Director’s Notes: 233 - Citizen Spotlight: The Vampire of Lombardi Street

(TW: brief mention of JK Rowling and her stupid shit)

I believe that artists tell on themselves. It’s not always obvious to the audience, but when I read my own work or the work of friends I know well, I can often see their lives on display in the story. Sometimes it’s super obvious. For instance, I love sports and I’m super afraid of spiders, so if you see references to either in a Night Vale episode, you can win some money by betting that I wrote that one.

Artists can tell on themselves in darker ways, of course. Long before JK Rowling became the Billionaire Voice of Transphobic Bullshittery, she was writing characters of color with absolutely bonkers names. Asian people pointing out “Cho Chang,” and black people pointing out “Kingsley Shacklebolt” were alerting white people to this, and white people weren’t listening closely enough, and thus her thoughts on trans people came as a surprise to some.

But mostly I think artists could afford to spend some time with their own work trying to understand why they write what they write, not from a career point of view, but from a deeply moral an spiritual one. 

I find my own writing to be pretty easy to psycho-analyze (for the obvious reason that I've known myself longer than I've known anyone else). And it's been fascinating (and a tad upsetting) over the years to spend time looking into my own work. 

I started writing the novel You Feel It Just Below the Ribs (with my Within the Wires co-writer, Janina Matthewson) during a really hard falling out with a family member. I found myself questioning why I even bother talking to my family at all. (I’m in my late 40s, yet I still occasionally behave like a petulant teen.)

And suddenly here’s this novel about the end of a cataclysmic “Reckoning” that literally decimates the Earth’s population, and in the rebuilding, families become illegal, as children are raised by the world government, and their memories of mothers and fathers are erased.

In the very first Welcome to Night Vale novel, Diane Crayton found herself caught up in an exciting (and frightening) adventure out of nowhere. It wasn’t something she sought out, it just happened to her in a whirlwind. But she finds a dear friend in the process, and they have to make it through it together. I started writing that with Joseph in late 2013 just as I was quitting my very stable 9-5 job (with benefits) to work on Night Vale full time with Joseph. I had never been more scared of a job opportunity in my life. 

I bring all this up, because in writing this episode about "The Vampire of Lombardi Street," I realized it was entirely about me: growing old, separating from a longtime partner, trying to stand in oneself, and being a tad afraid of the world. Please do not feel bad for me when I say this. I think growing old, when you spell it all out, sounds very sad. But in all honesty, it’s just how it is. And every person reading this above 50 is probably saying wait till you get to [THEIR AGE]. (Plus, growing old has its perks, like having a body that doesn't like to wake up after 7am, even if you went to bed at 1:30am!)

As I was re-reading this script before handing it off to Joseph, I nearly chucked it and started over with something new, not necessarily because it was too personal a story, but because it was such a thinly veiled metaphor for my own life right now. I don’t like thinly veiled metaphors. But I also think it’s a very good episode, and I don't think it will feel like a thinly veiled episode to those who don't know me (or maybe not even to those who do know me). It’s an episode about growing older, and that is hopefully of universal interest to us all.

Jeffrey Cranor
September 4, 2023