What drives your art? What forces you, rides you, hustles you, controls you until its latest needs have been met? What really drives you to create speculative fiction art, be it words or images?

I like stories. I like to tell stories, read stories, and write compelling stories that draw you in and leave you breathless in anticipation of what will happen next. For me that means action packed stories which have heroes and villains, people facing overwhelming odds or confronted by their hopes and fears. I write stories that I would like to read, with characters that interest me.

If there was the possibility of becoming any speculative fiction character ever created (except your own), would you? Who? Why?

I would never want to be anyone except myself. My life is too interesting. If I had to, I would be Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe because his life has many close parallels to my own.

If you could only take one author’s works compressed on an e-book reader on a “one-bag-only” one-way trip to another galaxy, whose works would it be and why?

I would be torn between Robert E. Howard and Louis L’Amour. They are both tops in their field, endlessly enjoyable, and have so many incredible characters to get to know. Howard’s prose is absolutely fantastic, so vivid and multi-hued it paints Frazetta-like images in your mind. L’Amour is the consummate American storyteller. He captures the American spirit like no one else.

Why Sigurd? What initiated his story and made you complete this particular tale?

Sigurd was born of my search for a Sword and Sorcery hero who was intelligent and a man of character as well as action. I like characters who think their way out of trouble instead of just crushing their opponents with brute strength. I also liked the idea of a character who found his own sense of morality getting him into trouble he could have avoided.

In the privacy of your favorite writing nook, do you act out your protagonist’s actions? Do you know how to use his weapons? Do you wear his clothes? Do you talk like him?

I do not “act out” any actions in my writing, but I try to base them on my own experiences and what makes sense. I occasionally lose readers when this does not match their Hollywood enhanced vision of bloody mayhem. All of my characters “talk like me” to some extent, but I try to give each one an individual voice that matches their personality.

Quick: List your first thought as your answers to these questions about the future of genre fiction:

Printing Methods: Offset or Print-on-Demand?

Print-on-demand.

Reading Formats: Electronic or Print?

Electronic (unfortunately).

Book Tours: Physical or Virtual?

Both.

Reading Habits: Dead, Dying, Alive, Growing?

Dying.

Length: Flash, Short, Novella, 1970’s novel (60k), 1980’s novel (80k), 1990’s novel (120k), 2000’s novel (150k)

It will stabilize at 100-120k.

Robert E. Howard, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, Louis L’Amour, Frederick Faust, Ian Fleming, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rafael Sabatini . . . the list could go on. Some lived long lives, some flared and burned out young. All lived life hard. All wrote pulse-pounding action-adventure, often dipping into the many different genres they share, yet each eventually establishing their name within a specific one. What do you believe you have in common with these authors, and what makes you so sure speculative fiction – heroic fantasy fiction to be precise – is your genre? Or is it?

About the only thing I have in common with any of those writers is a hard life, full of struggle and strife. Heroic fantasy fiction will always be part of my life; it speaks to me and touches my soul. I guess part of me is deeply connected to the Homeric/mythic tradition where larger than life (and tragically flawed) heroes battle impossible odds. I BELIEVE those stories.

Thanks for the thoughtful and powerful answers, Jeff!

If you want to know who Jeff Stewart is and what he does (and where his stories come from), watch this video.

Review Praise for “Mountain Scarab”

“…My second-favorite story of this distinguished bunch. Greed, swordplay, treachery, humor—this one has it all.” ~ Wesley Lambert

An excerpt

The first guard died with an arrow through his throat. Before the startled members of the caravan could react, a screaming mob of Peshmerga tribesmen descended the steep rocky hills on either side of the pass. There was time for only one flight of arrows and javelins, and then the raiders were upon the merchant train.

The wiry mountain tribesmen swarmed over the defending guards, dragging them off their mounts and plunging daggers deep into the struggling lowlanders. Near the rear of the caravan, a lone Valkyrion from the North waded through the battle, his steel helm and war axe distinguishing him from the other raiders. Dark of hair and grim of visage, he stalked the bloody ground in silence, a stark contrast to the howling warriors around him…

Enjoy this interview and excerpt?
Read more like it from other members of the anthology here on RBE.
Better yet – buy your own copy
of Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure today!

Popularity: 14% [?]

Related posts:

1. Mini-interview: Jeff Draper
2. Mini-interview: Angeline Hawkes
3. Mini-interview: Johnney Perkins
4. Mini-interview: Nathan Meyer
5. Mini-Interview: S.C. Bryce

Tags: Anthologies, RotS

This entry was posted by Jason on Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Authors, Interviews, RBE Presents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.