“

”

Bloomington native Michael Koryta, an internationally recognized author who has won numerous accolades for his suspense and supernatural fiction, is set to release his latest novel, Departure 37 (Simon & Schuster), on August 5. The book is the fourth written under his pen name, Scott Carson, with more than a dozen published under his real name.

Horror genre master Stephen King heralded the novel in a post on Threads: “DEPARTURE 37 (Scott Carson): If you loved THE TWILIGHT ZONE, this is for you. It’s a mind-blower. Coming soon. Watch for it.”

Koryta will be joined in conversation by author Eli Cranor from 6 to 7 p.m. on August 9 at The Mill, 642 N. Madison St., at an event hosted by Morgenstern Books.

Koryta demonstrates his fascination with and understanding of what made Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone compelling TV as he blends the supernatural, science fiction, horror, and psychology in a story you cannot read fast enough but do not want to end.

“My favorite stories in this genre are the ones that feel plausible, where the big hook is grounded in research and history,” Koryta said. “When The Twilight Zone or the stories of a Richard Matheson or Michael Crichton were most effective, the surreal element of the story made you nod your head and believe it could happen. For Departure 37, I tapped into that by researching the Cold War-era projects that General Electric and Raytheon and Lockheed were involved with. There was almost nothing I could imagine that those companies weren’t trying. The 1950s era in research science is fascinating, with this attitude of ‘maybe we just try it?’ that led to some wild ideas.”

The novel uses a fantastical premise to combine the fear and espionage of the Cold War era with modern technology to push the boundaries of human understanding as the two worlds collide.

“There’s a scene in the book where an Oppenheimer-style figure transfers pencil lead shavings using Scotch tape so he can test its electrical properties,” Koryta said. “That exact technique was used by a team that won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for their discoveries about graphene. I loved the visual so much I decided to hand it off to a genius stationed at Crane in the height of the Cold War and imagine what he might’ve done with it.”

Departure 37 is set in the 1960s at Crane Naval Base in southern Indiana and in 2025 on the coast of Maine. The story begins with physicist Martin Hazelton working at Crane during the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The science Hazelton set into motion at Crane ensnares a 16-year-old girl named Charlie some 60 years later along the coast of Maine when a weather balloon drifts down to Earth, bringing with it a terrifying message from the past. Hazelton and Charlie both have a rich backstory that Carson doles out slowly, constantly reshaping your perception of the characters and what they might decide next.

“The amount of incredible, world-changing work done at Crane is impressive — everything from the Polaris missiles to hypersonic and electromagnetic weapons — but the urban legends might be the facility’s greatest local export,” Koryta said. “If you grew up here, you’ve heard something crazy about the place. It felt like the West Baden Springs Hotel to me; either I needed to use it or someone else would beat me to the setting. I can’t allow that to happen in my own backyard.”

Martin Hazelton makes a few trips to Bloomington, where he frequents an establishment known as the Dandale. The Dandale was a real restaurant on the east side of Bloomington’s courthouse square in the 1960s.

“I fell in love with a photograph of people walking outside the Dandale that was published in Bloom Magazine,” Koryta said. “It perfectly captured the time and place I wanted to write about. Then I stumbled across a menu from the Dandale in 1962 that someone was selling on eBay, and that became oddly inspirational. It’s still on my desk. I suspect the seller was pleasantly surprised anyone wanted the thing.”

The political and nuclear tensions of the Cold War are evident but not overbearing, allowing the characters and their actions to drive the story, effortlessly creating an emotional connection with the reader. This Scott Carson novel will undoubtedly live up to the expectations of Carson fans. Departure 37 is suspenseful, creating uncertainty and anticipation, echoing the feelings of the nuclear arms race.

Koryta was born and raised in Bloomington, where he still lives most of the year, splitting time with a residence in Maine. Koryta said, “All of my formal education was in Bloomington, and I think I benefited from that enormously because it’s a town that, probably thanks in large part to the presence of the university, is an education-first community and with that comes a community of readers.”

He went to Arlington Heights Elementary, Tri-North Middle School, Bloomington High School North, and Indiana University. Koryta’s early ambitions to be a writer and a storyteller were driven by the presence of writers in the community and the professors at IU who published books on a regular basis. “They weren’t these distant people who lived only in New York or San Francisco or LA,” Koryta said. “And I think that made a big difference. I wanted to be a writer. I was in a community where I had the opportunity to see writers and I was surrounded by a lot of readers.”

Koryta was raised by parents he describes as “book people.” As the family story goes, his father took a job at IU in part because of what he had read about the IU library system while living in Cleveland, Ohio. His father felt that a good library system said something about a town. Koryta grew up frequenting the IU libraries, Monroe County Public Library, and local independent bookstores, among other places that inspired his love for reading and writing.

Bloomington offered two unique opportunities for Koryta during his high school days that have influenced his writing and helped advance his career. His fifth-grade teacher, Rita Hefron, lived next door and her husband, Michael Hefron, was the general manager of The Herald-Times newspaper. He helped Koryta get his first job as a reporter at The Herald-Times and also introduced him to legendary sportswriter Bob Hammel.

The mentorship and friendship between Koryta and Hammel lasted for more than two decades, until Hammel’s recent passing on July 20, 2025. His legacy will carry on for years to come. (To read his tribute to Bob Hammel, visit Koryta’s website.)

Koryta is now on the board of directors for the Bloomington Book Festival, which honors the keynote speaker with the Bob Hammel Writing Award. This year, that will be John Green, who will be in conversation with Koryta on October 24 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

“Any opportunity to recognize Bob is a special one to me,” Koryta said. “He’s the hardest working writer I’ve met, the kindest teacher, and his love for our town always motivated him. In turn, his work and the way he carried himself always honored our community. I think John Green is having a similar impact on Indiana’s reputation. That will be a special night.”

The second unique opportunity for Koryta came when he started working with a private investigator in town. “The great thing about Bloomington is that it was a big enough town to have the need for a private investigator, and a small enough town that there was a private investigator willing to give the time of day to a high school student who wanted to be involved in the business,” Koryta said. “I started an independent study through Bloomington North working with Don Johnson and Trace Investigations when I was 15. It turned into a part-time job, then the day job when I graduated from IU, and a lasting friendship. The benefits of that experience were enormous. They certainly informed Lost Man’s Lane, which is the only Bloomington-based book I’ve written, but the PI experience was a godsend for everything I’ve written.”

Koryta found that as a newspaper reporter and a private investigator he made his way into parts of the community he may never have seen. He learned how to ask questions, develop his interviewing skills, and listen for inconsistencies in the stories. “That education for a novelist is incredible, because you’re seeing all these facets of the community that spin together and make a bigger ecosystem,” he said. “I was hearing the unique voices of unique people, learning how they talked, how different their worldviews were, and how to capture the details that mattered. How to listen and observe. On any given day, I might sit down with a professor, a judge, and a meth dealer. (To be clear, these usually were not the same person.) One day, I talked to both murder suspects and a guy who studied glowing fish. I saw people on the days of their greatest triumphs and greatest heartbreaks. That’s all grist for the mill when you want to be a novelist. Those jobs gave me a more panoramic sense of things than I had any right to know at age 22. I was able to write with perhaps a bit more maturity because of the work experience that people went out of their way to provide for me. Every day was different; every day was a potential gold mine.”

Now, with more than twenty novels published, Koryta has made a name for himself in the supernatural and crime fiction world. He is a New York Times bestselling author with books adapted into motion pictures and with numerous writing awards, such as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It all started here in Bloomington. Koryta plans to stay connected to the Bloomington community and continue writing, under both his own name and the Scott Carson pseudonym.

“2026 will mark the return of Michael Koryta, which feels like an odd thing to say when I’ve never stopped publishing,” he said. “That book is a big gangster epic inspired by the true story of the Al Brady Gang, who followed Dillinger into the bank-robbing business in the 1930s. They were all Indiana guys, and they were gunned down in the street in Bangor, Maine. For some reason, perhaps our embarrassment of riches with gangsters, they aren’t well known in Indiana, but Maine certainly remembers them. I’ll also be working on the script for a movie adaptation of Departure 37, and we just closed a pilot-writing TV deal that I’m not yet allowed to discuss. So, I’m lucky enough to be staying busy.”

Michael Koryta with Eli Cranor at Dimension Mill

Michael Koryta will be joined in conversation by author Eli Cranor from 6 to 7 p.m. on August 9 at The Mill, 642 N. Madison St. in Bloomington. The event is hosted by Morgenstern Books and is free and open to the public, with the authors signing books after.

Koryta, writing under his pen name Scott Carson, is set to release his latest novel, Departure 37, on August 5. Readers and fans of his work can preorder at Morgenstern’s now, purchase a copy instore beginning August 5, or purchase a copy onsite at the event on August 9.