The Man, the Myth, and the One Who Won't Stop Talking About Blood: A Conversation with Myself

A completely unbiased interview in which neither party behaves.

For this first blog post, I figured the best way to introduce myself — both of me — was to sit down for a chat. What followed was forty‑five minutes of mutual accusations, one surprisingly sincere moment, and a disagreement about whether velvet counts as a personality trait.

CHRIS

Let’s start simple. Who are you?

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

I am the voice that arrives at two in the morning with a story that absolutely cannot wait. I am the reason you haven’t slept. I am the gothic shadow you constructed to house the parts of your imagination that were too dramatic for polite company.

CHRIS

You’re a pen name.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

I prefer “theatrical extension.”

CHRIS

You’re a pen name with opinions about curtains.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

Velvet curtains. There is a difference.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

Fine. Your turn. Tell the people what you actually do.

CHRIS

I write books. A lot of books, across a lot of genres. Mystery, fantasy, horror‑adjacent comedy, space opera, dark wuxia, vampire fiction — sometimes all in the same week. My ADHD means I don’t really hop between projects so much as I live in all of them simultaneously at three in the morning.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

He is not exaggerating about the three in the morning.

CHRIS

I also have a small test‑reader group — my wife and daughter — who are genuinely the reason the books are any good. They catch the things I miss. They also tell me when something I thought was clever is actually just confusing.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

Your wife once caught a continuity error mid‑chapter and you rewrote the entire scene before sunrise.

CHRIS

She was right.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

She is always right. I’ve noticed this.

CHRIS

Okay. Why do you exist? Honestly.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

Because some stories need a different door to walk through. The TL;DR Vampire Series, the archive work, the darker corners of this world — they needed a name that felt like the space they lived in. You gave me that. I’m the version of you that gets to be a little more theatrical about it.

CHRIS

That was almost a real answer.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

Don’t get used to it.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

Tell them about the family. They should know.

CHRIS

My family is in basically everything I write, even when they don’t know it. My wife shows up in characters — she’s an emotional anchor in stories the same way she is in real life. My daughter does cover art and character illustrations, and she’s the dedicatee of at least one book that made me cry to finish. My son and I play games together and that ended up turning into a whole tribute project. If there’s heart in these stories, it came from them.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

See? That’s why the stories work. Even the ones with emotionally exhausted vampires.

CHRIS

Especially those.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

Any final words for the people who wandered into these archives?

CHRIS

Welcome. Seriously. Whether you came here for the vampires, the detectives, the chaos comedies, or you just clicked something that looked interesting — I’m glad you’re here. There are a lot of stories in this archive and more on the way. None of them are quite like each other, but they all came from the same place.

CRIMSON BLOODTHORNE

A sleep‑deprived man with too many ideas and a very patient family.

CHRIS

Exactly.

Chris Rubio is the author of the TL;DR Vampire Series, the Vale and Calder Mysteries, the Still Miro :) series, Norman Blandman series, and too many other projects to list here without sounding unhinged. He lives in Albuquerque, NM and probably wrote part of this at an unreasonable hour.