Flyleaf Books keeps the spirit of Halloween alive with a visit from 'Night Vale' creator

Halloween won’t be over for Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill after Wednesday. The thrills and chills of spooky season will continue at the bookstore with a discussion of a fast-paced, addictive thriller about a truck driver who searches across America to find her wife, whom she thought was dead.

New York Times bestselling author and co-creator of podcast “Welcome to Night Vale” Joseph Fink will discuss his new novel adaptation of the thriller podcast “Alice Isn’t Dead” at Flyleaf Books Thursday at 7 p.m.

The novel follows the life of Keisha Taylor, who takes up a job as a long-haul truck driver to begin searching for Alice, her missing wife. Alice disappeared, and after months of searching, Taylor presumed she was dead and held a funeral.

However, Taylor started seeing her wife in the background of news stories reporting on every major tragedy in the country. So in her cross-country search to find Alice, Taylor discovers secret deals and buried crimes in forgotten American history, a serial killer who targets her and a conspiracy involving the national highway system.

Fink’s visit to Flyleaf Books is just one stop on the 18-city book tour across the country, which officially starts on Oct. 30 in New York. 

Fink visited Flyleaf Books on multiple occasions over the past few years to discuss the novel adaptation of  “Welcome to Night Vale” and “It Devours! A Welcome to Night Vale Novel” with co-creator Jeffrey Cranor. 

Jamie Fiocco, owner and general manager of Flyleaf Books, said she enjoys the atmosphere that attendees bring to events with Fink.

"I love this crowd, and I love his fans because they often come dressed up and have great questions for Fink,” Fiocco said. “It's just a slightly different crowd from what we see at our literary events — not that this isn't literary, but it has another genre intertwined with it — and so I love seeing the fans for Night Vale and for Fink."

Amanda Ibarra, events manager at Flyleaf Books, said she is seeing a cross-pollination of the podcast world with book narrative, and the differences in the podcast and novel genres will be a point of conversation during the event. 

"I think so much of the experience is how people get to interact with the author,” Ibarra said. “Being able to see these two people have an honest conversation about their experiences with podcasts and books can be so personal."

Fink said Keisha Taylor has anxiety similar to his own in a note to readers included in a press release written by Heather Drucker, director of publicity at HarperCollins. Fink also said incorporating anxiety in his writing has lessened his own anxiety. 

“Writing horror is therapeutic, in the same way that reading horror is therapeutic: it provides a harmless way to consider your darkest and bleakest thoughts, dragging those anxieties into the light and, in doing so, at least partially disarming them,” Fink said in the note.

Fiocco said being able to foster connections between authors and readers at Flyleaf Books allows consumers of media an opportunity to meet the person behind the content.

"This is what independent bookstores do well,” Fiocco said. “They bring authors and readers together. It gives people an opportunity to hear what the author has to say and allows them to ask questions of someone they haven't met in person before and allows people to make up their own minds about how they feel about an issue or a writer."

arts@dailytarheel.com