Club X: Vampire in the Closet follows four boys attending an elite all-boys Catholic school in Thailand who try to uncover the school’s dark secrets while figuring out their own sexual identities. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

Long story but here goes…I had a friend, a former executive of The Nation TV, a major media outlet in Thailand. He said to me, “Can you think of a Thai series I could sell to a Western platform?” I researched all the Thai TV series that were available on Netflix and other internationally available sites, and it was clear that the most popular subject matter, the one that Western felt to be “Thai” in feel, by far, were stories known as “BL”…tales of high school romances between boys. Generally rather innocent. In Asia, the main audience for these stories is actually young women. European and American TV are only just starting to toy with this genre (notably shows like the British Heartstopper for instance) but in Asia it is a huge genre, dominating the young adult market. I told my friend that this wasn’t a genre I was that familiar with. But, if I could combine the milieu with a storyline kind of like what I am more known for…that is horror or fantasy…perhaps, I could create a hybrid that might be quite fresh. So, I basically grafted the American “boys discover the dark secrets of their school” genre on top of the “BL” genre, and it led to very strange and often quite humorous places. And I started to create the pilot for this putative series.

Now, Amazon Vella was being born at that very time. So, I thought, as a serial format, it could be a way of testing out the story on people who like to read stories with cliffhangers. This is how the novel came about. At first, no one really noticed it, but after a few months, some of my regular book readers started to pick up on the series, and it was briefly one of the more highly-rated series on Vella, enough that I was able to use it to find people to invest in an independent production of the live-action version. So…it happened all at once, and we found ourselves shooting a series in various converted offices and people’s houses while I started writing Book II of Club X. Well, the series is in post-production and on the verge of appearing on some web TV platforms.

So, this is how this rather unusual setup came into being.

In a lot of contemporary coming-of-age fiction novels, authors often add their own life experiences to the story. Are there any bits of you in this story?

Yes and no. I did go to an elite boarding school but in England. I was also briefly in a Catholic school in Thailand but not a boarding school. As the director of a youth orchestra program, I’m often surrounded by people in this age bracket and able to observe how they talk and think at close hand. I’ve raised someone with Asperger’s, and my adopted son had many gender issues. All the characters are, in fact, inspired by real people.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The genre hands you a set of readymade characters — you can see this in everything from “IT” to “Stranger Things.” The coming-of-age trope says you must have four boys: a cute one, a tough one, a fat one, and a geek. You must have a girl that they all like because she plays their games, but will normally end up with the cute one. The tough one is usually also vulnerable. The cute one is often a writer, dreamer, a thinking man, and often a stand-in for the author himself. So, when I moved the milieu to a Thai-style BL milieu, the four compulsory boys underwent transformation. The main kid, the thinking one suffers from Asperger Syndrome. His best friend is a child prodigy. The kid who is usually presented as “fat” has a different social “issue” – he’s gender fluid, but he’s completely ok with it and so are all his friends. The “geek” becomes the kid with strange paranormal powers. So, there are many themes of identity and selfhood that are common to kids everywhere but are given a new twist because of the cultural setting. Interestingly, the original book and serial are written in English, but I had to write the screenplay in Thai (a first for me although I am bicultural.)

I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?

The second book, Zombie in the Fridge is already out. I’m working on a third, the title unsure, but I might go with Banshee in the Bathtub.

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