Because my father was an Episcopalian minister, Halloween was never the holiday that Christmas was in our house. This isn’t to say there was anything forbidden about it. We just didn’t celebrate October 31st the way we did December 25th. I made tissue paper ghosts in school. We carved pumpkins. We handed out candy. And I was allowed to go trick-or-treating. But not off the block. My brothers were all much older than I was, so they had either already moved out or were doing their own thing and had no time for holding my hand as I went door to door.
Other kids in the neighborhood were less restricted. Not only were they allowed to go off the block, they were allowed to go into other distant neighborhoods–even across the busy street! And when they came home from those faraway foreign lands, they had pillowcases full of candy. Literally. Pillowcases full of candy.
I was insanely jealous of course. Long after my lunch bag of candy was gone, my friends were still feasting. They got so much candy, in fact, they had to throw some of it away because it got stale.
Then one Halloween I got an idea.
Using some of my father’s old Ace bandages (leftover from his war injury), I wrapped myself up like Claude Rains in The Invisible Mind, put on sunglasses to complete the look, got my paper bag, and went out, knocking on every door up and down the block. When I returned home, I took off the bandages and put on the previous year’s costume: a plastic Wolfman mask. Combined with jeans and a plaid shirt with a furry pillow underneath (for bulk and chest hair), I went out again, knocking on the same doors and gathering another round of treats. Back at home, I stripped off the mask and the plaid shirt, then put on an old flight jacket and cap. Out I went again, face exposed this time, happy to tell anyone who asked I was the Red Baron, hunting for Snoopy. All the neighbors were delighted to see me. I sincerely doubt they were as delighted as I was to see them. Again.
No, I didn’t have a pillowcase full of candy. But I had more than ever before. And for once, that was enough.
Mark Steensland first learned how to scare people at the age of four during a drive-in screening of Rosemary’s Baby. Although he was supposed to be asleep in the back of the family station wagon, he stayed awake, secretly listening. When the doctor on screen announced Rosemary’s due date as June 28th, he sat up and proudly exclaimed, “That’s my birthday!” giving his parents and siblings a shock from which they still have not recovered. Over the years that followed, he became obsessed with Aurora monster models, Dark Shadows, Famous Monsters magazine, and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. His first professional publication was as a film journalist, in Jim Steranko‘s Prevue magazine. Numerous bylines followed in American Cinematographer, Millimeter and Kamera. As a director, his short films (including Lovecraft’s Pillow, Dead@17, Peekers, The Ugly File, and The Weeping Woman) have played in festivals around the world and earned numerous awards. His novel for young readers, Behind the Bookcase, was published in 2012 by Random House. His novella for adults, The Special, was published in late 2018 and has been made into a feature film. He currently lives in California with his wife and their three children.
Spending the summer at her grandmother’s house is the last thing Sarah wants to do—especially now that Grandma Winnie has died—but she has no choice. Her parents have to fix the place up before they can sell it, and Sarah and her brother, Billy, have to help. But the tedious work turns into a thrilling mystery when Sarah discovers an unfinished letter her grandmother wrote: Strange things are happening behind the bookcase. . . .
Sarah’s mother dismisses the letter as one of Grandma Winnie’s crazy stories, but Sarah does some investigating and makes a remarkable discovery: behind the bookcase is a doorway into Scotopia, the land where shadows come from. With a talking cat named Balthazat as her guide, Sarah begins an unforgettable adventure into a world filled with countless dangers. Who can she trust? And can she face her fears, not only in Scotopia, but also back at Grandma Winnie’s house, where more secrets and strange goings-on await her?
In a house on the edge of town, there is a room. In that room, there is a box. And in that box await pleasures beyond your wildest imagination…
Jerry Harford is fed up. Overworked. Underpaid. And damn near certain his wife is cheating on him. He’s never been one for revenge, but his friend Mike talks him into thinking about JERRY just this once.
Now Jerry can’t get enough of The Special. He’s obsessed, and he wants it all to himself.
Before long, Jerry’s going to learn that pleasure has a price and whoever said “Hell is the truth seen too late” was right … terribly right.
Meghan: Hi, Mark. Welcome to Meghan’s House of Books. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Mark Steensland: I’m not sure where to even start with this. My bio says the basics. I feel as though anything else will sound like the answers to some dating app, which isn’t what you’re looking for. At least I hope not. Frankly, I’ve always been most interested in the technical side of other artists, rather than their personal side. I’ve met some of my heroes and I don’t know that I would like to hang out with them as friends. However, I’d love to hear more about how they make artistic decisions. So I won’t tell you my favorite color, but I will tell you that I think the ending is the most important thing to know before I start writing a story. And that takes a lot of work. And sometimes that work takes a long time. But it’s made a huge difference in my approach to writing.
Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?
Mark Steensland: Hey, now: those things are secrets for a reason!
Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?
Mark Steensland: I feel fortunate that my mother made reading a priority in my early life. She read to me before bed almost every night for many years. And when I got old enough to read to her, that’s how it worked. We read The Hobbit and the The Chronicles of Narnia. In third grade, I discovered the Three Investigators series after my teacher read one of the books to the class. I think all of those books together really shaped my ideas about stories in general and writing in particular.
Meghan: What are you reading now?
Mark Steensland: I’m in between things at the moment. A lot of my reading is what I’ll call curated, which means that I read things that are related to what I’m writing. As an example, if I was writing something about high school kids, then I’d find books and stories other authors have written about high school kids to see what’s been done before and/or how they handled it.
Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?
Mark Steensland: When I was working on my Master’s degree in English, I took a class called “The Existential Hero in 20th Century Literature.” That class introduced me to a lot of authors I hadn’t read before, including Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. One of the first books we were assigned was Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West. I almost didn’t finish reading it because I thought it was offensive. But I pushed on and discovered what the author was really doing. That book–and that class–ended up changing my life.
Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?
Mark Steensland: I can’t remember who said this, but I agree: “Writing is more a diagnosis than a job description.” I can’t remember not telling stories. I wanted to make films from the age of nine, after I saw Brian DePalma‘s Phantom of the Paradise. And once I was in high school, I started making short films and writing screenplays. It’s been a very long road.
Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?
Mark Steensland: I converted a portion of my garage into an office I call HOBBS END (after the tube station in Quartermass & The Pit). I have all of my books and movies in there and I am able to write undisturbed most of the time (until the cat starts scratching on the door because she wants to go outside).
Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?
Mark Steensland: It’s all about the process as far as I’m concerned. I have a number of tests that an idea has to pass before it gets moved on to the next stage. As I mentioned earlier, it took me a long time to realize that coming up with the ending as early as possible is one of the most important parts.
Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?
Mark Steensland: Everything! That’s part of what makes it so exciting. I really feel that every story is its own mountain, as it were. Every climb is different. Sometimes they flow easily. And sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. But the early phases of the process are probably the most difficult. Making sure that I’ve got something that really satisfies all of what I think is important about story-telling.
Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?
Mark Steensland: All of them. And none of them. I’m not being flippant. I’m just describing the fact that writing is a lot like eating. Sure, you have a great meal. But you get hungry again. This is an important part of the human condition. I don’t think I will ever be satisfied with something to the point where I feel I don’t have to write something else. I hope not, anyway.
Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?
Mark Streensland: For me, a story has to have a clear protagonist and that protagonist has to be going after something that I understand as quickly and clearly as possible. I also think there has to be an emotional component to what they are seeking. That emotional core is then hopefully couched in a setting I haven’t seen before. As an example: take the old “star-crossed lovers” trope. This basic premise resonates with us at an emotional level because we’ve probably all been in some situation where we loved someone and it wasn’t easy. Romeo & Juliet is the drama version of that story. Add singing and dancing and you get West Side Story. Make it about vampires and werewolves and you get Twilight. Each of these is at one level about the same basic emotional stuff, but the setting has been changed and that’s what makes it feel new.
Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?
Mark Steensland: As I just said, I really need a clear protagonist with a clear goal. And then they don’t give up. That’s what makes me love them. I think that’s what makes a hero, in a way. And it’s why we like to read about heroes. We want to know that we can do what other people have done. I think that’s another big part of what stories do for us.
Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?
Mark Steensland: They’re all me at some level. They can’t really be anything else, can they? In spite of what we want to believe about how much we understand other people or know what they might be feeling, we really don’t. We only know how we feel. We only know why we want what we want. So I try to put that into all the characters in my stories.
Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?
Mark Steensland: I know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I think we all do. And that means bad covers are a grave enemy. I’ve been fortunate to have great covers for everything so far. In several cases, I had 100% input. As an interesting side note, I made a short film about the evolution of the cover design for my first book, Behind the Bookcase, which shows how many sketches the artist went through before arriving at the final, award-winning design.
Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?
Mark Steensland: My stories are all about finding the emotional resolution to whatever state I’m in emotionally at the time I’m writing them. The Special, for instance, is, as many people have correctly identified, about addiction. I smoked cigarettes for years. But I don’t think I could really write effectively about that part of my personality until after I had quit. In other words, I think I needed some idea of how to resolve that issue so that I could write about the resolution of that issue. That story–for me, anyway–is a very admonitory story. It’s like a warning about what not to do. Which is a kind of resolution in itself.
Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?
Mark Steensland: Page one of anything. I put a lot into the preliminary work, but it still comes down to those first words. There’s so much that is communicated in terms of tone and style and voice. Sometimes it takes a long time to get settled into the right place.
Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?
Mark Steensland: They’re written by me. Again, I don’t mean that in a flippant way. I just mean that this is true of every writer and so also true of me. Everyone is different. Everyone is going to bring something to the page that no one else can. I also believe that’s the biggest responsibility an author has: finding their individuality and doing everything they can to get that on paper.
Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?
Mark Steensland: Titles are very important. Because of how important they are, I think it’s one of the most challenging parts of the whole process. I spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect title. And part of the perfection (as far as I’m concerned) is trying to find something that no one else has used as a title. In the Scrape, for instance, was a phrase I discovered during my research for that book.
Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?
Mark Steensland: Both are satisfying in the same way when successful. I don’t really feel a difference between one or the other.
Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.
Mark Steensland: I don’t think too much in terms of target audience. Outside of something specific like how Behind the Bookcase was a novel for Middle Grade readers, so there were obvious things that had to be considered in terms of vocabulary, etc. But for the other stuff, I trust that my stories will find readers who enjoy them. And this ties into the last part of this question which is that I hope people get out of my stories what they need to. As I said, The Special is about addiction and I’ve been very happy to hear from a number of readers who not only picked up on that but have commented about what the story has meant to them as well. That’s the best I can hope for.
Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?
Mark Steensland: I don’t recall ever leaving stuff out unless it was unnecessary. In other words, I don’t feel like there are “director’s cuts” of my books waiting to be republished. I spend too much time trying to get them the way I want them before they go to press.
Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?
Mark Steensland: Everything that I’ve ever written is in my trunk. And I work a little bit on dozens of story ideas all the time. In fact, I recently finished something that I started more than ten years ago. I simply couldn’t find the ending for it before. Then I did. So I save everything and often go through the files looking for things that can be developed or rewritten.
Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?
Mark Steensland: I’ve got lots of things on deck. None that I can really discuss, unfortunately, because deals haven’t been finalized. I continue to reach out to other authors for collaborations and hopefully those will work out. I’m also actively pursuing movie deals for a number of the books. The feature film version of The Special should be out later this year or in early 2020 and I hope that will drive interest in other adaptations.
Meghan: Where can we find you?
Mark Steensland: Everything is on my website. That includes links to the books and movies as well as links to my social media feeds.
Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?
Mark Steensland: I see a lot of stuff about how you should never give up and I think that’s true. The good news is that if you’re really committed to writing, then you can’t give up. Believe me, I’ve tried. Several times. But I just keep coming back to it.
Mark Steensland first learned how to scare people at the age of four during a drive-in screening of Rosemary’s Baby. Although he was supposed to be asleep in the back of the family station wagon, he stayed awake, secretly listening. When the doctor on screen announced Rosemary’s due date as June 28th, he sat up and proudly exclaimed, “That’s my birthday!” giving his parents and siblings a shock from which they still have not recovered. Over the years that followed, he became obsessed with Aurora monster models, Dark Shadows, Famous Monsters magazine, and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. His first professional publication was as a film journalist, in Jim Steranko‘s Prevue magazine. Numerous bylines followed in American Cinematographer, Millimeter and Kamera. As a director, his short films (including Lovecraft’s Pillow, Dead@17, Peekers, The Ugly File, and The Weeping Woman) have played in festivals around the world and earned numerous awards. His novel for young readers, Behind the Bookcase, was published in 2012 by Random House. His novella for adults, The Special, was published in late 2018 and has been made into a feature film. He currently lives in California with his wife and their three children.
Spending the summer at her grandmother’s house is the last thing Sarah wants to do—especially now that Grandma Winnie has died—but she has no choice. Her parents have to fix the place up before they can sell it, and Sarah and her brother, Billy, have to help. But the tedious work turns into a thrilling mystery when Sarah discovers an unfinished letter her grandmother wrote: Strange things are happening behind the bookcase. . . .
Sarah’s mother dismisses the letter as one of Grandma Winnie’s crazy stories, but Sarah does some investigating and makes a remarkable discovery: behind the bookcase is a doorway into Scotopia, the land where shadows come from. With a talking cat named Balthazat as her guide, Sarah begins an unforgettable adventure into a world filled with countless dangers. Who can she trust? And can she face her fears, not only in Scotopia, but also back at Grandma Winnie’s house, where more secrets and strange goings-on await her?
In a house on the edge of town, there is a room. In that room, there is a box. And in that box await pleasures beyond your wildest imagination…
Jerry Harford is fed up. Overworked. Underpaid. And damn near certain his wife is cheating on him. He’s never been one for revenge, but his friend Mike talks him into thinking about JERRY just this once.
Now Jerry can’t get enough of The Special. He’s obsessed, and he wants it all to himself.
Before long, Jerry’s going to learn that pleasure has a price and whoever said “Hell is the truth seen too late” was right … terribly right.
Meghan: Hi, Steve. Welcome to the new Meghan’s House of Books. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Steve Thompson: I live in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada with my girlfriend, Lisa. I recently retired from my day job as a housekeeping supervisor at our city hospital after 30 years of service. I’m now dunking my foot into the unknown depths of the publishing world and hoping I don’t drown. I have 8 pets at home, 4 dogs and 4 cats that take up a large part of my day. 3 of those dogs are Boston Terriers and one is a Chorkie, and never in my life did I ever think I could love any animal as much as those dogs; the cats, well, they’re just evil.
Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?
Steve Thompson: 1- I never graduated from high school because I was given the choice to quit or get kicked out 3 months before graduation. 2 – Most people know I am scared of heights, What they don’t know is if I get into a situation that I am up too high, I need to get down ASAP, even if it means jumping and I don’t know what is the greater fear, the heights or wanting to jump to get out of that situation. 3 – When I was 15, I broke into a portable classroom and peed in the desk drawer of a teacher I didn’t like because he bullied a lot of his students. 4 – When I was nine or ten years old I loved to burn things with a magnifying glass; plastic car models, the long grass in the fields next to our house and insects, I burned a lot of insects, and I didn’t turn out to be a serial killer. Got 4 out of 5.
Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?
Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?
Steve Thompson: Jackie Collin’s Hollywood Wives. I read this back in the 80’s because it was the only book in the house at the time that I hadn’t already read.
Meghan: What made you decide you want to write?
Steve Thompson: Reading Stephen King books is what turned me on to reading and writing.
Meghan: When did you begin writing?
Steve Thompson: About 25 years ago, but mostly it was just farting around, writing short stories for myself and some friends. I only started to take writing seriously about 6 years ago.
Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?
Steve Thompson: In my computer room/library.
Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?
Steve Thompson: Nope.
Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?
Steve Thompson: Everything, but mostly it’s the show don’t tell I struggle with but it is getting better the more I write. Also keeping my focus on one story at a time. Right now, I have 7 short stories that are half done and I keep jumping back and forth between them, writing a line or 2 on one story than a line or 2 on another.
Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?
Steve Thompson: That would be my short story “Kill Point Club” from the anthology When the Clock Strikes 13. It was a fun story to write and I had a great time with it. I used the names of some of the other authors in the anthology as characters and then killed them off. Fun Times.
Meghan: What books have most inspired you?
Steve Thompson: The Stand by Stephen King, Animosity and Odd Man Out by James Newman. These are the only books I can remember ever pissing me off to the point I almost threw the books across the room and to make me shed a tear.
Meghan: Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?
Steve Thompson: Believable characters that grow on you and you care what happens to them, because if you don’t care the story just feels flat and lifeless. If something happens to a character, I want to be able to feel something for them and not just Johnny fell off a bridge and drowned and think who cares I wish they would all fall off a bridge and drown so this story would end.
Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character?
Steve Thompson: Again, I’ll say believable characters. Characters you can relate to and it doesn’t matter whether you love them or hate them as long as you feel something.
Meghan: How do you utilize that when creating your characters?
Steve Thompson: I try to make my characters as real as possible, I use characteristics from people I know or myself and then throw in a few quirks.
Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?
Steve Thompson: There’s a little piece of me in all my characters, so there really isn’t just one that is most like me.
Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover?
Steve Thompson: No, bad covers don’t turn me off. There’s a ton of great books out there with crap covers. It’s what’s inside that counts.
Meghan: To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?
Steve Thompson: I had pretty much full control on my book covers for better or worse, except for When the Clock Strikes 13. I wanted all the authors involved to be ok with the cover before I finalized it.
Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?
Steve Thompson: I learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?
Steve Thompson: There was a rape and torture scene in my short story “Pearl” that was hard to write and I ended up cutting most of it out because it was too graphic. I still got some flak for it from a few readers telling me they didn’t like what happened to the girl and I would just reply well, you’re not supposed to like it and if you did, I’d think there was something wrong with you.
Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?
Steve Thompson: I don’t really know, but all my stories are written in a very simple form that anyone can understand. You definitely don’t need a dictionary beside you to read one. Nothing takes me out of a story faster than not knowing the meaning of some words.
Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?
Steve Thompson: The title is very important and can sometimes be hard to choose the right one. I try to make the title reflect what is inside the book.
Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?
Steve Thompson: I have never written a novel or novella for that matter; I love short stories. Reading them and writing them.
Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.
Steve Thompson: My short story collections are a mix of sci-fi and horror with one collection having a few non-fiction stories in it from periods of my life that have stuck with me. I just hope readers will enjoy the stories. If only one person likes the story, I still call that a win.
Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?
Steve Thompson: I tend to ramble on at times and then delete most of it.
Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?
Steve Thompson: Body parts. Just kidding. Or am I. Actually, I’m thinking about turning one of my short stories (Johnny Dewitt) into a novella.
Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?
Steve Thompson: Right now, I am working on a short story collection and hopefully going forward with a signed limited-edition chapbook with one of my favorite authors.
Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?
Steve Thompson: I would like to thank you for doing this interview with me, my very first one, and thanks to everyone that read it until the end.
Steve Thompson is the author of two short and flash fiction collections. You can check out his 2 latest short stories “Kill Point Club” in the anthology When the Clock Strikes 13 from his In Your Face Publishing that he started in June 2019 and “Malignant” which he co-wrote with Kenneth W. Cain which is in the Shallow Waters 2 flash fiction anthology by Crystal Lake Publishing.
Your time is running out. When the clock strikes 13, all manners of hell will break loose.
When the Clock Strikes 13 is a collection of thirteen short horror stories by some of the best horror and dark fiction authors writing today. Inside, you will find stories to frighten, shock and gnaw at your inner fears, and take you places that belong only in the dark recesses of your mind. There are monsters on these pages; some are human, some are not.
Meghan's House of Books 