STORY SHOWCASE #10

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WHY I WON’T EAT
FRIED CHICKEN

by Jude Deluca

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A little taster…

I’ve never liked fried chicken. My family thinks I’m weird because I dislike it. Maybe there’s something up with me, but I think it’s gross and too much hassle to enjoy. Fried chicken just seems so difficult to eat. Wings have next to no meat on them, while thighs and breasts are total nightmares. Not to mention the skin can get so crunchy it’s hard to bite through to reach the meat. One time, I thought I cracked a tooth and freaked out as I was trying to eat a leg. God, what I’d give for my family to let me live that down. I have no idea how anyone’s ever able to eat fried chicken down to the bone.

But that’s just me, I guess.

Whenever my family had fried chicken for dinner, I felt like a sideshow freak on display, ripping it apart trying to get a piece of the meat. It was even worse when my parents took us out for dinner at fried chicken joints. My younger siblings thought it was a total riot seeing me try to eat. I suspect my parents also thought it was funny, which is why they kept making me eat at those places even though they knew how much I hated fried chicken.

They don’t think it’s very funny now, not after what happened … 

About the author

Jude Deluca is a nonbinary aegosexual Capricorn. Their areas of interest are magical girls, slasher fiction, YA Horror, 90’s nostalgia, superhero dads and big, beautiful men. As a professional horror detective, they work to rediscover lost media like Goosebumps: Dead Dogs Still Fetch by R. L. Stine and Braden Gardner.

X: @judedeluca1990

Instagram: @judedeluca

Bluesky: @judedeluca.bsky.social

We asked Jude…

K&R: What was the spark or idea that led you to write this story?

JD: I came up with the title Why I Won’t Eat Fried Chicken and the story for it separately. Originally I planned to use the title for a story involving kids investigating a creepy fried chicken restaurant. The story it did get used for is what I would call a response to Chicken Chicken, which is widely regarded as the worst of the original Goosebumps books. Though personally I feel that dishonor belongs to Revenge R Us. Keen-eyed Goosebumps fans will recognize certain nods and references I’ve thrown into my tale.   

K&R: Do you have any other work do you have out there, for folks to dig into?

JD: I’ve been slowly putting more time and energy into a concept I call DNA Comics, a universe molded after 90s horror and 90s superhero comics. It started off with a story I wrote called Generation Dead #37: Why I Won’t Eat At The Food Court, which was published by From Beyond Press in their anthology Escalators to Hell. What was a one-off thing inspired by the idea “Gen13 but on Fear Street” evolved into a world with teams such as Generation Dead, X-Treme Genes, Generation Undead, Guts & Glory, Li’l Guts, and the Power Paladins of the 33rd Century.

Some of my published work includes these tales in the following collections which you can find on Amazon:

“Generation Dead #37: Why I Won’t Eat At The Food Court” – Escalators to Hell (From Beyond Press)

“Generation Dead: I’m Dreading Of A Nazi Christmas Special #1” – Christmas Chaos (Outsider Publishing)

“Is Sally Home?” – Extrasensory Overload (Angry Gable Press)

“A Night in Pumpkin Patch Woods” – Year of the Tarot: Pentacles (Eerie River Publishing)

“Art Appreciation” – Year of the Tarot: Wands (Eerie River Publishing)

“Ghosts in the Laundry Room” – Particular Passages: Autumn Breezeway (Knight Writing Press)

“X-Treme Genes Neptunalia Special #1: Watered Down (July 1997)” – Where Legends Walk (Oddity Prodigy Publications)

“Phantom of the Airwaves” – Pretty Girls Make Graves (River Gardner)

“Lovely Waitress Fights” – Twisted Horrors (River Gardner)

“Gluttony Doll” – We Can Always Tell (The Laughing Man House Publishing)

“12th Nightmare” – We Bite Back (Pride with a Bite)

K&R: What’s next for you as a writer?

JD: I’m trying to finish a short story about an Indigenous family of superheroes, alongside my novella Scream Cheese for Mad Axe Media’s Totally Freaked series, as well as a collection of short stories, plus my usual attempts to submit to different anthologies and lit mags.

K&R: What does “trashy fiction” mean to you, and what do you love about it?

JD: I guess to me, “trashy fiction” refers to anything that’s not “proper fiction”. Self indulgent, self serving. Something that was written by you, for you. Who cares what others think? I’m of the mindset that just because something is a classic that doesn’t automatically mean it’s good or even enjoyable. It’s amazing how you can find meaning in anything from a cheesy teen horror novel, a cliche kid’s horror novella, or a romance novel you bought while on line at the supermarket. You shouldn’t have to feel that to be a “serious” reader you have to read novels by people who died hundreds of years ago or had their book labelled a “New York Times Bestseller”. 

K&R: Hit us with your own favourite “trashy” fiction recommendations!

JD: I’m gonna go out on a limb and literally suggest trash. As in Cherie Bennett’s Trash, a teen romance comedy series from the 90s about a group of teen interns working on the show “Trash” which is basically Jerry Springer for adolescents. It’s got long lost twins, dark secrets, drug addiction, pregnancy, and one of the main characters is trying to hide that she’s the daughter of a spree killer.

K&R: If you’ve read the rest of the stories in Trash Tales, what’s your favourite and why?

JD: I haven’t had a chance to sit down and properly read the collection yet, but I will say I’m looking forward to Kay Hanifen’s story, “Love and Other Addictions”, because of how often I’m realizing the two of us have gotten into the same collection together. 

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