I met Steven Carr in the Facebook writing group Fiction Writing. He has astonished us all with his work, sharing each new story he has gotten published, recently surpassing 100 short stories in various publications. His complete list (so far!) is at the end of the interview. Steve is full of surprises and delights in life. He is friendly, intelligent, and more interesting the longer you talk with him, as whatever he shares urges more questions. I’m honored to share him with my readers. Find him online at Facebook and Twitter.
Tell me about your writing style.
“I type my initial draft, which is my only draft. I haven’t written anything longhand since I learned how to type while I was in high school, which was over forty years ago. I usually write a story in 2-3 days. I was trained when I was a journalist to write fast and edit while I write. I write only one draft, make sure it is as error free as possible, and submit it right away. Motivation is almost entirely internal. Where it comes from, I don’t have a clue. Writing for me is like an itch that I have to constantly scratch.
I don’t really have a schedule, but I tend to write early in the day and late in the evening. Sometimes I’m so excited about a story I’m working on, I work on it all day and forget to stop to eat. I just sit down at the computer, procrastinate a little while I see what’s happening on Facebook or in the news, and then get down to the business of writing. I have an office set up. It’s crowded with photographs, books, paintings, and art pieces. It’s a good place just to sit back and pretend I’m in a museum.”
Tell me what you write about and why.
“I like the literary genre, which I seem to have luck with getting published. I also seem to have a knack for writing speculative fiction, horror and fantasy, all of which I enjoy writing also. I’ve led a very full life, lived in and seen some astonishing places, and met an incredibly large number of people from all backgrounds and ethnicities. My writing is a way to pay homage to those people and places.
I wrote a novel a few years ago that is gathering dust inside my computer. The whole process of writing it was so horrendously tedious and unfulfilling that I vowed never to write another one. I had written plays for a while, and was moderately successful with that, and learned a lot about writing dialogue and setting a scene while doing it, but I’m such a control freak that I didn’t want anyone but me to be in control of how my plays were produced.
The short story form, for me, is easy to construct. I started writing professionally as a military journalist, and the who, what, where, when, and why of journalistic writing fits perfectly into writing short stories. Plus, I have a short attention span, so the fewer words I have to write, the better. Here are the links to a few of my favorites:
“Paper Mache Man” by Two Sisters Writing
“The Saguaro Two Step” in Near to the Knuckle
“When Wizards Sing” in Aether / Ichor
“The Citrus Thief” in Fictive Dream
My love of the short story form actually began in high school. I was placed in an English Advanced Placement class and the teacher, Mrs. Kurtz, told me I had talent writing short stories, and I was gullible enough to believe her. God bless you Mrs. Kurtz, wherever you are. I’ve had a 50 word story published and a 7,000 word story published. Generally, they fall into the 1,500 to 4,000 word range. I borrow snippets from my life in writing a lot of my literary fiction, and practically nothing from my life when writing other genres. I’m proud to say I’ve borrowed nothing from my life when writing horror stories.”
Describe your submission process.
“I have a subscription to Duotrope. Practically 90% of the publications that I find to submit to, I find on Duotrope. Obviously, I love Duotrope. They should hire me as their spokesperson. The big thing I like about Duotrope is not only how easy I find using their search system, but that they send an email every Sunday that lists publications looking for submissions. It fits perfectly for me as I like to write a story after I see what publications are looking for instead of the other way around. The other 10% I find thanks to getting way too many emails with invitations to submit to one publication or another.
I read carefully what the magazine or anthology is looking for, and if I think I can write a story that matches what they are looking for, then I write the story. I don’t keep a stockpile of stories lying around waiting for a match. I write specifically for what a publication is looking for. I don’t write to make money, but I don’t turn money away for my writing if I can get it. I make sure they are a publication I feel matches my values as a person, meaning they aren’t racist, homophobic, ageist, sexist, and a few other -isms or -ists. I don’t discriminate in regards to the size or prestige of the publication. I want my stories to reach as many different audiences as possible, and the only way to do that is to make sure I submit to a broad variety of publications up and down the prestige scale.”
Describe your support system, receiving and giving.
“Writers are my species. It’s in the interest of all writers to support one another. I support others by buying their books, reading their stories and giving reviews, providing links to publications looking for submissions, and in general just trying to provide encouragement and support. I can’t even begin to describe the amount of encouragement I get from other writers who do something as simple as to Like a post I make on Facebook about a story acceptance. I belong to about ten Facebook writing groups. I’m only really active in about three of them. The others don’t seem to notice my absence. I’m trying to decide if I should take that personally.
I have a personal policy of not giving feedback on any work in progress. Let me make it clear, so that I don’t get hate mail, that this is just my personal opinion: If I tell a writer how to write any part of their story by giving them suggestions or advice, the story is no longer theirs alone, it is now partly my story. Each writer has a unique voice, and when someone else becomes part of the story being written, the writer’s voice becomes diluted, sometimes only very minimally, but even just a little, is still a little. I feel bad when I have to tell a writer I can’t help them by looking at their WIP, but so far no one has threatened to firebomb my house. No one reads any story I’ve written before it’s published. In some ways I’m a very private person, and until they’re published, my stories are very private also.”
How does your writing influence your life, and vice versa?
“I enlisted in the army while I was still in high school and 17, but had to wait until that summer when I turned 18, and after I graduated, before I could actually go into the Army. It was 1972 and the Vietnam war was still going, but beginning to wind down. I wanted to go to Vietnam, not to fight or kill anyone, but to see for myself what war in a foreign country was like before the war ended. I had scored really high in the verbal (written) pre-enlistment test scores and had my choice of among the military schools and occupations.
Because I loved to write, I joined to become a military journalist and was accepted into and sent to the prestigious Defense Information School (DINFOS) which was in Indianapolis at that time and trains journalists for all of the military branches. It was only a ten week program, but it was very intensive, and the only thing taught was journalism, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. If you couldn’t write, they kicked you out. My hopes for going to Vietnam were dashed (I don’t think the military wanted me near anything that I might cause to explode) and I was assigned to the District Recruiting Headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a civilian office and there was usually no more than three of us working in it, and for a long time it was just me. It taught me how to write fast and to feel secure in editing my own work.
For the next 2.5 years, as the war wound down, I traveled around Florida writing stories for newspapers about what I knew was happening in Vietnam, about returning soldiers, and releases about men and women who had enlisted. I lived in a beautiful apartment in a complex with a swimming pool paid for by the military and was given a car to travel around in. During my time there I didn’t spend one day on a military base. If you’ve ever seen the movie Private Benjamin, I led the Army life that she dreamt of. I got out of the Army after three years without stepping foot out of Florida, returned to Cincinnati, where I’m from, started college, and never once thought about taking up journalism as a career. My first college English professor said I should become a poet! I didn’t want to starve to death so I ignored that suggestion.
Writing adds meaning to my life. It gives me another reason to get out of bed in the morning, and I go to bed thinking about what I’m writing or going to write. Writing has connected me with some truly amazing people, writers and non-writers. In some stories, I re-visit themes I’ve already written about, but I hope I’m keeping my eyes open to what is happening in the real world, to explore new themes, and tell new and original stories in innovative ways, while maintaining my style and voice.”
Here’s the list (Note: Some have been accepted but have not been published yet)
Literally Stories “Eleanor”
Sick Lit Magazine “The Tale of the Costume Maker”
Door is a Jar “The Memory of Vision”
SickLit Mag “The Tale of the Cabbage Patch”
Flame Tree Publishing (Dystopia/Utopia Anthology)
Viewfinder Magazine “An Olfactory Life”
Horror Sleaze Trash “Moon of the Forgotten”
Fantasia Divinity Princess Anthology “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”
Fictive Dream “The Missouri River Story”
50 Word Stories “Night Noises”
Centum Press (100 Voices Volume 3) “The Old Chapel Road Story”
Short Tale 100 “Mothering”
Centum Press (100 voices Vol. II) “A Decent Man”
The Spotty Mirror “Point A”
CultureCult Magazine “Opulence”
Temptation Magazine “Paradise Found”
Visitant Literary Journal “The Longhorn Creek Story”
The Wagon Magazine “The Crack Up”
Infernal Ink “Under the Trees”
Tiger Shark “Ants”
Double Feature “Amoeboid”
Sick Lit Magazine “Amelia Flew Home”
Fictive Dream “The Citrus Thief”
Fantasia Divinity Publications “The Tale of the Singing Snow Witch”
Ricky’s Back Yard “Tenderloin”
Bento Box “Artifacts”
NoiseMedium “The Terrible Secret Game”
Chronicle “The Buffalo Runner”
Zimbell House Publishing: The Neighbors anthology “The Gardeners”
The Drunken Llama “Oh, Nereus”
Fictive Dream “The Island of Women”
67 Anthology “The Wind River Story”
Inane Pure Slush Vol. 14 “Trash”
MASHED: Culinary Tales of Erotic Horror Anthology “Sauce”
Ricky’s Back Yard “Magically Appearing Potatoes”
Communicators League “Landscape With Frogs”
Jakob’s Horror Box “Goodnight Forever”
Panorama Journal “Looking for Joe”
The Wagon Magazine “A Mother’s Rites”
Midnight Circus “La Primavera”
Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine “The Snake River Haunting”
Communicators League “Men in Trees”
The Haunted Traveler “The Dissociative Effect”
Fixional “A Woman of the Arts”
The Gathering Storm Magazine “Hunting Bunnies”
Rhetoric Askew “Men in Boxcars”
Wilde Stories 2017 (Lethe Press) “The Tale of the Costume Maker”
Trigger Warnings “Night Heat”
Night to Dawn “Catacombs of the Doomed”
Zimbell House Publishing “Sing Me a River”
Zimbell House Publishing “The Sweetwater River Story”
Not Your Mother’s Breast Milk “Dancing on the Boardwalk”
Communicators League “The Platte River Story”
Aphotic Realm “If A Ghost Comes Knocking”
Bull & Cross “Once A Fine Notion”
The Dirty Pool “Heat”
Thrice Fiction “The Tale of Talker Knock”
Story and Grit “The Stew Pot”
Eathen Lamp Journal “Voices in a Hurricane”
Thousandonestories “A Town Called Wasta”
Communicators League “All the Flickering Shadows”
Occulum “Stay Out of the Attic”
Fictive Dream “Noise”
Aether and Ichor “When Wizards Sing”
4StarStories “The Pools of Nereus”
Tuck Magazine “Dining at the Mausoleum”
Zimbell House: After Effects Anthology “Washed Away”
Ariel Chart “Sing Me a River”
Truth Serum,Wiser Anthology “The Big Mouth”
Crux Magazine “The Cheyenne River Story”
Lunaris Review “The Snow Mother”
Trembling With Fear “Portrait in Blood”
Boned: A Collection of Skeletal Writing “Clickety Clack: A Love Story
Bull & Cross “Lonesome Prairie”
The Horror Zine “The Express”
Hot Tub Astronaut “The Star Counter”
Ariel Chart “Pursued”
Kristell Ink Holding on by our Fingertips anthology “Countdown”
Ordinary Madness “Barstow Requeum”
SickLit Magazine “Sand”
A Thousand and One Stories “Under the Yaquina Bay Bridge”
Ricky’s Back Yard “The Docks”
The Serving House Journal “The Shoe Tree Incident”
Near to the Knuckle “The Saguaro Two Step”
Ripcord “The Tinsel Kingdom”
Varnish Journal “The Apple Pickers”
Yalobusha Review “Men in Mines”
Clarendon House Books “The Upsandowns
Cadaverous Magazine “Strange Water”
Blue Fifth Review “Tessie’s New Cart”
Black Heart Magazine “Death and Ice Cream”
Jakob’s Horror Box “The King of Kitchen Street”
Fictive Dream “Breadth of Knowledge”
Linden Avenue Literary Journal “Airborne”
Storyland Literary Review Magazine “Sundays at the Zoo”
Communicators League “Women in Hats”
Tessellate Magazine “The Citrus Thief”
The Airgonaut “Girl in a Mason Jar”
Jokes Review “Amelia Flew Home”
Rhetoric Askew Fantasy/Megapunk edition) “Talker Knock and the Veiled Genie”
Lycan Valley Press (Pulp Horror Book of Phobias Vol. 2) “The Peter Problem”
Two Sisters Publishing “Paper Mache Man”
Tuck Magazine “The Empaths”
Pure Slush (Happy theme): “Marge”
Your One Phone Call “Hard Knocks”
Furtive Daliance Literary Review “Lisa”
New Reader Magazine “Midnight at the t. Lazare Station”
The Galway Review “Sing Me a River”
Taxicab Magazine “The Last Guru”
DeadSteam Anthology “Greta Somerset”
Stinkwaves Magzine “The Tale of the Red Lantern”
Barking Sycamores “Dreams in a Hothouse”
Bewildering Stories “Round and Round”
Bull & Cross “Boxcars
Media mogul Henry Dunbar has taught his two older daughters too well. In a lapse of judgment, he hands over his power to them, and they respond by placing him in an isolated sanatorium, as a business move, of course, and cutting loose his right hand man, Charlie Wilson. His youngest daughter by his second wife, his obviously favorite child, who rejected the family business, and he rejected in turn, searches for him out of love. In this modern day King Lear, the patriarch escapes with the assistance of an unreliable colleague, ending up in the rural wilderness during a mighty storm. Rage at the disloyalty of the turncoat daughters and the desire for forgiveness from his beloved youngest fuels his survival instincts. Henry not so much evolves as he makes a 180-degree turn to become a man understanding of his youngest daughter’s inclination toward family and away from money. Good and evil are clearly delineated by the two older, traitorous daughters and the youngest, all-loving daughter, easily explained by their different mothers. In his dangerous escapade, their father essentially switches sides, focusing immediately on reconciliation with the good daughter. Wilson aides in her search, never giving up on his employer and friend. In Shakespearean fashion, the inevitable happens, with good winning and losing.
Michael Ellsworth Newberry’s life has been miraculously spared multiple times throughout his life. In his hometown of Bellhaven, South Carolina, he is the unofficial leader of the unusually diverse, small town, Southern community. He has lost his wife to the town hall fire after her rescue of a young black child sought by Klansman, who set the fire. He has lost his leg to World War I, where he also lost his best friend and any chance at the Big Leagues as a pitcher. Left bereft and wallowing in self-pity, Ellsworth is the last of the townfolk to receive the forgiveness and peace offered by lost loves in the mysterious chapel in the woods, the same woods that the children of Bellhaven had been warned to avoid for as long as they can remember. He doesn’t respond as readily as the others to this gift, fighting it, determined to expose the double-edged sword of such a gift.
I met Carmen Baca in the Facebook group 
anuscripts in print, and when I’ve written sufficiently to have a couple of pages on my iPad, I revert to keyboarding since I can type (keyboard) so much faster than I write. My short pieces I do completely on my iPad before submission.”
After my father passed, we cleaned out the morada, the prayer house, and since I was the only one living in our little valley, the community members (all way older than I at the time) elected me to house the religious artifacts left behind from the brotherhood, as all the brothers had passed by that time. There was a wooden box I remembered had been in the morada throughout my childhood, but since it was always locked I never knew what was inside. One element of los Hermanos’ practices, which is sensationalized in the websites and in other literary works, is their devotion to Christ, which includes self-flagellation. My father never once disclosed whether he did this or not, and my only clue that he did was once when I was with him at a doctor visit. When the doctor exclaimed, “What happened to your back,” I knew.
“Now that I’ve got my novel and several short pieces published, writing has given me a purpose, a new career as a story teller in my twilight years. All those decades I spent teaching the classics—short stories, poetry, novels, etc., by my own favorite authors—I am free to create my own literary works which other teachers can use in their own classes. That floors me! To know that my own literature will be taught in English, Spanish, Chicano Studies, and history courses in the same way I used to teach literature just amazes me.
Patricia sacrifices her social life and romance to care for her mother, whom everyone assumes is going through “the change.” Patty knows better, but doesn’t know how to help her mother find herself after accommodating her husband their entire marriage. As she and her siblings come of age, they move on and away from their parents, becoming distinctly different individuals who come together in the end for Patty’s wedding. Told in short story form, going back generations, the women in Patty’s ancestry lay a foundation of accommodation and depression that she is determined to escape. The women in these stories are strong, but historical convention keeps them in check, and they don’t have the tools to continually fight social mores of gender expectations. The writing flows so well that the stories lead right into each other, though they can, and have (and won prizes), stand alone. Together, they show the pattern repeated by each generation of women in choosing partners to “save” them from their families, judging poorly based on immediate escape. That they stay with their ill choices is more a matter of their time in history, as shown by Patty’s mother being unable to get a driver’s license without her husband’s or father’s permission.
Erica excels as a publicist in NYC. Her love Warren is under contract in DC, while pursuing his true love of jazz whenever he can. They vow their weekends to each other in good faith, but family and work overspill their boundaries. Erica’s alcoholic mother is an emotional vampire, constantly requesting her time and money. Warren’s father is an emotionally inaccessible, strict disciplinarian, whose second marriage exposes a family secret that rips Warren out of time and space. As Erica tries to move up the ladder in her company, special projects snatch her away from her special time with Warren, who renews his contract in DC without discussing it with her. He breaks up with her, setting Erica on a downward spiral. She confronts her mother about her childhood, prompting her mother to reveal her own tragic background. She and Warren must come to terms with the families that they have and find their way back to each other.
Lovey allows herself to be chased from her childhood home in Oxford, Mississipi by her older sister Bitsy’s inexplicable animosity. Though she calls foul on sibling rivalry, her parents don’t back her up, making Lovey feel damaged. When their mother’s garden shed burns to the ground after their friends Fisher and Finn barely make it out, Bitsy blames Lovey and no one protests, leaving her alone for years wallowing in the injustice. Bitsy uses Finn’s injuries to fuel Lovey’s guilt, prompting her move to another state, another life, away from his brother Fisher, who asked Lovey to marry him. Emotions run rampant through Lovey as she tries to balance her current life and the one she ran scared from decades ago. Her parents convince her to return home for their 50th wedding anniversary party. She complies, facing her lost love and antagonistic sister. When she’s called to return to work to resolve a hostile takeover by the boss of her ad campaign project, her father changes her mind when he confesses that her mother is terminally ill. She stays, determined to treasure every last moment with her mother, making a truce with her sister, and dealing haphazardly with Fisher’s current “it’s complicated” relationship status. Lovey continues to bond with her mother over their shared love of gardening, with life lessons inspired by gardening and favorite local writers Welty and Faulkner sprinkled throughout the book by both parents. Religious themes run a bit strong in this story and can be distracting, assuming that readers are Christian and accepting of religiosity as part of the lessons. Lovey makes a breakthrough with her father after a particularly hurtful encounter with Bitsy, which starts her healing process. She is home. This is her home. Everything comes together, albeit some of it a bit too easily, as there are decades of pent-up hurt to be worked through, especially for the sisters.
Single mom Sarah starts day shift in the dementia ward of the healthcare facility Tranquilty, moving from nights in palliative care. Her new co-worker Tracey immediately befriends her, introducing her to the “cast of characters” for whom she will be caring: Sam, who randomly prefers nudity, gentle, inquisitive Rose, the bickering twins Lily and Beth, the wheelchair menace Mrs. W, who remembers a concentration camp more vividly than contemporary events, quiet Mrs. Sellers, Italian immigrant Mrs. Gallo, whose husband visits her daily, Alfred, who has a tendency to call for a once beloved cat named Hairball, and Mrs. Amaral, a sweet Portuguese immigrant. Gardiner’s work in such a facility inspired the story, and to ensure accuracy, her research included interviewing employees in all areas of the facility, from bathing to housekeeping. New residents to Tranquility bring a professional dilemma, a dangerous situation, and potential romance for Sarah. Edie, with her soft Scottish brogue, does not appear to be suffering from dementia, but when she fakes it to expose an abusive employee, Sarah keeps an eye on her. After two violent incidents, endangering staff and residents, John is quickly moved again, to the psych ward. With Georgia comes a big family, including her great-grandson Jay, who lights a fire in Sarah. Along with all this, Sarah’s own grandma suffers a second stroke, and her mother must deal with end of life choices, a struggle for a woman who hasn’t really gotten over her husband’s death a decade earlier. The brightest light in this story is Kayla, Sarah’s daughter, who gives her grandma life, and handles great-grandma’s struggle with surprising grace for a 4-year-old. Sarah and Tracey execute a not-quite-legal plan to prove the co-worker’s abuse, but it’s waylaid by Edie’s plan to do the same. Everything comes together in the end in a complicated, bittersweet resolution, just like in real life. Characters learn and grow, while others astonish, but most of all, the ones who need to find themselves do so.