Stephen Steele
Adventure Thriller
Writer of adventure thrillers and upmarket fiction.
Stephen Steele writes adventure thrillers and upmarket fiction. He is a graduate of the University of North Texas with degrees in English literature and marketing. An avid sailor, swimmer and mountain biker, the author worked as a salesman, syndicator of television sports shows, builder and developer, ski instructor and cowboy. He lives in Montana with his ruthless editor Beverly, a fly rod and the streams and rivers of ice and snow. Learn more about Stephen on his website.
Read BookTrib’s review of The Trouble With Miracles here.
BOOKS:
The Trouble with Miracles (2022)
The Organ Grinder Factor (2021)
The Cannastar Factor (2021)
Biggest literary influences:
When I was in the fifth grade, Superman informed my first stories. In high school, I was Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg living in North Beach in San Francisco. Soon after, I became Ernest Hemingway living in Paris and Spain while trying to say the most profound things with the least possible words — and ultimately not saying much of anything at all. In college, I lived in an ever-expanding universe of giants like Charles Dickens while accompanying Jack London on his great adventures.
For years, I aspired to be as insightful and nonjudgmental of my characters as John Steinbeck. Then the prose of Thomas Wolfe blew me away. I had my DH Lawrence phase, my W. Somerset Maugham phase, my George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) phase, my James Joyce phase. The existentialists confused me and the Russians depressed me. Hunter Thompson influenced me in ways I don’t care to mention. In the end, I became myself, and for better or worse, that’s who I sound like today.
In terms of historical fiction, I love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. In terms of gothic horror, I loved Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood series.
Last book read:
The books I have been most disappointed in recently are Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, Dolly Parton and James Patterson’s Run, Rose, Run, and David Baldacci’s The 6:20 Man. The reason for my disappointment is I hate flat, pointless, meaningless endings.
Your favorite literary character:
Rhett Butler in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and Jordan “Bick” Benedict in Edna Ferber’s Giant come to mind, as do the women who played opposite them, Scarlett O’Hara and Leslie Benedict: Strong, vulnerable characters who struggle with their limitations and ultimately triumph over them. Or in Scarlett’s case, the tragedy of a character to triumph over themselves. Characters who don’t give up in the face of defeat. Men who seek the love of a strong and independent woman to form a real partnership as opposed to a dominator relationship. Men and women who march to their own drum. Men and women whose internal struggles lead them finally to the truth about themselves. Men and women whose self-worth comes from within. In short, real-life heroes.
Currently working on:
Passengers in Time is in the final stages of rewrite. It is a work of upmarket fiction about the past and present lives of its two main characters; about reliving the mistakes and failures of our past lives until we get it right; about how our enemies from the past are reborn into the present to teach us what we didn’t learn the first time around; about a partnership of souls where death is just another beginning and love is forever.
Words to live by:
If it’s in your space, you put it there.
Have your feelings. Tell the truth. Let it go.
Advice for aspiring authors:
If you are a writer, you know it. You have always known it.
Don’t let life talk you out of your dream.
