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CHANTICLEER 10 QUESTION AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES
Soar a Burning Sky won the 2022 OZMA Grand Prize Award for Fantasy Fiction!
with Award-Winning Author, Steven Michael Beck
Steven Michael Beck was the OZMA Grand Prize Winner for Fantasy Fiction at the 2022 CIBAs, hosted by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference. His book, Soar A Burning Sky looks at a world linked to Earth’s, and both planets are in danger due to the harsh realities of Earth’s drastic climate change.
He is also an award winning commercial director and Visual Effects art director on films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Abyss, and The Hunt for Red October.
We were so glad to meet Steven and Vicki back in 2023 and are delighted to present this interview.
Chanticleer: To begin with, tell us a little about yourself! How did you start writing?
Beck: Writing has always been part of the creative process for me. As a filmmaker, treatments and screenplays were, and are the preemptive language of my craft. Being able to convey characters, camera movement, narrative arcs complete evocative moments, could only be done by putting words to the page. Given I’d always had the practice, longform wasn’t much of stretch—or so I thought.
Chanticleer: Film and writing always seem to have huge overlap. We run into that a lot with Book to Screen interest at the Conference. When did you realize that, in addition to being a director, you were also an author?
Beck: Here’s the odd answer… I don’t want to be a writer. I have a story to tell, and I want to get it out before I’m no longer able to write anymore. Which isn’t the same thing as wanting to be a writer. What I’d love to be is a relieved human being, thankful we finally got a handle on climate change. I see my contribution to that resolution as being the writer on this one story.
Steven Michael Beck directing Isaiah Washington on the set of the Ghost Ship.
Chanticleer: The issues of climate change are serious, and we’re glad to see the shift in fiction to address this too. Would you say that’s the genre you focus on here?
Beck: My genre is eco-dystopian fantasy. Solving climate change, or at least putting a dent in it is an eco-dystopian fantasy. The only ones capable to do this are those destined to inherit it. Thus, I’m trying to speak to them directly.
Chanticleer: Tell us a little about your writing process. Where do you land on things like idea generation, writing, and writing rules?
Beck: Lol. Rules? There are rules? In coming up with ideas for a story, I imagine a scene, and then let it go. Before it hits the presses, I indent, and re-edit it several times in over in order to get it right. I imagine. It informs. We then edit together.
For the writing day, I write in the mornings until I’m starved. Then I break for lunch, and then edit in the afternoon. Can’t write at night, lest I take it to bed.
Where the writing magic happens!
Chanticleer: It sounds like you’re a fairly intuitive writer. When you’re not writing what are you up to?
Beck: I’m the type of person who’s constantly curious about the creative process. That said, I have a rather inflatable muse. She takes me everywhere; film, design, sculpture, writing, construction, architectural design… Wherever she goes, I follow.
Chanticleer: An inflatable muse? Oh, I hope there’s a picture that explains that! Thinking about the support of muses, what are areas in your writing that you are most confident in? What advice would you offer to writers struggling in that area?
Steven Michael Beck wrestles with his next scene as the Muse looms over him.
Beck: I’m most confident in writing dialogue. Again, I believe that’s due to all the years writing screenplays. Regarding advice… Listen to the conversations around you as you develop original voice. One informs the other.
Chanticleer: How would you say being an author affects your involvement in community?
Beck: It sorely keeps me from it. Writing is a monk’s existence—if you’re going to be good. Which means, you sequester yourself away for hours at a time, day after day, months on end. Sure, you could spend the remaining hours at some bar, Bokowski-ing it, but that’s not community.
Chanticleer: That’s unfortunate that it feels like being an author and participating in community are at odds with each other. Do you feel like there’s a way you can promote and improve literacy in your community still?
Beck: I’m a columnist in our local paper as well as being a local author. One feeds the other when it comes to community dialogue.
Chanticleer: That is so true. Thinking of people reading your column, who would you say is the perfect reader for your book?
Beck: Anyone ages 12-54 who’s concerned their world won’t be here someday. Hopefully I can convince them my work is fantasy.
Chanticleer: So often fantasy and reality intersect, which is one of the great joys of writing. As a final question, what excites you most about writing?
Beck: The sense of discovery. You never expect to find what you do when you write. It’s magical, frustrating, shocking, and complex, all at once. Which is odd when you’re writing a cookbook.
Steven and Vicky Beck at Chanticleer Authors Conference
Chanticleer: Indeed! Thank you so much for making the time for this interview!
You can sign up for the Napa Valley Register and read Beck’s column here.
Steven Michael Beck spent the last 30 years pursuing the art of storytelling through advertising, film, and television. Specializing in visual effects-oriented concepts (and their often-unique storylines), his direction has constantly reflected infatuation with animation—the notion that any object or idea either contained ‘life’, or could be conjured into such (needless to say, he had an imaginative childhood). These projects and life lessons have been nothing if not steppingstones, leading him to see the potential of a new type of storytelling through combinations of sculpture, photography, text, and found object.
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