Author Spotlight: Steven L. Shrewsbury

Back in 2003 when I first started shopping my novel Shadows Over Somerset around I happened upon a small press publishing house named Black Death Books. I was new to the game and didn’t know a thing about publishing or any of the soldiers in the trenches. I figured the best way to see if my writing might fit at Black Death was to order some of their books and get a feel for them. The first book I ordered was Bullet Proof Soul by Steven L. Shrewsbury.

I was not disappointed.

Bullet Proof Soul introduced me to the world of Dack Shannon, a hard-boiled, ass-kicking Secret Intelligence Operative for Majestic Services. Shrewsbury delivered a larger than life character cut from the same mold as those born from the minds of men like Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I emailed the author and we struck up a quick friendship. Shrews and I found common ground in our similar rural farming-community roots and our mutual love for the collected works of the aforementioned Howard. In an industry often fraught with back-stabbing, double-dealing, and general unsavoriness, Steven Shrewsbury is a straight shooter with a stronger sense of honor. He is also a true friend, and that is a rare find indeed.

BF: When did you discover you had the fire to be a storyteller? What was it about growing up in rural Illinois that inspired your writing and who were your biggest influences?

SS: I had terrible eyes as a boy and couldn’t see to read right off. I listened to Talking Tapes from the Library of Congress. The Bible and TARZAN OF THE APES were the first two and that probably explains a lot about me. I oft would re-do the Walls of Jericho falling in my sandbox. Even before that I used to watch NIGHT GALLERY and TWILIGHT ZONE with my brother Mark, and always wanted to blend Bible tales with such storytelling. I suddenly had tales to tell. After a few surgeries I caught up on my abilities. Some of the first things I eve read were the dusty, wore paperbacks my brother left after he moved home from military service…books by Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In horror, I soon discovered H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. When I first was trying to sub tales and create some style, an editor Stephen Mark Rainey tried to make me see the light. Blame him.

BF: Tell me about your first sale.

SS: Good night, I think it was a poem to a rag called POETRY FORUM “Featuring the dark” or maybe POETRY MOTEL “Wintertime blues” I think. Pretty sure my first story was “BLACK SHADES OF DOOM” to Eldritch Tales, a rather crazy take on Big Billy Goat Gruff. Things grew grimmer after that.

BF: The focus of this website is the Occult Detective Genre and Dack Shannon certainly falls into that category. Tell our readers about his creation and the world Dack operates in.

SS: After thinking sci fi was my bag, my dying father said to me, “Steven, why don’t you write a western or one about a detective?” I told him I didn’t know police procedure much so he said, “Then make him a spook from the government or something.” Dack Shannon, albino killer from shadow government agency MAJESTIC came out in time. He was created BEFORE the MIB movie, but with the idea of UFO conspiracy Men In Black in mind. What kinda fellas were they? Dack’s mythos of assassination or offing petty criminals were fun to write. Up until last year Dack slumbered and how he exists in a new full length novel, now starting to make the rounds.

BF: One of my favorite characters you’ve written about is Bedlam, another great addition to the Occult Detective Genre, but from a unique perspective. Tell us a bit about my favorite Viking with a metal shard in his head.

SS: Erik Bedlam lies on after having a shard of metal lodged in his skull. He hallucinates the netherworld…or does he? Over the top, steroidal rage, the Bedlam series (co-written with fantasy writer Peter Welmerink) runs in a world just after the battle of Clontarf. While it sends up the S&S genre to a degree, it is extreme at times to the point of cyber-punk or bizarre violence. Whether battling cannibal highlanders, vampire dwarfs, Lovecraftian horrors or just really rotten humans, Bedlam really needs to reach a larger audience.

BF: What do your fans have to look forward to in 2009?

SS: My novel TORMENTOR will be released from Lachesis Publishing late in April. The tale of Battlin’ John Kern is a nod to Howard’s boxing tales, with a modern horror story thrown in. BTW, we see a bit of Erik Bedlam in TORMENTOR. When a marine reservist is hit by a car bomb in Iraq, he starts to see gods and spirits, one he beat to death years ago when he was a boxer. While he heals in Germany, he gets caught up with a cult of necrophiliacs, a transsexual alchemist and a host of bad folks wanting to pull a medieval torturer from hell itself.

I’ll have a story in MONSTROUS from Permuted Press, ATTACK OF THE 500 FOOT PORNO STAR. A tale of mine will also appear in the Harlan County Horrors anthology.

It looks like my collaboration with Nate Southard called BAD MAGICK will appear late this year, but I cannot say where from just yet. S’really good, though (the pub and the book, one about Aleister Crowley in El Paso in 1901).

BF: Thank you Shrews for taking time away from your yarn-spinning to chat with us here at the Occult Detective. It’s an honor to be able to call you friend and I look forward to immersing myself into Tormentor this coming April.