In 1999 Darryl Sloan wrote a story called "Terror on Tarthlogue Road," featuring several real-life teenage friends in dire straits. It was purely a novelty piece, but when one of the friends decided to read the whole story aloud to the others one evening, something special happened. He read at a fast pace, and even at that, the story was long enough to keep him going for three quarters of an hour. During this time, every mouth in the room was silent, every ear attentive, from the first line to the last. In light of the notoriously short attention spans of teenagers, what Darryl was witnessing was exciting to behold. He thought, "You're onto something here, Sloan."

Since then, Darryl has has made six low or no-budget films and has two self-published novels under his belt: Ulterior, which is set in Clounagh Junior High School where he works, and Chion.

Darryl lives in Portadown, Northern Ireland, a town infamous across the globe as the epicenter of the province's volatile politics. Despite the constant tension between the Protestant and Catholic communities, Darryl thinks it's actually a pretty nice place to live.

Please join Darryl and Writing Show guest host Mick Halpin for a fascinating talk about filmmaking, writing, and self-publishing, including:

* The last time he was really really scared

* How he started making movies

* Why he likes writing about the end of the world

* Why he's glad he didn't use print on demand for his self-published book, Ulterior

* Why he set one of his books at the school where he teaches

* Why he declined to publish his own books rather than go with a self-publishing company

* How he got his book into stores

* Why he likes selling his books on eBay

* What makes a good first chapter

* Why he's loath to podcast his novels.