![\"Night](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/NightTImeLogic-web.jpg?resize=830%2C120&ssl=1\")
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\u201cHaunted Florida\u201d, \u201cAuthors from The Twilight Zone\u201d, and \u201cTales from the Dusty Tiger\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Night Time Logic is the part of a story that is felt but not consciously processed. It is also the name of this interview series here at Cemetery Dance<\/a> online and over on my YouTube channel<\/a> where we explore the night time part of stories, the strange and uncanny in horror, dark fiction, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n My short story collections<\/a> are full of the kind of stories that operate with Night Time Logic. My latest is called <\/span>Phantom Constellations: Strange Tales and Ghost Stories<\/span><\/i><\/a> and is out now from Cemetery Dance Publications.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Over this past Halloween weekend (October \/ November 2025) I attended the Spooky Empire Horror Convention in Orlando Florida as part of the Creator\u2019s Track. Author Joshua Ginsberg was one of the panelists on the Ghost Stories panel that I moderated. Over the course of the convention I had a chance to speak with Joshua about his work which including his travel guides to weird and haunted attractions in the state of Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n DANIEL BRAUM: Tell us about your travel and history guide Secret Tampa Bay: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure<\/a><\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n JOSHUA GINSBERG: The local travel guides, specifically Secret Tampa Bay<\/em>, were really where my journey as an author began, and it happened both very gradually, organically, and then suddenly very quickly. <\/span><\/p>\n It was nine years ago this month that my wife, Jen, and I moved to Florida. Prior to that Florida hadn\u2019t even registered as a blip on my personal radar. Gators, theme parks, senior housing, oranges, that was about the extent of what I knew of the state. But we had decided to leave the city of Chicago in search of something different and Jen was adamant that we at least consider the Tampa area. I agreed and to my surprise I absolutely loved it. <\/span><\/p>\n So, we went south, and by that time I had acquired a taste for curious local travel. At the time I was relying on resources like Weird Florida<\/em>, Roadside America<\/a>, and especially Atlas Obscura<\/a>, to which I became a regular contributor. Scouting out weird and wonderous, one-of-a-kind natural and unnatural sites became (and continues to be) a passion. After just a couple years, I came across a publisher, Reedy Press, who was putting out local guides to strange and lesser-known sites, and it turned out to be a perfect match. I\u2019ve written four books for them<\/a> now (Secret Tampa Bay<\/em> in 2020, Tampa Bay Scavenger<\/em> in 2021, Oldest Tampa Bay<\/em> in 2022, and Secret Orlando<\/em> in 2023), and I\u2019m now working on a fifth, Amazing Florida<\/em>, for 2026 which will cover the whole state. This also led to writing a local ghost tour for a trolley company and then two books of Orlando ghost stories for Arcadia\/The History press<\/a>. Though I didn\u2019t realize it at the time, writing about curious places was leading me towards genre and horror fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n Are there any locations and attractions that you\u2019ve come across in your Florida travel writing that you think would be of interest to Cemetery Dance readers?<\/strong><\/p>\n Unquestionably, and far more than I could list here. Florida has a surprisingly rich history when it comes to horror and speculative fiction. Want to see the place that inspired Jeff Vandermeer\u2019s Area X? You\u2019ll find it outside of Tallahassee. Care to swim in the same waters where the original Creature From the Black Lagoon<\/em> movies were filmed? Silver Springs. Itching to meet Robert the Doll, who inspired the whole Child\u2019s Play<\/em> franchise? He\u2019s on display in Fort Martello in Key West — just be sure to ask his permission before you take a picture. While you\u2019re in the Keys you can visit Hemingway\u2019s House (overrun with polydactyl cats) and have a beer in bar with a headstone poking up through its floor. If Cryptids are more your speed, you can learn all about Florida\u2019s uniquely pungent version of sasquatch at the Skunk Ape Research Center. <\/span><\/p>\n Orlando is its own weird world of illusion and home to Ripley\u2019s entertainment, if you can believe it. North of that, through the infamous I-4 Dead Zone, you have the spiritualist town of Cassadega. UFO sightings, witches, lost cemeteries, ghost stories, cults like the Koreshan Unity, the lingering legends of indigenous people, serial killers like Bundy and Wurnos, and many tragic places where massacres took place and ghost towns like Rosewood. And that\u2019s just a short list. Suffice it to say, there\u2019s plenty here to keep a horror enthusiast occupied 365 days a year. Is it any wonder that Stephen King, Stephanie Jensen, Derick Cavignano, Wendy Dalrymple, Doug Ford, Owl Goingback, and a slew of other great horror writers all call Florida home? I suspect not (alright, the weather might have a little something to do with it).<\/span><\/p>\n I know you have an interest in classic genre fiction and writers such as Rod Sterling, Charles Beaumont, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury and many of their contemporaries. Please tell us about some of your favorite authors and how they have inspired and influenced you.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Thanks and yes, I think when it comes to my favorites, you\u2019ve hit the nail on the head — the Cold War era classics I guess you could call them. To those I would add Matthison and Shirley Jackson, but also Italo Calvino, Kafka, Borges, the Beat generation and affiliates, as well as more contemporary authors like Kurt Fawver, Holly Rae Garcia, J.W. Ocker, Elaine Pascale, Gemma Files, Cody Goodfellow, Robbie Dorman, Kelly Link, Pedro Iniguez, Adam Neville, and way too many others to name. Since focusing more on fiction, I\u2019m now constantly filling in gaps and discovering authors I\u2019ve missed along the way. To my wife\u2019s dismay this means that my TBR pile has graduated to Olympic-level tsundoku. <\/span> So how these folks have inspired me and why their work resonates with me is maybe a better and broader discussion. For me at least, most of my work I see as being the product of two specific poles: wonder and grief. There\u2019s a whole lot of variation to that, but if I had to identify the most powerful forces generally acting on me as a writer it\u2019s those. Nostalgia too, though maybe that\u2019s a byproduct of the other two. So, from there it probably makes more sense as to why those authors you mentioned have such a profound impact on me. If there is a writer who captures the joy of childhood wonder than Bradbury, well, I haven\u2019t gotten to him or her yet. As for grief, there\u2019s a lot to choose from — Poe and Ballingrud would be at the very top of that list for sure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I also seem to be drawn to writers and writing that defies or ignores the typical genre categories. Whether it\u2019s horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, poetry, modern mythology or some strange fusion of those. If a friend of mine says to me, \u201chey, I just read this thing and I even can\u2019t figure out how to describe it,\u201d that is almost certainly something I\u2019ll be interested in. Same goes for \u201cspeculative\u201d anything.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This too happened very organically. I had started writing some weird stories and what better setting for some of them than a curio shop? I grew up with stories like “The Monkey\u2019s Paw,” Stephen King\u2019s Needful Things<\/em> and the Friday the 13<\/em><\/span>th<\/span><\/em> television series, so I was already sort of attuned to the idea of magical or cursed objects. The first story I wrote about the Dusty Tiger (my fictional version of my friends\u2019 store Tiger Dust), was “Collected,” which was very much drawn directly from my own past. The piece appeared on the No Sleep Podcast<\/a>, so that encouraged me to see what else might be lurking at the Dusty Tiger. My second piece in that realm was “The Vessel,” which also appeared in an anthology. So after just a couple stories, it occurred to me that maybe there was a whole collection\u2019s worth of stories to be told. I love the idea of short stories being connected around a central idea or narrative, very much the way Bradbury does it with The Illustrated Man<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When I asked the couple that own and operate Tiger Dust what they thought of the idea, they loved it and expanded into publishing to get it out into the world. I had worked previously with the illustrator, Joseph Weide, whose prints are sold at Tiger Dust, so it became a bit of a hyperlocal creative lovefest. We even used a local printer as opposed to KDP.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Part of what makes the goods within a curio shop (real or fictional) so interesting, is that they are not typically mass produced. With that in mind, we decided to make the first printing a signed and numbered limited edition, so each book is truly unique.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s still a little early to say for sure, but the initial response has been far better than I anticipated. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for a larger, second edition printing maybe in the early part of 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n The majority of the stories were written specifically for the book. What was it like writing a series of stories with a shared element, knowing that they would be collected together and meant to be read together? What challenges and opportunities for storytelling showed themselves writing with this directive?<\/strong><\/p>\n The book is essentially composed of three categories of stories — those designed specifically around the Dusty Tiger (like “The Vessel” and “The Ending Machine”), those that were repurposed to fit the theme (such as “Secret Santa” and “Kiss of the Babushka Lady”)<\/span>, and some of the shorter pieces that served as connective tissue between the stories like the online store reviews.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I did spend a good bit of time trying to figure out the right flow of stories. I knew I wanted the first and last ones to be what I thought were my strongest offerings, and alternate between shorter and longer pieces to keep the readers\u2019 interest. I also wanted to make sure that while all of the stories fit the overall concept, each was different in some significant way from all the others, whether that had something to do with the type of story or the narration or a combination thereof. Lastly, since this was my first collection of fiction, my approach was to try and provide a sampler of what I\u2019ve done thus far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In terms of opportunities for storytelling, there were two specific stories that needed the structure or theme to happen. One of those was “No Free Sniffs,” which came to me while I was assembling the collection and allowed me to explore a phobia that I was previously unfamiliar with. And “Radio Nothing” was a foray into cosmic horror. I\u2019d had some rough drafts and ideas for it, but it wasn\u2019t until I connected that story to the Dusty Tiger that it really took on a viable form.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Many of the stories are set into play from objects found in the Dusty Tiger. Cursed film and supernatural objects are a trope or even a sub-genre of horror and speculative fiction. Your story \u201cKiss of the Babushka Lady\u201d centers around a Super-8 tape. How does the story fit into or build on the object tropes?<\/strong><\/p>\n This was a fun rabbit hole of a story for me, not only because it was my first attempt at a found footage story, but also because it was also historical fiction and conspiracy theory fiction around the JFK assassination. The story was actually one that I had written for a found footage anthology open call. It didn\u2019t make the final cut (pun intended), but I\u2019m a big believer in finding ways to cannibalize my work. With a bit of revision, I think it fit quite nicely into the collection. It was also maybe the goriest of the stories, so I know that appeals to some readers. <\/span> And that idea is taken further with the ending, where it seems that the video tape is continuing to record the new people watching it, so it starts to edge into metafiction by creating this second layer to the recording\/story. Pretty sure I was reading Borges at the time. I\u2019m not entirely sure if that adds something new to the trope, but it was certainly something new for me.<\/span><\/p>\n In the story \u201cCurious Notions\u201d there are ideas that \u201cmanifest\u201d and come to life as corporeal beings or things. This is one that I felt positively evoked those old Twilight Zone and other classic horror and genre programs. Tell us about this story. Could it be read perhaps as an analogy for the collection itself?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m so glad to hear that you enjoyed this one — I was a little concerned that maybe it was too goofy, but you\u2019re absolutely right that it goes back to my interesting in metafiction and self reflexive stories. Those series like The Twilight Zone<\/em> and the more comic book-driven Tales from the Crypt<\/em> are never far from my thinking, and both in their own ways have played with related ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n So, yes, the idea of giving birth to these very strange stories that need a place where they can be safe (i.e. the Dusty Tiger) is certainly intended as a reference to the stories in the collection. I also feel like my stories are being stalked a bit by this idea of a devourer \u2013– something that is the antithesis of creation and creativity. I don\u2019t think that particular monstrosity is done with me yet — I expect that it will return again in some form and maybe have a larger, more central role.<\/span><\/p>\n “Curious Notions” isn\u2019t the only story that serves as an analogy for the work — there\u2019s also \u201cBody of Work\u201d which is sort of absurdist\/body horror. That one came directly from reading Kafka, and the idea of someone becoming the story you\u2019re reading is intended on one hand to be laughably odd. There\u2019s another, more serious aspect to it though, which is about what we become and what we leave behind. As a childless man nearing fifty, my \u201cprogeny\u201d at this point are probably going to consist of the stories I create. So, in a very literal sense, one day when I am gone, all that will remain of me will be words on a page. I sure hope they\u2019re good ones worth rereading.<\/span><\/p>\n The story \u201cBurning Inside\u201d starts with a song from the band Ministry. You\u2019ve recently contributed to a tribute anthology for the band Iron Maiden. What is the role of music in your writing and or creative process, if at all?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Music, reading and writing — all things that were once defining aspects of my young life. Things I thought I\u2019d left behind, that I\u2019m now returning to with a renewed appreciation. My wife and I still go to see live music fairly often, and whenever I\u2019m not writing something, I\u2019ve probably got something playing in the background. I think COVID was a big factor in that — while all my friends were learning to make sourdough bread, I was going back and rediscovering bands I\u2019d loved like Bad Religion, the Clash, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Nine Inch Nails, Dead Can Dance, Joy Division, The Cure — lots of eighties and nineties. Also seeking out some newer favorites like Lord Huron and more experimental stuff like Ak’chamel, The Giver of Illness.<\/span><\/p>\n Turns out it was good timing, because now I\u2019m seeing all these calls for music-related stories. I\u2019ve written several now that will be looking for homes, including one called “Bone Machine” based on the song by the Pixies and another one title “Tainted Blood” based on the Blue Oyster Cult song. If I keep it up maybe my next collection will be a \u201cmix tape\u201d theme. <\/span> The more short fiction I read, the more I find other great stories based on or connected to music. There\u2019s your own story, \u201cMusic of the Spheres,\u201d along with Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cThe Music of Erich Zann\u201d and dozens if not hundreds of others.<\/span><\/p>\n Interestingly, the three stories I just mentioned all share a common focus on music as a force that can reshape reality, or keep it from coming apart.<\/span><\/p>\n Tell us about the Iron Maiden book and your story in it.<\/strong><\/p>\n What a fun anthology to be a part of! I figured my story was a bit of a longshot, but I\u2019m so happy that it was included. I\u2019d been working on an idea before the anthology \u2013– a twist on both the search for a missing father and the search for a mother\u2019s killer and finding that they are one and the same. When I saw the call for the Iron Maiden anthology, I started going back through their songs and when I listened to “Wrathchild,” the little lightbulb went off over my head. Once again, a song helped solidify what was little more than a rough draft at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPlaying Dice with the Universe\u201d I think is my favorite of the collection. I could see the Twilight Zone<\/em> and Ray Bradbury influences in it. From the dedication in the book I surmise that there is a personal story behind this one. Could you tell us about the story and who it was dedicated to and why?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, this was a very special piece for me and I would say the most personally important one in the collection. Growing up I was a bit of a loner, which probably isn\u2019t all that surprising. But I did have a few close friends who were similar. We wrote and read and played video games and watched horror movies together. All the typical Gen X outsider stuff. The one I remained closest with was my friend Steven, and it was a little over ten years ago that he died suddenly. That really shook me, and it was the underlying reason why I started out on my personal mission to see if I could recover or rediscover some of that lost childhood wonder that he and I had shared. That was what led me to try and see the place I was living in a new way, and ultimately change where I lived, and start writing again.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, flash forward many years. The youngest of the two sons he left behind was having a Bar Mitzvah. Being the younger or his son, he didn\u2019t have very many memories of his dad, and I wanted to somehow give some of mine to him, but I wasn\u2019t sure how to do it. At the time I was reading a lot of Neil Gaiman and when I read his story “The Wedding Present,” that gave me the answer I needed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I noticed something about the structure of many of the stories. Many of them are something akin to what is sometimes referred to as \u201cidea\u201d stories. I think of idea stories as ones where the focus of the story is not necessarily on a dynamic character who changes during the course of a story or has a full dramatic character arc, rather the story is structured to deliver an idea, a speculative element, or to bring the reader to a revelation, twist, or point of conflict.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Often your stories come to a stopping point which highlights something for the reader. Can you tell us about this recurring structure?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that\u2019s a keen and accurate observation. In the context of the collection, each story is really the story of an object, right? Consequently, some of the stories, like the drabble Tecpatl and “The Ending Machine” exist almost entirely without really needing the human beings in the stories. As I was assembling the collection, I often thought of a line from a book called the Design of Everyday Things<\/em>, which talks about \u201cthe tyranny of objects.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In other cases, the objects have something very specific to convey to the right person, as in both “Playing Dice with the Universe,” and “Betwixt and Between.”<\/span><\/p>\n In still other instances, the objects sort of mete out justice. In “Elfric the Unwise,” Alfred is essentially punished for trying too hard to be something or someone he\u2019s not. The narrator of “Unsafe” pays the price for his obsession with a safe. We\u2019re left with the impression that Jeff in the Vessel will get exactly what he\u2019s hoping for, that working for Brisby will be the last job he ever has, though not exactly in the way he\u2019s expecting.<\/span><\/p>\n Conversely, the story “Burning Inside” is almost entirely character focused and the object is almost incidental to the story, which is part of what makes that story different from the others and hence, why I felt it was important to include.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The story \u201cZeitgeist\u201d has the names or name analogs for classic Twilight Zone<\/em> and science fiction authors. Tell us about the story, those names, and those authors. \u201cZeitgeist\u201d is also a ghost story. Can you tell us about the time travel and relationship to the supernatural you portray in the story?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n “Zeitgeist” (aside from just being a very fun word that literally translates to \u201cTime Spirit\u201d) is also the most sci-fi of the stories in the collection. That\u2019s by design, and the story is intended to be something of a love letter to those early writers. Beaumont sadly did die very young of a condition which caused him to age rapidly. As others have noted, that\u2019s a very Twilight Zone<\/em> kind of condition to befall a Twilight Zone<\/em> writer. So, I wanted to give him a better ending, even if it\u2019s only a fictional one. What if he did get to live out a full life, just not in the same chronological way as the rest of us? That seems better to me, so I tried to edit reality a bit more to my liking. Hey, it\u2019s fiction, so I figured I\u2019m allowed to do that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, it\u2019s a ghost story. Or a time travel story. Both maybe? I\u2019ve thought about that question quite a bit \u2013– the difference between a time traveler who travels past the point of their own death, and a ghost. I think the difference is perspective and continuity. For the time traveler, they are still living their life as one continuous, chronological story. But to anyone else who encounters them, they are alive after having died, hence essentially no different than a ghost.<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever your position on the matter, I imagine that it is the type of question Beaumont and his writer friends would have thought and written about, but that\u2019s just my guess.<\/span><\/p>\n The story \u201cThe Vessel\u201d has a not-so-thinly veiled connection to perhaps the most visible of Florida travel destinations, Disney World. Tell us about this story and its connection to the Dusty Tiger.<\/strong><\/p>\n When it comes to Floridiana and collectible trinkets, it\u2019s tough to outdo the mouse. Disney has been a profoundly transformative force on the state, for both good and ill, and it has brought with it its own world of urban legends, lore, and one-of-a-kind objects. I\u2019ve explored the subject of Walt and the world he built in some of my nonfiction work, but it was just too irresistible not to weave into a story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It also tied into another theme that runs throughout the book, which is the idea of blurring the line between reality and fiction. The ghost of George, for example, is said to haunt the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve written a few other \u201cDalt Brisby\u201d stories with more in the idea stage. I can\u2019t make any promises, but I do think a fun follow up to Tales from the Dusty Tiger<\/em> would be something like \u201cAn Unauthorized Guide to Dalt Brisby World.\u201d Might that happen? Only time will tell\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHORS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Stay connected with Joshua Ginsberg everywhere except TikTok, (although that too could happen at some point.) For now, people can find his books at <\/span>www.secrettampabay.com<\/span><\/a>. He\u2019s on Patreon at <\/span>www.patreon.com\/authorjoshuaginsberg<\/span><\/a>, @authorjoshuaginsberg on Instagram, and Secret Tampa Bay on Facebook.<\/span><\/p>\n Phantom Constellations: Strange Tales and Ghost Stories <\/span><\/i>by Daniel Braum is out now from Cemetery Dance Publications<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Dusty_Tiger_Josh.jpg?resize=306%2C311&ssl=1\")
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\n<\/span>In terms of how various authors have influenced me, I could talk at great lengths about some of the specific ways that they have changed my writing. For instance, how Clive Barker has mastered making the absurd and impossible sound plausible, or how Aickman uses \u201chinged\u201d language and phrases to create multiple interpretations of his stories, or the way that Grady Hendrix applies the combination\/contrast of horror and comedy to amplify the impact of both, what can be gleaned from M.R. James as far as what not to reveal, or what John Langan\u2019s writing can teach about \u201cfinding the third ending,\u201d but I think to go on in this vein gets pretty wonky and dull for anyone other than us writers.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"cover](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Dusty_Tiger_front_cover_only.jpg?resize=238%2C350&ssl=1\")
Your first collection of short stories is Tales From the Dusty Tiger<\/em> published this year (2025) from Too Many Tentacles Press out of Tampa Bay, Florida. All of the stories share a connection to a fictional oddities and curiosities shop called the Dusty Tiger and the strange and nostalgic objects that can be found there. Please tell us about this shop, the Dusty Tiger, your connection to its real life counterpart, and how the book project came to be.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>To add to the weirdness of the story, I used present tense (and a bit of future tense at the end), which I felt best corresponded to the experience of watching a video. Things are made to feel like they are happening in \u201creal time.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>Sometimes listening to a song isn\u2019t the focus of a story, but it ends up being what pulls one together. That was the case with my liminal-themed story \u201cA Room Where the Light Won\u2019t Find You,\u201d which was in the last issue of Spooky Magazine<\/em>. The story is about a photographer who can make his subjects disappear, and it was that line from a Tears for Fears song which solidified the idea for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n