About Chet Day: The Long Road to Literary Resurrection

The Early Years (Or: How I Accidentally Became a Horror Writer)

I’ve been a professional writer for over five decades, which sounds impressive until you realize it includes everything from sports columns to natural health articles to the occasional attempt at literary greatness. I’m what you might call a “student of all things interesting or weird”–a description that probably explains both my diverse writing career and my tendency to fall backwards in office chairs when beautiful women walk into the room.

That last part is a true story, by the way. It’s how I met my wife Ellen in graduate school at Colorado State University in 1971. She winked at me after I tipped my chair over. We were married for 47 years until her death in 2019.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Horror Years (1980s: When Paperbacks Ruled the Earth)

Back in the 1980s, during what’s now fondly remembered as the “golden age of paperback horror,” I wrote two novels for Pocket Books: Halo (1987) and The Hacker (1989). Like most paperback originals of that era, they appeared, had their moment on drugstore spinner racks, and then vanished into the great publishing void.

Halo was the story of Billy Halo, an 18-year-old All-State linebacker who also happened to be a psychopath. It wasn’t exactly feel-good fiction, but it was honest about the kind of evil that can hide behind golden boy facades. The book explored institutional corruption, class privilege, and the terrible things people will overlook when the perpetrator looks perfect on paper.

I thought that was it for my horror career. Two books, a brief moment in the sun, move on to the next thing.

Turns out I was wrong.

The Lost Years (1990s-2010s: Life Gets in the Way)

After the horror novels, life took over. I taught high school English for 24 years. Built and ran a successful natural health website (the original chetday.com). I wrote hundreds of articles, as well as other books I haven’t published. I learned about organic internet marketing back when “going viral” meant something entirely different.

Ellen and I lived a good life. Not a bestseller-list life, but a real one filled with work we cared about, places we wanted to explore, and each other’s company.

Sometimes that’s enough.

Then Ellen got sick, and everything changed.

I spent five years after she died in 2019 writing a memoir about our life together. It was the hardest work I ever did, but I don’t regret a minute of the angst and tears it took to find the right words. Ellen always wanted me to write something serious, so I did that for her memory.

The Resurrection (2017-Present: Grady Hendrix Changes Everything)

In 2017, horror scholar and bestselling author Grady Hendrix published Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction. It’s become the definitive guide to that era’s overlooked gems, and for reasons I still don’t fully understand, he featured Halo as one of those forgotten classics worth rediscovering.

Suddenly, horror readers who’d never heard of Chet Day were hunting down paperback copies of a book I figured had been permanently lost to history. They started saying things like “Halo is a stunning novel of institutional evil” and “Chet Day was definitely among the better writers of paperback originals during the 80s horror boom.”

Who knew?

The Comeback (Age 77: Better Late Than Never)

So here I am, a 77-year-old widower living in rural North Carolina, and I’ve decided this is the perfect time to chase the dream I never quite caught: bestseller status before my 80th birthday. Call it my “80-before-80” mission.

I’ve got three acts planned:

The Horror Foundation: Halo and its newly completed prequel Counselor establish my credentials as a serious horror writer with an authentic underground classic.
The Human Chapter: My memoir Ellen: A Memoir of Love, Life, and Grief shows there’s more to this old horror writer than monsters and mayhem. It’s the story of 47 years of marriage and the grief that follows when your best friend and greatest love joins what I call “the Great Beyond.”
The Innovation Experiment: Through my CasaDay Press imprint, I’m pioneering human-AI literary collaboration with books like The October Testimonies (a free .epub download of gothic tales exploring Edgar Allan Poe’s final week) and my extensive series of Lost Pages (imagined historical journals from men and women confronting old and new cultural problems). It’s either the future of literature or an old man’s interesting folly. Maybe both.

The Real Story (What This Is Actually About)

Look, I’m not trying to recapture my youth or pretend I’m something I’m not. I’m a 77-year-old writer who got an unexpected second chance thanks to a horror scholar’s keen eye and readers who still value authentic storytelling over marketing budgets.

I understand organic internet marketing because I built my first online following back when the web was still weird and wonderful. I know what it means to write with an authentic voice because I’ve been doing it professionally since before most social media platforms were born. I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between genuine storytelling and manufactured hype.

Most importantly, I’ve learned that sometimes the best stories are the ones that almost got away. Halo waited 30 years to find its real audience. My grief memoir exists because I needed to write it, not because I thought it would sell. The AI collaboration experiments happen because I’m genuinely curious about the future of creativity.

The Mission Statement

At 77, I don’t have time for anything that isn’t authentic. This website isn’t about building a brand or creating a persona–it’s about sharing work that matters with people who might appreciate it. Whether you’re here because of the Hendrix connection, because you love discovering literary gems, or because you’re curious about an old guy’s quest for bestseller status, you’re welcome.

The 80-before-80 mission isn’t really about bestseller lists, though that would be nice. It’s about proving that great stories can find their audience at any age, that authentic voices still matter in a noisy world, and that sometimes the most interesting literary experiments come from writers who are old enough to take real risks.

Ellen used to say I made her laugh.

If I can do that for readers while also scaring them, moving them, or making them think, then the comeback will have been worth it.

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