Interview with mystery author Steven Jones
This week our guest mystery author is Steve Jones, author of King of Harlem, a great book reviewed on this site in August. Just go to http://209.52.189.2/article.cfm/8017/753... to read the review.
SUITE: Tell us about your books and other writing that you have done-
STEVEN: There is King of Harlem and an anthology I edited back in 1991 called Herbert West:Tales of the Reanimator. King of Harlem is a mystery-adventure. It's not a clinical tale of deduction, like Poe's Dupin stories, but contains action in the way of physical obstacles and peril. Some of the reviewers have classified King of Harlem a P.I. novel. I'm not sure if that is a genre or not, but there you have it. Herbert West is horror.
One challenging job I was paid for was writing two young adult novels adapting issues of Todd McFarland's Spawn comic book. Todd McFarland International decided not to proceed with the series, so those manuscripts will never see print. But, I've got to tell you, trying to ship those stories into shape and then make them suitable for adolescents was not easy.
If you include comic books, I have written stories for almost every genre, including romance. Horror seems to dominate, mainly because the two most successful comic book series I wrote were adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft stories and Bram Stoker's Dracula. I also wrote an erotic-vampire adaptation of Sheridan La Fanu's "Carmilla" which sold pretty well.
But I've also written science fiction and space opera (Inavders From Mars, Invaders From Mars 2), action-adventure (Street Heroes 2005), espionage (Tatters), fantasy (Border Man), some Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and even some licensed properties (Reanimator, Alien Nation).
SUITE: When did you first start writing?
STEVEN:I started writing when I was 9. Before that, according to my Kindergarten report card, I used to love to tell stories, so I guess I've always made up fiction.
I began self-publishing in 1980 with a comic book anthology titled Quazar. It isn't a pretty magazine, but it has a lot of heart on every page. And it was the launch for Dan Jurgens, who went on to write and draw "Death of Superman" for DC Comics, and Tim Ramstead, who I think is now a bigwig on PBS' Dragon Tales animated series.
I managed to get MysteryScene Magazine to publish a review I wrote along with a six-page comic version of King of Harlem in 1986. Not for money, just exposure. My first professional sale, though, was to Malibu Graphics a year
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