Alyssa VanPelt-Cathcart, Staff Writer
On Monday, Apr. 28, SUNY Oneonta’s New Critics, New Writers invited author Sam Rebelein to speak at the English Undergrad Conference. The English Undergrad Conference has been a semester-long project under the guidance of Dr. Suzanne Black and the support of the SUNY Oneonta English Department.
Sam Rebelein, as per his introduction, is a gamer, dog dad, and writer of weird fiction. He currently works as a professional tutor at Dutchess Community College in their writing center. Rebelein shared a little bit of his academic history too, revealing his time at Vassar College before attending Goddard College in Vermont.
His debut novel Edenville: A Novel was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and won a Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel. Edenville, although it begins with the horror author Cam as its focus, quickly shifts to his girlfriend, Quinn, to lead the narrative. Rebelein spoke on how his characters have aspects of himself in them. He explained that Cam is the brooding, narcissist who wonders why he hasn’t made it big, but then hops on his XBOX to play Skyrim, parallel to an actual moment when Rebelein wondered why he had not made it big before hopping on his console to play the Witcher.
The next book discussed was The Poorly Made and Other Things, a collection of interconnected short stories which was originally written before Edenville. The Poorly Made and Other Things was inspired by the Hudson Valley area. Rebelein said there are so many historical monuments and ancestral grounds that it feels haunted. The hero of this story will be the protagonist in his next novel, Galloway’s Gospel, coming out this fall.
Rebelein read a little of his soon-to-be published work, Meatship, that evening. This novel follows the story of a captain haunted by guilt and the ghost of her father after their space vessel had broken down.
During the event, Rebelein explained how he believes more modern horror is actually much more in depth than originally thought. He gave an example of the film The Babadook, which is a manifestation of the main character’s fear of being a bad mother and the grief of losing her husband.
Through his career experience and stirring readings, Rebelein left his audience intrigued by the world of literature at another New Critics, New Writers event yet again. Thank you for coming to our school, Rebelein!
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