Books and Banter: Joseph Schwartz ~ an interview and his novel ~STABCO

I AM PLEASED TO WELCOME AUTHOR

Joseph Schwartz

TITLE: STABCO

RELEASE DATE: October 20, 2016

AUTHOR: Joseph Schwartz

KEYWORDS: horror, suspense, drama, mystery, occult, knives, adventure

CATEGORIES: Horror/Suspense/Thriller

PAGE COUNT: 244

ISBN: 978-1537100593

IMPRINT: Dark Serpent

BOOK PAGE: http://ravenswoodpublishing.com/bookpages/stabco.html

AUTHOR BIO:

As a St. Louis native, I write exclusively about the Gateway City.

I prefer the style of fiction deemed transgressive fiction. That is my stories protagonists generally find a solution to their problems through illicit or illegal means.

Personally, I prefer stories told through a criminal's point-of view. It is never the crime that fascinates me so much as the motivation to do it and the terrible, almost predictable, outcomes to such actions.

Just as I have an expectation of writing to be read, I believe that it is as important, if not more so, that you as a reader should have the expectation of being entertained as you read. Anything less is such a disappointment.

“Life is short. Stories are forever.” -Joe

BANTER – STUFF ABOUT YOU

Q: Tell me one thing about each of the four seasons you like. It can be anything.

A: Winter = Unlike others who lament its coming, I welcome it. It is by far my favorite season of the year. Perhaps this is down to the Canadian in me, for we have called the hinterlands home for so very long.

Spring = Slush and smog – my two observations from the two places on opposite sides of the globe that I reside year to year. Needless to say, I have little fond memories of this particular season.

Summer = Uncomfortable warmth alleviated only by the existence of the air-conditioner and refrigerator treats. I am, however, beginning to think I am really an ice-zombie the more of these questions I answer.

Fall = As winter is right around the corner, I can say it raises my spirits some. The clatter of red leaves over the pavement is, to me, a soothing melody.

Q: If your life were a movie would it be considered an action film, comedy, drama, romance, fantasy or a combination?

A: I would hope if and when that happens, I will be spared the indignity of having to watch it or hear about it from others. It is best compared to listening to your own voice on a recording – always beyond your expectations in terms of how bad it is. Real life is endlessly mundane compared to the infinite possibilities of an imaginative mind, and as an author, it is always my hope that the work ends up being what endures other interpretations, rather than the person behind it.

Q: Have you ever been too embarrassed to promote any certain titles to friends or family?
A: A more appropriate question might be, was there ever a title I wasn’t too embarrassed to promote to my family and friends? In that regard, it always feels like a charity buy or pity purchase whenever one of them takes me up on it. Perhaps it comes with the territory. For people who know you so well, the story (any story, for that matter) loses some of its mystique – not to mention if I have made a thinly veiled approximation of one of them, they cannot fail to recognize it for what it is.

Q: Texting, love it or hate it?

A: It is the means to an end. Nothing more. Communications technology, by and far, only extends to as much with me. I have never quite understood the desire to look into the lives of others – to find interest in the everyday livelihoods of our peers. For what it is worth, it is my imaginations which I would much rather broadcast for others to see.

BOOKS – ABOUT THE CRAFT

Q: Who's your favorite author?

A: I would have to declare it a four way tie between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, T.H. White, Alexandre Dumas, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Yes, I am a gravedigger. Yes, all my mentors are dead people.

Q: Your favorite title?

A: There are too many to choose from – especially if you have been keeping up with my favorite authors above. And without doing a disservice to the others, I must, in the end, go with an odd choice. My favorite book was not written by a favorite author. I hold the Princess Bride to heart as something of a personal first-place winner.

Q: Do you always know how a story will end when you begin writing it?

A: Nothing which happens or is written down was not deliberate. I am meticulous by nature, and every aspect of the story has suffered the endless considerations afforded to making certain that nothing will ever go amiss. I not only know how the story will end, each time, I have made sure that every action leading up to that point is part of the design. The trick then, is that you, the reader, don’t get to see any of it. Therefore, you may rest assured that any surprise you may find in the story was never accidental to begin with.

Q: Generally speaking, is your work based on real life experience? If it's not would you want it to be?

A: I believe every story will more or less draw from the author’s experiences, whether or not they wish it were otherwise. There is a certain degree of privacy one must forsake with any works on such an emotional level as a story conjured and told from one’s own imagination. But then again, all the best ones do come from the heart. I’m just lucky that aside from those who are intimately familiar with it, the rest shall never know.

BOOKS - NOW LETS PROMOTE – STRUT YOUR STUFF

Q: What are you working on now? Would you like to share anything about it?

A: Currently I am doing a monthly serial in the vein of a Steampunk Noir detective mystery. Think the old Sherlock Holmes stories in the Strand magazine, and you won’t be far off the mark. The stories are standalone, but do contribute to an overarching storyline.

Q: Do you have a new book coming out soon? Tell us about it.

A: I have one finished novel – a YA fantasy on a down to earth look at hunting fantastical monsters – that I am editing, and another work in progress that will be finished by the end of the year. Perhaps I will surprise some by saying this particular book is treading off the beaten path for me. It is to be, of all things, a romance first and foremost.

Q: How can we find you? Do you have a web page, FaceBook page or any buy links?

A: Aside from Ravenswood links, here are my Amazon author’s page and my writing blog.

www.amazon.com/author/byyan

https://bigbinofideas.wordpress.com/

ONE LINER:

Two loser brothers hoping to find salvation and redemption through the sale of knives door-to-door.

SYNOPSIS:

Jesus Christ, Jim Jones, and Joseph Smith all had one thing in common – they all believed they were God… at least for a moment.

Randy and Raymond have discovered a “new” God in The Supreme Master – the singular and irrefutable leader of STABCO.

Without knowing it, He has chosen them ― Without trying, They have served him

A cult and a corporation Hell bent on making BIG profits, STABCO has found its new cash cow in Randy and Raymond. But like Momma always says, nothing good comes easy and likely nothing worth having is ever free.

This is their story.

Randy and Raymond.

Two loser brothers hoping to find salvation and redemption through the sale of knives door-to-door.

It will be a miracle if they survive.

Excerpt:

“Ah!” cried the Steward, lowering his hand. “What is this now?”

These men had the look of scoundrels, all over in scraps and black mantles faded to grey. They were desert vultures, and the young man stopped short facing them. They were jeering mightily, throwing up their fists as they came into the street, shouldering past Basil and knocking him aside. The man on the left was dark of hair and eyes, with a prickly red beard wrapped around his jaws and chin, in which was set a little cleft. He walked with a pronounced limp in his left leg, and his shoulders were hunched and drawn inwards as befitting a man of black intentions. He was blowing through his fingers rudely, and yelling nonsense while his friend beside him, who was much younger, darker of complexion as if he commonly basked for days at a time beneath a hot, broiling sun, walked keeping silent. They advanced upon the young man together, shoulder to shoulder.

“Quickly!” cried Sir Boors to Basil. “Do something!”

“But what, my lord?” asked the servant with equal worry, for he had as well caught onto the mood of the moment, which was rapidly turning sour.

Before Sir Boors could instruct him there were new developments. The blond young man suddenly cried out, and stumbled, almost falling over as if he had been struck out of nowhere by a stone bullet. And with a cry of aggression he was set upon.

Master and servant bellowed together in shock. To their surprise their despair was echoed by the two scoundrels, who sprang back as one then as if pricked. So they were, and not gently. A white flash appeared in the hand of the golden haired young man, a gleaming sword he used to menace his attackers and keep them at bay. For a time it served him ably in the manner of a traveler’s stick against wild dogs, but the man with the dark hair brought up his fist to his mouth and gave a piercing whistle, and suddenly there spilled from dark corners and narrow alleyways many disheveled youths, pressing upon him harshly like stray dogs catching a scent until he was surrounded. Still he might have persisted in defying them, but for his sword, which faltering from uncertainty was lowered and relieved from him by the man with the red beard. Wearing a triumphant look, he plucked a gold watch from the young man’s waistcoat pocket, and laughing went away. With him went his friends. In a moment or two they had slipped away back into the crevices and shadows from where they had sprung.

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