Florida Country Noir Author Steph Post Talks about A Tree Born Crooked - by Elgon Williams

There are some interviews you look forward to and this was one. Steph Post lives down the road from me, so the speak, in the Sunshine State. She was born here but won a prestigious creative writing scholarship and went off to North Carolina for the Bachelors from Davidson College and her Masters from UNC Wilmington. Her full time gig is teaching at a performing arts school in Tampa.  She is a fascinating, talented writer whose novel A Tree Born Crooked is due out in November 2014.

Synopsis: Thirty-six year old James Hart, with a tough-as-nails exterior and an aching emptiness inside, does not want to go home. Upon hearing of the death of his father, however, James decides to bite the bullet and return to Crystal Springs, Florida, a collapsed rural town running on the fumes of the occasional interstate tourists passing through.  It is a place where dreams are born to die. Here, James discovers that he is too late for Orville’s funeral, but just in time to rescue his younger brother, Rabbit, from the deadly consequences of his petty crime life and, in the process, discover that he can’t escape the grips of his family, and might not even want to.

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Steph was kind enough to answer a few questions. So let's get to know the up and coming literary star.

Q: Imagine for a moment that you’re a famous, bestselling author. They’re making a movie out of your last book. What do you do next to top that you’re already achieved?

A: I would LOVE to have a television show made out of a novel of mine. I write cinematically already, so I don’t think this would be too far-fetched one day. But I think that television dramas are the new movies. The writing on shows such as Justified, Sherlock and True Detective is amazing! I think that this would be even more exciting than a film.

Q: Creativity comes in many ways – for example, painting, photography, sculpture, music and theater. What other things do you do or have you done that are examples of using your imagination or other artistic talents?

A: Before writing took up all of my time I used to paint. I loved painting because there was no pressure- it was just fun; I never had any ambitions about becoming a professional visual artist. I still miss it and hope that at some point I will have enough free time to get back to it.

Q: Many writers say that being creative becomes an integral part of their daily lives and part of their routine. How do you balance your responsibilities to others around your need to create?

A: Fortunately my husband and friends understand my writing obsession. When I get really focused I can spend ten or more hours at a time working on “the book” and everyone around me has learned to deal with it, I suppose. I only write, though, on the weekends or holidays. So during the week, I’m concerned with work, but it also gives me a chance to relax and have a somewhat “normal” day.

Q: Let’s talk about when you were a kid. In school were you a troublemaker, an instigator or the teacher’s pet? Explain.

A: I think I was pretty difficult to put in a box. I was very independent, but loved learning. I definitely spoke my mind a lot and this got me into trouble at times. For better or worse, I think I tend to transcend labels. 

Q: Where do you see yourself at this moment in your life had you never decided to write a book?

A I imagine that I would have just finished up earning my Ph.D. Two years ago I was seriously considering doctoral programs, but then realized that I couldn’t do EVERYTHING all at once (even though I sometimes think I can). I made the decision to walk down the creative, instead of purely academic, path and I’m glad that I did.

You can Find Steph Post on social media at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Steph-Post/153516208138065?ref=hl

Twitter: Stephpostauthor

Blog: www.stephpostauthor.blogspot.com

A Tree Born Crooked by Steph Post: Gritty, Earthy and Realistic

Most people born in small towns like Crystal Springs figure it out before they get out of school that they are going to die there, too, unless they run away like James tried to do. Living around people who knew way too much about him and always had, people seem like candidates for the next Jerry Springer Show. But the small town ways he was born into were still with him no matter how far he ran away.

James went away to pursue his dream of becoming a pilot. With a little less than a thousand bucks his dad dug up that was buried in the yard in an old mason to see him on his way, he set out. But his dreams really pan out. He fell in with the same kind of people he was running away from, ending up on the wrong side of the law. When he saw people around him dying or going away to prison, he tried running away from that, too. Working on cars instead of stealing them was okay for just getting by.

Then, he receives a post card from his mother telling him his father died and he needs to come home. Despite the years away, Crystal Springs hasn’t changed much. Small towns never do. People he went to school with remain trapped in their circumstances, not knowing anything better and settled in a sort of pathetic routine. Although he doesn’t want to stay in his hometown any more than he did the day he left it, he gets drawn into a real mess involving his younger brother, Rabbit, a cousin, Delmore and Waylon, a bar owner and father of a girl named Marlena who remembers James but he barely recalls her. But the better he gets to know her the more he thinks that she might have been a reason for him never to have run away.

Steph Post author’s voice particularly well suited to the Country Noir genre of A Tree Born Crooked. Her descriptions of modern-day, small-town, southern life is both accurate and as far from an idyllic Norman Rockwell depiction of rural America as imaginable. In the harsh light of the bright Florida sun and the darkest nights a few miles from nowhere we learn what the people of Crystal Springs are really like. Transported in a beat-up, rusted, 70’s vintage pick-up with faded baby blue paint, we are taken to a place most outsiders just pass by as they head down the Interstate for something better to do and a bigger city to do it.

What makes Post’s novel interesting is something akin to why we as humans stand transfixed watching a train wreck in progress, or perhaps why we listen to gossip even though we might never think we spread such vile speculations about the people we know. This inspection of the human condition is a microcosm of our world. In some way we all may relate to a way of life that we might otherwise overlook or just pretend it doesn’t exist.

Steph Post is a highly skilled storyteller who has fashioned a fictional setting for her book that you’ll swear is some place you’ve driven through on your way to somewhere better. Her characters are as real as that aunt and uncle that everyone else in the family would prefer to ignore, or that family who lives in the trailer park, the ones with relatives in prison and those who aren’t seem to always be up to no good.

A Tree Born Crooked will be available in the Fall of 2014. Make sure it's on your 'to be read' list.