26 min
The Literary Labyrinth of Stephen T. Vessels WilderUtopia - Culture Coexistence into the Unknown
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- Fiction
In September 2022, The Fifth Fedora, Weird Noir & Stranger Tales was published by Borda Books and WilderUtopia Books in honor of the late Stephen T. Vessels, literary fiction writer, poet, visual artist, and musicologist. This is Part One of an interview conducted with him by Jack Eidt of WilderUtopia. The interview took place at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 2019.
To be sure, Stephen's work operates on the razor's edge of surreality, with a sneaking dark side that you might understand better if you imagine yourself upon opening his books pushing through a curtain and appearing in a landscape unrecognizable, fantastic maybe, populated by people who may appear as monstrous, entities who seem innocent enough, but what lurks on the other side is something one would have to keep reading to find out. I've been considering the term he used himself, a literary mystic. Try and explain what that means - I dare you.
In addition to the latest anthology, the following works of his are mentioned:
"The Artist and the Octopus, " Oh, Fortuna! Volume 7, Santa Barbara Literary Journal, August 2021.
The Door of Tireless Pursuit, A Labyrinth of Souls Novel, Shadowspinners Press
The Ruptured Firmament, A Labyrinth of Souls Novel, Shadowspinners Press
Stephen was known to write all of his drafts longhand and produced hundreds of drawings using the same pen he wrote with. His stories have also appeared in, among other publications, a Shadowspinners anthology, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and Grey Matter Press’s Equillibrium Overturned. He received the Best Fiction Award from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and in 2014 was nominated for an International Thriller Writers award. His collection, The Mountain & the Vortex and Other Tales was published by Muse Harbor.
Shadow Spinners also just published his science fiction masterpiece: The Fall of the Messengers.
In September 2022, The Fifth Fedora, Weird Noir & Stranger Tales was published by Borda Books and WilderUtopia Books in honor of the late Stephen T. Vessels, literary fiction writer, poet, visual artist, and musicologist. This is Part One of an interview conducted with him by Jack Eidt of WilderUtopia. The interview took place at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 2019.
To be sure, Stephen's work operates on the razor's edge of surreality, with a sneaking dark side that you might understand better if you imagine yourself upon opening his books pushing through a curtain and appearing in a landscape unrecognizable, fantastic maybe, populated by people who may appear as monstrous, entities who seem innocent enough, but what lurks on the other side is something one would have to keep reading to find out. I've been considering the term he used himself, a literary mystic. Try and explain what that means - I dare you.
In addition to the latest anthology, the following works of his are mentioned:
"The Artist and the Octopus, " Oh, Fortuna! Volume 7, Santa Barbara Literary Journal, August 2021.
The Door of Tireless Pursuit, A Labyrinth of Souls Novel, Shadowspinners Press
The Ruptured Firmament, A Labyrinth of Souls Novel, Shadowspinners Press
Stephen was known to write all of his drafts longhand and produced hundreds of drawings using the same pen he wrote with. His stories have also appeared in, among other publications, a Shadowspinners anthology, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and Grey Matter Press’s Equillibrium Overturned. He received the Best Fiction Award from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and in 2014 was nominated for an International Thriller Writers award. His collection, The Mountain & the Vortex and Other Tales was published by Muse Harbor.
Shadow Spinners also just published his science fiction masterpiece: The Fall of the Messengers.
26 min