Surviving the Summit Conference - Book Tour and Giveaway

​Everyone can achieve success through the Summit Conference.
They just need to follow one rule:
There’s no escape.

Surviving the Summit Conference
by Jon Kaczka
Genre: Horror

Everyone can achieve success through the Summit Conference. They just need to follow one rule: There’s no escape.

In the luxurious and prestigious Beburoa Hotel, the Summit Conference promises to help attendees achieve their dreams.

Meet five unlikely individuals who have come to the conference. An Asian American single mom with a talent for social media hopes to launch a corporate marketing career. An unemployed dad is determined use his new MBA to leave behind his impoverished upbringing in a West Virginia trailer park. And a trio of influencers, including a fake televangelist, a thrill-seeking rock climber, and a laid-back stoner, accidentally stumble into the conference.

Little do they know, the conference is a trap set by the enigmatic Chairman, Abigor, to manipulate and exploit them. As Abigor's deadly intentions come to light, the attendees must confront their deepest fears and fight for their survival.

Don't miss out on this heart-pumping and suspenseful read.

Find out who will survive the Summit Conference from hell.
 
 
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​

​“Alright, I can’t take this anymore,” Bob said. “I played their stupid game for long enough. We’ve been trapped in this hotel for too fucking many days.”
“This is only our second day here,” Skinny interjected.
Bob ignored Skinny and talked over him. “And we can’t seem to find a door to get out. I’m going to do what I should have done when we first arrived. I’m going to bust out of here, Big Bob Style! That’s what they really want to watch. It was the whole point of trying to spook us with the ridiculous rule book. That’s why they brought me here. It will be my greatest urban climbing exploit since I climbed Landmark 81 in Ho Chi Minh City.”
“What the hell is Big Bob style?” Fatty said. “I’ve literally never heard you say that phrase before.”
“Follow me if you want to find out,” Bob said.
Fatty and Skinny followed Bob back to his hotel room. Bob checked his parachute and secured it onto his back. He buckled a chalk bag around his waist and changed into rock climbing shoes. Last, he secured a GoPro onto his head.
“I’m going to climb to the top of the hotel and then parachute off. I connected the GoPro to my iPad.” Bob pulled his iPad from a bag and tossed it to Skinny. “Once I touch down outside, the camera crews will come out of hiding and greet us. I bet they have a celebrity host, too.”
“Hey, man,” Skinny said, “I don’t know if this is a good idea. I don’t think we’re on a prank show. Something isn’t right. If you die in the Matrix, you die in real life too, and shit.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Fatty said. “Don’t climb up. Climb down. And for God’s sake, be careful. You’ll probably become another ghost trapped at the hotel if you die here. It’s like Jesus said: The only thing we have to fear is ghosts.”
“Fuck that. Ghosts aren’t real. Neither is God. Neither is the Matrix, even though it was a badass movie.” Bob opened the curtain in his room, revealing the darkness outside. He grabbed a lamp, smashed the glass window, and climbed onto the ledge. “I’ll see you fellas soon.”
Bob was greeted on the hotel’s exterior by a relief sculpture of demons eating people.
The little glutton is gobbling them down by the fistful. This is like a fucked-up Garfield cartoon.
Bob looked up and noticed the ledge jutting out, which blocked his view of Abigor’s statue on top.
I should climb up there and pull Abigor’s eyes from his head. If this doesn’t work, I’m going to find that old bastard and shove his scepter up his ass until the producers let us out.
He looked down at the ledge he was standing on and studied it. The relief sculpture went halfway up to the next ledge. He grabbed a demon’s horns and tried to shake it, but it didn’t budge.
I could climb the relief—the features seem sturdy enough.
 Bob walked along the ledge, and halfway to the other side of the building, a small bronze demon took up the width of the ledge. He grabbed and tried to shake it, but it was secure. The climber leaned out and tried to peek at the ledge over him, and he could see a bump.
I bet that’s another demon statue.
He stood on the tips of his toes and tried to grab directly overhead but couldn’t reach the next ledge.
I’m pretty sure I can catch it if I jump.
Bob looked down into the darkness below. Every direction was nothing but a black void. Only the building was visible, illuminated by lights from hotel windows.
Well, no time like the present.
The climber jumped up and away from the building to get a clear view of the ledge above him. He spotted the demon and reached for it with both hands.
“Holy fucking shit!” Skinny shouted from the hotel room window.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Fatty exclaimed. “Don’t die yet! It’s only been a minute!”
​

​Jon Kaczka is the author of Surviving the Summit Conference.
He lives in Maryland with his wife and daughter.
 
Website * Amazon * Goodreads
​

How to find time to write as a parent?
 
It can be tough to find time to write as a working parent. I think most parents who write tend to get up early and write before their kids wake up. But I’m not an early bird. I’m a night owl.
 
I found that most days I’d have 30-45 minutes to myself at night before bed. I started using that time for writing. And then on occasion, I’d find longer chunks of time to write. The key for me was to write as often as I could. I was writing three to four days a week on average, but I’d sometimes have longer streaks. I once managed to write twenty days in a row. I thought that was pretty good.
 
Do you have a favorite movie?
 
American Psycho is my favorite movie. I don’t think a movie adaptation of a novel needs to shoot each scene exactly as written in the book. In many cases, the best features of a novel are unfilmable. Even though the film American Psycho changed several details from the book, I think they did an amazing job of capturing the essence of the story and the characters.
 
Which of your novels can you imagine made into a movie?
 
Surviving the Summit Conference would be a great low-budget movie. The majority of the story takes place inside a hotel, so it could be filmed in one location. Some characters could be cut out or consolidated to allow for a smaller cast. And the supernatural parts of the story could be reimagined in a way that would require minimal visual effects without losing the essence of the story.
 
What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?
 
A literary pilgrimage I went on is the Stephen King tour in Bangor, Maine. I had a great tour guide through this company called SK Tours of Maine. It was incredible to see the places around the town that served as the inspiration to many of his books. I even had the opportunity to sit on the bench where he wrote It!
 
One day, I’d like to go to Dublin to do a James Joyce tour.
 
I heard there’s a Dostoevsky Experience that starts off with mock execution before you get sentenced to hard labor in Siberia. I think I’ll pass on that.
 
What inspired you to write this book?
 
I used to go to a lot of conferences for work, and I didn’t like it. While I don’t mind traveling for vacation, I realized I don’t like traveling for work. Also, I heard some stupid stuff at these conferences. Usually, 90% of the conference was focused on professional development, but 10% of the conference was a circle jerk. The exact ratio varies, depending on the conference, but there’s always a chunk of time devoted to people patting themselves on the back and saying how smart they are. Eventually, I started to imagine being trapped at a never-ending conference as a type of torture. And of course, the conference in Surviving the Summit Conference is 99% circle jerk.
 
I’m the kind of person who has an overactive mind, but that doesn’t mean I’m naturally productive. When I let my mind wander, I tend to overthink every aspect of my life and make myself miserable. But it can be fun to focus my attention on imaginary problems. Like, how can I draw from my own life and experiences to make an awful conference that will make fictional characters miserable? Writing Surviving the Summit Conference was a fun way to externalize my anxiety. It was strangely cathartic to write about fictional characters getting brutally murdered.
 
I spent a lot of time writing while on business trips. I wrote on airplanes. I’d go to a conference during the day, and then in the evening, when other people are at a reception, I’d sit in my hotel room and write my book. Parts of the book are inspired by stupid things I heard people say at conferences. Parts of the scenery were inspired by my surroundings. There’s at least one description of a carpet that was simply me describing the carpet in my hotel room as I typed.
  
What can we expect from you in the future?
 
I’m writing a cozy murder mystery. It’s such an abrupt departure from a horror novel, but Surviving the Summit Conference was pretty intense at times. I wanted to switch to something lighthearted with minimal violence and only PG-13 cursing.
 
Lately, I’ve been making up bedtime stories for my daughter. She told me I need to turn them into a book. I told her I will, but I’m not sure yet if it’s something I would want to publish or a personalized gift I’d make just for her. Time will tell.
  
How did you come up with the concept and characters for the book?
 
Lew and Hannah started out as being loosely based on myself. I’m a mixed race person. Lew is of Polish heritage, and as you can guess from my last name, so am I. Much like me, Hannah is of Thai heritage, but speaks no Thai, and has a Japanese spouse. However, I didn’t want any of the characters to be too much like me, so I changed many aspects of their lives. They both have much more tragic backstories than me. My own life is pretty boring. It was fun to create rules for how I approached writing their characters. For example, in all of Lew’s chapters, he references old school hip hop, often slipping the title of a song into his dialogue. In all of Hannah’s chapters, she mentions being vegan. On the surface, Lew and Hannah are driven by their desire to care for their respective children, but for both characters, there’s much more going on at a deeper level. They’re the underdogs you want to root for.
 
Damien was the name of one of the priests in The Exorcist. He was a devout Catholic who lived a selfless life. The Damien in my story, on the other hand, is a phony priest who misquotes Jesus. At the start, I positioned him to become an unlikely hero.
 
Bob is a rock climber. I’ve been climbing off and on for the past ten years. I’m not a good climber. It’s just a hobby, and I haven’t climbed for months. But I drew on my knowledge of climbing to write a rock climber who is a self-absorbed narcissist. If Bob were a real person, he would be one of the best rock climbers in the world. Because of these characteristics, I tried to position him as a traditional masculine hero. His chapters also feature a unique POV.
 
Frank is the comedic relief. I think stoners are funny.
 
Abigor is the ruler of the Summit Conference. He’s the out-of-touch chief executive that has great power, but behaves in an antiquated way. He demands that the conference attendees worship him. Abigor’s unchecked ego is almost as bad as Elon Musk’s.
 
The Summit Conference is a surreal event that’s almost like a character itself. It’s my way of poking fun at the corporate conferences and all the gobbledegook they use.
 
 
Where did you come up with the names in the story?

As a fan of Dostoevsky, I included a lot of symbolism in Surviving the Summit Conference. All of the characters’ names give a hint as to who they are, give hints about how their story will turn out, or serve as a red herring for the reader. I recommend not researching the character names in advance, unless you want spoilers.
  
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
 
I hate when I’m reading a book and I can guess how it will end after the first few pages. I tried to come up with some twists and turns that will keep readers guessing about what will happen next. However, I included clues to point people in the right direction, as well as misdirection to throw people off. I’m sure there are some people who will figure out the mystery early, and that’s okay with me. I gave the book the kind of ending that will make people want to go back and reread it and notice all sorts of things they may have missed the first time around. I want people to say, “Kaczka set this up masterfully. It all makes sense now! How did I miss this?”
 
I really like the horror comedy genre, and I feel extremely lucky to consider this book my contribution to that body of work.
 
Surviving the Summit Conference was also a way for me to combine my eclectic interests and create the kind of book I always wanted to read but could never find. In how many other novels can you find references to Ulysses, The Inferno, The Exorcist, The Shining, Evil Dead, and that time when the Ol’ Dirty Bastard rushed the stage at The 1998 Grammy Awards to say Wu-Tang should have won Rap Album of the Year instead of Diddy? And of course, the ODB was right. Knowing what we know about Diddy in 2024, there’s no way anyone would give Diddy an award over Wu-Tang today. 
 
Who designed your book covers?
 
I’m very fortunate to have some very good friends in my life. A buddy of mine from college is a professional graphic designer. I tried to hire him to create the cover. He agreed to make one, but he refused payment because “I can’t afford him!” He wouldn’t even let me list his name in the credits because he said he doesn’t have the time to take on more clients. LOL!
 
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
 
Surviving the Summit Conference includes a list of references at the end, which is unusual for a novel. I realized that list should have been much longer. If I do another edition later, I’ll try to have a more comprehensive list. A wise man once said, books are made out of other books.
 
I’d also like to create a special edition where the book is printed on rolling paper.
 
If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?
 
I wrote the book with Bruce Campbell in mind as Abigor. I’m pretty sure he’s retired now, so I don’t think that could happen. I imagined the story in my mind as a comedic horror, with over the top acting and comical amounts of blood, like Evil Dead 2.
 
Nick Cage would also do an amazing job as Abigor. He played a very creepy villain in Longlegs. I’m a fan of his unpredictable approach to acting.
 
Jim Carey is someone else who could put up an amazing performance as Abigor. Now that I think about it, I’d like to see the entire cast of In Living Color reunite to act in this movie. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Marlon Wayans in a movie, and I think he’s due for a comeback.
 
I’ve never seen a Thai actress in an American movie. Casting a Thai actress to play Hannah might be my only demand if I let a movie studio adapt the novel.
 
Anything specific you want to tell your readers?
 
If you’re a fan of horror and you’ve attended a professional conference, Surviving the Summit Conference is the book for you. The violence gets pretty intense, so the book isn’t for the squeamish. Be sure you read the content warning at the beginning before you proceed with reading the book.
 
From the beginning, I tried to make it obvious that something horrible will happen to every character, but the specific horrors they face will vary. I hope readers find the characters interesting and become invested in finding out who will survive the Summit Conference.
 
How did you come up with name of this book?
 
Surviving the Summit Conference isn’t the original title. For the first few drafts, the book was called something else. When I finally finished, I Googled the name of my title and I found out a movie was being released later that month with the same name and a different plot.
 
Additionally, when I started writing, I had picked a different name for the conference. It was the dumbest name for a conference that I could come up with, and I was convinced nobody would ever use it for a real conference. However, I Googled the name when I was finished writing, and I found out there were three different conferences that were using that name.
 
I eventually came up with the name Summit Conference, and when I shared the name with a friend, she suggested Surviving the Summit Conference as the title for the book. I liked it, and it stuck.
 
What is your favorite part of this book and why?
 
My favorite part of the book is the cover because I had the most amazing cover designer.
 
My favorite part of the story was how I played with different points of view. There are a few events that you get to experience as different characters, and I had fun showing how the characters interpreted those events in a different way. I even wrote one chapter in the style of The Iliad.
 
My favorite event in the book is the human sacrifice ceremony. The decapitation scene is a close second.
 
If you could spend time with a character from your book whom would it be? And what would you do during that day?
 
Every character in the book is awful. I would never want to spend five minutes with any of them.
 
Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?
 
None of the characters are based on real people, but some aspects of them are inspired by real people. For example, I have a daughter, so nearly every character in the book also has a daughter.
 
The book places people with diverse backstories in a deadly setting. Abigor gives each of the new conference attendees an ultimatum, and they all have different reactions. In Surviving the Summit Conference, I explore how characters with different motivations will respond to the same situation differently.
 
What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book?
 
Before I start writing, I don’t do any research. However, I do a lot of research as I go. I meticulously researched so many aspects of the book. Details, such as descriptions of clothing and architecture, character names, and slang terms, are the results of many hours of research.
  
Do you see writing as a career?
 
Surviving the Summit Conference is my first book, and I’m writing this response before the publication date. Writing isn’t a career for me yet. So far, it’s just a hobby. But I would like for it to become a career one day.
 
Do you read yourself and if so what is your favorite genre?
 
I read a lot in different genres, and horror is my favorite genre. There are so many unique horror stories. I feel like it’s one of the most inventive genres, and horror is a very wide ranging genre.
 
Stephen King seems to be the king of horror. I’m a huge fan of King, but there are a lot of other great writers out there, too. Grady Hendrix does a great job of mixing horror and comedy; I mean, How to Sell a Haunted House had me laughing out loud, which is rare for a book. When I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia, I feel like I’m watching a master at work; she’s an incredible writer. I read Earthlings by Sayaka Murata recently, and it was both beautifully written and quite possibly the most disturbing work of fiction I have ever read. I like Carlton Mellick III and his bizarro fiction because it’s so much fun to read. And I think Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is The Great American Novel; I keep rereading this literary horror novel  because I take away something new each time.
 
I could ramble on about great horror writers for a long time. There are too many to name.
 
Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?
 
I prefer to write with music. I wrote most of the first draft of Surviving the Summit Conference listening to “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel on repeat. For rewrites, I listened to a lot of ‘90s hip hop. A Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang Clan were the artists I listened to the most. There are a lot of song references in the book.
 
One thing I regret about the book are the few references I have to Notorious BIG songs, simply because Diddy was the producer and rapped in some of them. Have you seen Diddy in the news lately? The stuff he was arrested for is insane! He appears to be the Epstein of the music industry.
  
What are common traps for aspiring writers?
 
My writing process is unusual. I’m not aware of anyone else who writes like I do.
 
I start by writing scenes in random order without an outline. After I have enough scenes, I assemble them into a narrative structure and then I go back and try to fill in the gaps. If I get stuck on a scene, I skip it and move onto something else. After a while, I tend to go back and forth between writing and arranging scenes, depending on what I feel like at the time. When I’m writing, I’m not sure if a particular scene will make it into the final novel or not. I wrote several scenes that I deleted because they didn’t fit into the final story.
 
In the past I tried to write an outline first and then proceed to a story, but by the time I finish the outline, I’m so bored of the story that I don’t feel like writing it.
 
I also tried to write a novel before in sequential order with no outline. This proved to be a dead end. I kept getting writer’s block, and eventually I got so sick of the story that I abandoned it.
 
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
 
It took me five years to write this book. I didn’t work on it nonstop the entire time. I started several other projects, some that I finished and some that I didn’t. I wrote a lot of short stories under various pseudonyms. I wrote a few screenplays, none of which were ever produced. However, Surviving the Summit Conference is the only novel I wrote to completion.
 
Do you believe in writer’s block?
 
Anyone can get writer’s block. There are different techniques to overcome it. If I don’t know what happens next in the story, I normally skip it and go on to write another part.
 
I did something unique with Surviving the Summit Conference. I had a complete draft that I submitted to at least 20 agents, and in every case, I either received a rejection or I didn’t hear back from the agent. I realized the story sucked, but I didn’t know how to fix it.
 
After those rejections, I turned to some friends for help. I have a group of friends that I play role playing games with online. I told them I had written this awful novel that had an interesting premise. I wanted to turn it into an RPG and have them play through it so that I could see how they reacted.
 
When I had my friends develop characters for the RPG, I told them they had to create influencers who were being sent to an abandoned hotel to generate original content for their social media channels. But when they entered the hotel, I said, “Hey, surprise! You’re trapped here at this hotel with other people, and you need to figure out how to escape.”
 
The three influencer characters and some of their actions were inspired by some of the things that happened as we played the game. My friends took things in directions I wasn’t expecting. I thought they would crack the mystery in fifteen minutes and then the game would be over. But the game went on for multiple sessions. It was fun.

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