The Video Palace Universe is a storyworld/media horror franchise created by Nick Braccia and me to give us the opportunity to tell a story across multiple forms of media, earning fans and having fun telling stories with a variety of creative collaborators along the way.
We released the first story in the Video Palace universe as a podcast in October 2018, via AMC Network’s horror streaming service Shudder. Nick and I created and wrote the story, then brought in longtime collaborators Ben Rock to co-write and direct, and Bob DeRosa to co-write. Upon release, we received a lot of fantastic feedback from horror lovers, earning a collective 5-star rating in the Apple Podcasts store with over 1000 reviews.
The positive response to the podcast spurred us to try our hand at a horror anthology based on the Video Palace storyworld. We developed the concept of a horror anthology, written and compiled by a fictional character, Dr. Maynard Wills, who exists in the Video Palace universe, with contributions from great writers that Nick and I would pull together. We presented the idea to Tiller Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, and to our great surprise (and gratitude) they loved the idea and agreed to publish the book, which is officially released on October 13, 2020.
Where will Video Palace go next? Right now we don’t know, but if the book makes the fans happy (early reviews on Goodreads are very positive), we’ll continue spinning stories and inviting more friends and collaborators to join us for the ride.
