

Joshua Bish [: 02:24:34

On top of that, you can find my books on my website joshuabishwritings.com on my website, do little promotional things, such as I have a blog series like I mentioned earlier, little behind the scenes and little giveaway things that I connect with my readers. All I ask is if you sign up on, if you're interested with it, on the very bottom of it, sign up for the email list. That's where I send out all my updates, what's happening, and where I announce my giveaways. Like my most recent one right now it's not out, but I was going to wait till the week between Christmas and New Year's to put it out there. And I, I try to do one, at least one a month of hey, participate in this poll. I'm gonna put your name in a hat. And if I draw your name, you're going to get a book in the mail. It might be one of my.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:25:23

I love the old school hat. The name, the hat.

Joshua Bish [: 02:25:25

Yeah, I'm sorry, that whole spinny thing.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:25:27

I don't trust it.

Joshua Bish [: 02:25:28

I don't either.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:25:28

I don't think it's legit.

Joshua Bish [: 02:25:30

I'm just going to write your name, put it in a hat and pick it. Yes, that's it. And I've given away. I, I'd rather give my books away. Just, it's like I, like I said from the beginning, I know I'm not going to become rich off this. I'm not looking to be famous. I'll just want to tell my stories. I want somebody to read it and if you like it, tell somebody.

Joshua Bish [: 02:25:51

If you don't like it, tell them too. Tell them. This was the worst thing I've ever read. Go for it. I'm fine with it.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:25:56

There's actually a Reddit group that is just that, like the worst book you've ever read. And like there is so many people in that community. If you're not familiar with Reddit, you know, these people become attached to these groups that they get in. But I feel like more people get their stuff read and looked at or listen to, in my case for podcasts, because that's usually what I'm Deep diving into from that list, then there is. Of people, like, with positive things to say. And I'm like, well, you know, there's something to be said. So let it be said.

Joshua Bish [: 02:26:29

Let's just like, what was it? The. The cult classic stuff, whenever it first comes out, it's horrible, it's stupid. Just like, what was it? Did you ever see the Mist?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:26:39

I did not.

Joshua Bish [: 02:26:39

Mark Wahlberg.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:26:42

Was it the one where they get trapped, like in the superstore or the mall or something like that? No.

Joshua Bish [: 02:26:46

Where the wind is killing everybody.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:26:47

Oh, no, I've never seen it. See, I. I will watch stuff like that. Like, just. Just out of curiosity, as you get done watching it get into the 4x4. It's one of those.

Joshua Bish [: 02:26:58

It's just one of those at the end of it. I'm. I'm sorry if you haven't seen it. I'm spoiling it. But it's been out quite a few years, so YouTube is they. Is. Yeah. Mark Wahlberg, the guy that played Luigi on the Super Mario Brothers movie back in the 90s.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:14

I know who you're talking about, but I don't know his name.

Joshua Bish [: 02:27:16

Yeah, I can't remember.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:16

I can picture his face.

Joshua Bish [: 02:27:17

He's in it. And, you know, the wind goes around and people just upright start killing themselves and dying. I mean, it's gruesome. It's got a.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:24

Hell. Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:27:25

But how it ends, just once you want to pull your eye, it just stops.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:28

It just stops. Oh, I hate that.

Joshua Bish [: 02:27:30

It's just like, what? What? Did I waste my time?

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:31

Yeah. What was the point of this?

Joshua Bish [: 02:27:33

Yeah, but that's. That's a cult classic now. And because it's a cult classic, it's. It's popped up on all my. I'm sure you do. Like, I do.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:40

Yeah.

Joshua Bish [: 02:27:41

Let's all hail our Disney overlords and watch their yes. Stuff.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:45

Yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:27:45

And it popped up on that. And I was going, that was the worst fucking movie.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:27:51

I get it. And like I said, it's. It's like those little VHS is the. Get into the 4x4 now. It's ridiculous. And they're always doing, like, exactly opposite of what you should do in that moment, you know, whatever. Well, Josh, it has been so fun having you on. We are going to throw some of your.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:28:10

Your narration files that you sent me into the episode. I don't know where Circle will put that, but they're. They're the magic, so I'll let them do their thing.

Joshua Bish [: 02:28:22

Once you hear them, you're going to be like, especially the part I sent you for Ashen, as is the part where she's reading, like, Room 316. It's kind of in the middle of the book, but it's during one of the climaxes.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:28:34

Okay.

Joshua Bish [: 02:28:36

And you can fill it in her voice, even if you will have no idea what she's talking about. But whenever you hear it, you're going to go, oh, this is big.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:28:44

Yeah, this is big. See, I'm gonna have to listen to those before I start reading that way. I just like him waiting for the moment. I love that. All right, well, like I said, it's been wonderful. We've been here for, God, two and a half hours. I feel like. I think, give or.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:29:01

But I hope you come back when you release the next book.

Joshua Bish [: 02:29:04

Oh, more than happy to.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:29:05

Absolutely.

Joshua Bish [: 02:29:10

Vanessa, this has been great.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:29:11

No, thank you. I love that you made the trip down.

Joshua Bish [: 02:29:14

Oh, it's not up.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:29:16

Well, up. Sorry, I. I am not directory directional. I am directionally challenged. There we go. Goodness gracious.

Joshua Bish [: 02:29:23

West Virginia roadmap. Okay. Whenever you're looking at it, the. Yeah.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:29:27

Yes, yes.

Joshua Bish [: 02:29:28

Down here in the wrist.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:29:31

Well, now that I'm not traveling as much for work, like, I just. I'm like, I don't. I'll tell my husband, oh, I was in so and so. He's like, you know that that's nowhere near where you were, cuz, like 360. So he knows where I. That's nowhere near where you. I was like, are you sure? I don't know. I follow gps.

Vanessa Hankins [: 02:29:45

I don't know. I got there and I made it back. That's all that matters. All right, guys, we are out of here.

Announcer [: 02:29:52

Thanks for listening to the Tri State Time Machine. If you have a memory you want Vanessa to talk more about, just send her an email@tstmail.com or post a comment on the Tri State Time Machine Facebook page. Did you like the episode? Be sure to share it with friends and family. It's the only way we can continue this fun work that we do. You can find a link in the show notes that you can use to share it.