Event Details

Saturday night at StoryFest will be a raucous affair. StoryFest favorite Clay McLeod Chapman kicks off the evening at 6:30 pm with a special live edition of his Verso Studios podcast Fearmongers, live on the main stage.

Next, at 7:30 pm, you’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime experience as New York Times best-selling author Josh Malerman (Bird Box, Watching Evil Dead) and his theatrical troupe Wow Town present a theatrical reading of scenes from Malerman’s instant best-seller, Incidents Around the House. Following the presentation, Josh will sit down with best-selling author Gregory Galloway for exclusive talk-back on the production, and more!

Doors open at 6 pm.

Clay McLeod Chapman Presents: Fearmongers… LIVE at StoryFest!

The best StoryFest tradition returns — Fearmongers is back on the main stage! Join Clay and friends for readings, spooky shenanigans, and even a surprise or two.

Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, Kill Your Darling, Stay on the Line, What Kind of Mother, Ghost Eaters, Whisper Down the Lane, The Remaking, and miss corpus; story collections nothing untoward, commencement, and rest area; as well as The Tribe middle-grade series: Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal, and Academic Assassins.

Upcoming books include the short story collection Acquired Taste (September 2025), the YA sci-fi/horror novel Shiny Happy People (November 2025), the novella Bodies of Work (April 2026) and the Harlequin “horrormance” novel Devil Inside (August 2026).

Clay has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and the Shirley Jackson Award.

Quiet Part Loud, a 12-part horror podcast from Jordan Peele/Monkeypaw Productions, written by Chapman and Mac Rogers, is available on Spotify.

Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House: LIVE at StoryFest!

You’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, as New York Times best-selling author Josh Malerman and Wow Town present a theatrical reading of scenes from Malerman’s instant bestseller, Incidents Around the House.

Wow Town mixes narration, props, actors, and a live score from Jim Byrne (multi-instrumentalist), Tessa Stransky (violin), and Chad Stocker (bass). And as Josh always reminds the troupe: “It’s not a play, it’s still a reading. But it’s a lot more than me alone at a podium.”

Stick around after the program for an exclusive talk back with Josh and best-selling author Gregory Galloway.

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Josh Malerman is The New York Times best-selling author of Bird Box, Incidents Around the House, and Watching Evil Dead. He’s also a filmmaker, cartoonist, and one of two singer-songwriters of the Michigan rock band The High Strung, whose song “The Luck You Got” can be heard as the theme song to the Showtime show “Shameless.” He lives with his wife, the artist/musician Allison Laakko, and their gazillion pets.

Wow Town is a theatrical troupe co-founded by Malerman and Laakko. Thus far they’ve primarily done performances of almost all of Malerman’s book launches, performing in chapels (Inspection), gymnasiums (Daphne), theaters, and bars. Laakko is pressing for the troupe to do a play and Malerman envisions a movie starring the entire troupe. Laakko does almost all the props, effects, stage sets, and much more, including acting and singing. The main players are: voice actor/narrator Kristi Billings, magician/actor James Driscoll Hall, actors Jeannine Coughlin and Erin Driscoll Hall, actor/director Lilli Bishop. The theatrical readings are always scored live by Byrne and Stransky, and Byrne has written two albums worth of original songs based on the Malerman books the troupe performs.

Gregory Galloway is the author of the crime novels All We Trust and Just Thieves, as well as the Alex Award-winning As Simple As Snow. His short stories have appeared in the Burning Down the House, Rush Hour, and Taking Aim anthologies. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently resides in northwest Connecticut.