We spent this week chatting with Daniel Kraus on his author board about his newest book, Scowler! Daniel's been a good sport and chatting with you Buzzers about Scowler, writing realistic-horror-fiction, father-son relationships, and more!

Here's what we learned about Daniel:

• The location of the Burke family farm is modeled after Daniel's grandparents farm
• Daniel finds traditional good-versus-bad stories boring and thinks it's more interesting to explore what terrible things ordinary people are capable of
• Scowler was specifically set in August 1981, because that's when a meteor shower fell in Southeastern Iowa
• Daniel chose to write Scowler in third-person because it helped switch POVs between different characters
• Daniel grew up in a small town in Iowa 
• For Scowler, Daniel interviewed a psychiatrist, a seamstress, and a conservationist
• Daniel's always been attracted to being scared, hanging up posters of Freddy and Jason
• Daniel's favorite snack to eat when writing is saltines
• Daniel was inspired to write Scowler partially by a dream he had in 8th grade, and partially by the thought of imaginary friends coming to life
• The strangest place Daniel wrote a book was in a hidden atrium inside his old high school, where he hid out for a week to get some work done. The students never even knew
• Daniel wrote a book a few years ago that he intends to never publish because it's horrifying
• Scowler is realistic fiction, but it's up to the reader to discuss what's a hallucination and what's real
• Daniel considers himself a realistic fiction writer - he just writes a lot of horrific situations and scenarios playing out in reality
• The first aspect of Scowler that came to Daniel was the setting of the book - an isolated farm in Iowa
• Scowler takes place over two days
• The character of Wise Jesus was inspired by the creepy Jesus figurine from the Carrie movie http://i.imgur.com/TFPu1.png
• Daniel's favorite father-son relationship is the one in the Monstrumologist books by Rick Yancey
• Daniel absolutely hates getting blood drawn
• If Daniel was caught by Freddy Kreuger, he'd probably wake up in a hospital bed with lots of tubes
• Some of Daniel's favorite Stephen King book-to-tv/movie adaptations: Children of the Corn, the Dead Zone, Pet Sematary, The Shining, Thinner
• Cults creep Daniel out

That's just a little of what we learned about Daniel! To read through the rest of his responses, visit his board here! If you're curious about Scowler, check out BuzzGuy's review here! Daniel also wrote a guest post about the role of meteors in Scowler and we rounded up our favorite Buzzer Highlights for Author Activity 11 Hours Til Impact!

Here's what's going on next week:

Author Jane Nickerson is visiting to chat about her new book,

Authors Daniel Kraus, Elsie Chapman, and Tim Tharp are going to be participating in an author tweet chat on March 14th from 7-8pm ET! We're going to give away ARCs so tune in at the #RHKidsChat and follow our authors and us at: @DanielDKraus, @ElsieChapman @TimTharp1 @Randombuzzers and @Randomhousekids!