Before deciding to take writing seriously Paul had done many things, printer, caving, the SCA, Brew-master, punk singer, music critic etc. Since then he has appeared in numerous science fiction, and horror magazines and anthologies. Born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, he moved to Appalachia in his 30s . He has three children, two who live in his native Pennsylvania, and one at home. Married to his lovely wife Leslie for twenty years, they live in a fairy tale town in nestled in a valley by a river. Author of over 50 published stories, his Amazon Best Seller debut novel “I Never Eat…Cheesesteak” is available from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and fine stores everywhere.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulLubaczewski
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lubaczewskiearlsonrevpaul/
Web Page: https://lubaczewski.wordpress.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Lubaczewski/e/B01DQAEB1Y/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
I Never Eat….Cheesesteak on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46196262-i-never-eat-cheesesteak
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lubaczewskiearlsonrevpaul/
Web Page: https://lubaczewski.wordpress.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Lubaczewski/e/B01DQAEB1Y/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
I Never Eat….Cheesesteak on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46196262-i-never-eat-cheesesteak
THE FIRST HORROR BOOK I REMEMBER READING
I don’t know if I’d say “book.” When I was a kid,(takes out cane, starts waving it about) we did short stories. My mom would read “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” every Halloween. We also had Poe’s “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” in the house. It might explain why I tend to think of horror as a short story format. The first big ol’ hunk of glossy covered paperback horror I remember reading was “Halloween III” by Dennis Etchison (Jack Martin)
THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING
Dracula (1931) we used to watch it every year at Halloween, my family still watches some version of the Count every year.
THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME
Man, for all the temptation to say something modern, I still do adore Mary Shelley’s original “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus” There is an amazing amount of depth there. Plenty of stuff that has been more viscerally appealing since then, but it’s rare to find one left you thinking more.
THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME
Impossible question, too many genres that all have their top of the food chain. But I’d have to go with “Bride of Frankenstein” here. So many amazing performances, so much beautifully shot stuff in there. The cemetery scenes alone…..
(full disclosure, my one cat is named Elsa The Bride of Kittenstein, she showed up on the street near our house abandoned on Elsa Lanchester’s birthday)
THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME
Could have named a classic like Camus or the like, but I’m going to say Terry Pratchett. To put that much humanity into those books, so much wisdom, and to still be laugh out loud funny.
Critics everywhere are having heart failure, but, whatever, my runner up was going to be Dostoyevsky, and third would have been Poe
THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME
Any of the first run of the Necroscope series, Bob Eggleton’s covers sold that series so hard, they were so beyond what anyone was doing at that exact moment in the mainstream.
THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME
Oh, so many good ones to choose from, but I’m going to have to say the posters for the Giant Claw. Wait! Hear me out here. Those posters are the main reason anyone even watches the thing to this day. It has some of the silliest special effects ever, but those amazing art-deco posters make you give it a shot in spite of yourself. Most films have great source material to work with, they don’t have to try so hard, but whoever did those had to sell a muppet Jim Henson created while drunk on tequila.
THE BEST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN
Well I’d like to think the one I have out right now, “I Never Eat…Cheesesteak” It’s got chills, it’s got lots of jokes (really, lots of them) and it has my home town of Philadelphia PA as the center piece. I moved away long ago, but it’s nice to pay homage to the place. Horror-Comedy is at the same time one of the more popular, and yet still completely underserved sub-genres in the field. I hope I hit my goal, doing to horror what Douglas Adams did to sci fi.
THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN
Well probably have to go shorts here, since that’s mainly what I’m known for. No author is likely to say, “Oh god this one” but I know that my more experimental pieces can leave some people cold. That’s OK, I like to occasionally drop a story you have to think about a lot, and not everybody is looking for that in their horror. So, a story like “Heart of the Town” or “Country Roads” might leave some going, “WTF did I just read? What even happened?” While I dig existential writings, Camus, Sartre, and the new wave of Sci Fi, I’m fully willing to acknowledge that some people open a horror anthology looking for popped eyeballs or their pissed. I write that too, but sometimes you have to write for yourself. As long as a few people get it that’s fine.
THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME
Bedlam (1946) Karloff gives a master class in the genre, and he’s not even the creepiest thing happening in the film. The trial scene is AMAZING
THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME
Weirdly, it’s hard to think of any King as “underrated” but, I really enjoyed Cell. It was quick, concise, good characters, real world modern fears, great pace in the beginning. Shame about the ending they tacked on the film though.
THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME
Brian Lumley. Maybe not when he was appearing in Weirdbook all the time, and the Necroscope series was being produced, but bookstores don’t carry back catalogue and classics the way they used to. Since then he’s been fading in the public eye. But really those Necroscope books were stunners when they dropped, the first three with their James Bond meets Dracula plotting were top of the food chain. Also, what he’s added to Lovecraft lore is endless.
THE BOOK / FILM THAT SCARED ME THE MOST
Well, none that really scare me, not since I was a kid. When I was a kid the opening sequence to “Dracula Prince of Darkness” scared the hell out of me. Now if you want to go, “creeped me out and left me uneasy” that’s easy, “Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer.” That film was revolutionary. John McNaughton knows all the rules of film, all the little things we just assume are going to happen in a film, and he makes sure none of them do, to really devastating effect. Amazing that he never touched the level of that film again in his career.
THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT
Well, there’s a snippet of my next novel in the back of “Cheesesteak” called “Cult of the Gator God” that should be out this winter. I’ve got a short in the punksploitation horror anthology from St. Rooster “Kids of the Black Hole” coming out soon, and I am currently buried in editing. I wrote faster than I edited and I’m trying to get three novels ready to send out. Still writing, but the pace will pick up a lot once that is done. Speaking of which, last answer and, I have editing that needs doing.
I don’t know if I’d say “book.” When I was a kid,(takes out cane, starts waving it about) we did short stories. My mom would read “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” every Halloween. We also had Poe’s “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” in the house. It might explain why I tend to think of horror as a short story format. The first big ol’ hunk of glossy covered paperback horror I remember reading was “Halloween III” by Dennis Etchison (Jack Martin)
THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING
Dracula (1931) we used to watch it every year at Halloween, my family still watches some version of the Count every year.
THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME
Man, for all the temptation to say something modern, I still do adore Mary Shelley’s original “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus” There is an amazing amount of depth there. Plenty of stuff that has been more viscerally appealing since then, but it’s rare to find one left you thinking more.
THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME
Impossible question, too many genres that all have their top of the food chain. But I’d have to go with “Bride of Frankenstein” here. So many amazing performances, so much beautifully shot stuff in there. The cemetery scenes alone…..
(full disclosure, my one cat is named Elsa The Bride of Kittenstein, she showed up on the street near our house abandoned on Elsa Lanchester’s birthday)
THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME
Could have named a classic like Camus or the like, but I’m going to say Terry Pratchett. To put that much humanity into those books, so much wisdom, and to still be laugh out loud funny.
Critics everywhere are having heart failure, but, whatever, my runner up was going to be Dostoyevsky, and third would have been Poe
THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME
Any of the first run of the Necroscope series, Bob Eggleton’s covers sold that series so hard, they were so beyond what anyone was doing at that exact moment in the mainstream.
THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME
Oh, so many good ones to choose from, but I’m going to have to say the posters for the Giant Claw. Wait! Hear me out here. Those posters are the main reason anyone even watches the thing to this day. It has some of the silliest special effects ever, but those amazing art-deco posters make you give it a shot in spite of yourself. Most films have great source material to work with, they don’t have to try so hard, but whoever did those had to sell a muppet Jim Henson created while drunk on tequila.
THE BEST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN
Well I’d like to think the one I have out right now, “I Never Eat…Cheesesteak” It’s got chills, it’s got lots of jokes (really, lots of them) and it has my home town of Philadelphia PA as the center piece. I moved away long ago, but it’s nice to pay homage to the place. Horror-Comedy is at the same time one of the more popular, and yet still completely underserved sub-genres in the field. I hope I hit my goal, doing to horror what Douglas Adams did to sci fi.
THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN
Well probably have to go shorts here, since that’s mainly what I’m known for. No author is likely to say, “Oh god this one” but I know that my more experimental pieces can leave some people cold. That’s OK, I like to occasionally drop a story you have to think about a lot, and not everybody is looking for that in their horror. So, a story like “Heart of the Town” or “Country Roads” might leave some going, “WTF did I just read? What even happened?” While I dig existential writings, Camus, Sartre, and the new wave of Sci Fi, I’m fully willing to acknowledge that some people open a horror anthology looking for popped eyeballs or their pissed. I write that too, but sometimes you have to write for yourself. As long as a few people get it that’s fine.
THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME
Bedlam (1946) Karloff gives a master class in the genre, and he’s not even the creepiest thing happening in the film. The trial scene is AMAZING
THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME
Weirdly, it’s hard to think of any King as “underrated” but, I really enjoyed Cell. It was quick, concise, good characters, real world modern fears, great pace in the beginning. Shame about the ending they tacked on the film though.
THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME
Brian Lumley. Maybe not when he was appearing in Weirdbook all the time, and the Necroscope series was being produced, but bookstores don’t carry back catalogue and classics the way they used to. Since then he’s been fading in the public eye. But really those Necroscope books were stunners when they dropped, the first three with their James Bond meets Dracula plotting were top of the food chain. Also, what he’s added to Lovecraft lore is endless.
THE BOOK / FILM THAT SCARED ME THE MOST
Well, none that really scare me, not since I was a kid. When I was a kid the opening sequence to “Dracula Prince of Darkness” scared the hell out of me. Now if you want to go, “creeped me out and left me uneasy” that’s easy, “Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer.” That film was revolutionary. John McNaughton knows all the rules of film, all the little things we just assume are going to happen in a film, and he makes sure none of them do, to really devastating effect. Amazing that he never touched the level of that film again in his career.
THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT
Well, there’s a snippet of my next novel in the back of “Cheesesteak” called “Cult of the Gator God” that should be out this winter. I’ve got a short in the punksploitation horror anthology from St. Rooster “Kids of the Black Hole” coming out soon, and I am currently buried in editing. I wrote faster than I edited and I’m trying to get three novels ready to send out. Still writing, but the pace will pick up a lot once that is done. Speaking of which, last answer and, I have editing that needs doing.
I NEVER EAT... CHEESESTEAK BY PAUL LUBACZEWSKI
They say life is what happens when you're making other plans. It is also what happens when you need cash to record a demo, but that isn't as catchy in a song, or a meme. Al was coasting through life without a plan or a clue when he was offered a way to make quick cash without doing anything illegal, mainly because killing vampires is not technically against any laws. If he agrees he jump starts his musical career, but on the downside he has to combat the forces of undead evil, including their horrific fashion sense. Will Al survive? Will his punk rocker sister Angie finally dump her loser boyfriend? Will Al's girlfriend come to her senses and dump him? Will Al's gruff partner Abdiel become "woke"? (depends on your definition) Will the citizens of Philadelphia discover the dark festering evil that lurks in their very city?(other than Eagles fans) Will anyone eat an actual cheesesteak? The only way to find out is to read this book, because there will probably never be a Cliff Notes for this one!
