CHRIS STEVENS

There’s nothing quite like a good story. And when I realized that I could put one together in a way that people responded positively to, trust me, there was no one more surprised than I was.

I’ve been drawing since I was a toddler, and my debut novel actually started its life as two or three pages of brainstorming for what I’d intended at the time to be a graphic novel. It was a good start, but then I thought I’d try writing a chapter of it to really get my head into the beginning of my story and just to see what would happen.

What happened was that one chapter quickly became two, then three, and so on. And it wasn’t long before I realized what I had on my hands was so much bigger than a graphic novel. What’s more, I discovered that every time I sat down to write, there was this feeling of fulfillment and excitement that I’d never known before from anything else. And five years later, with several other stories and who knows how many hours of work now under my belt, that feeling is even stronger than ever.

My bookshelf is full of horror, suspense, crime, fantasy, and science fiction stories. My favorite authors are Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Gillian Flynn, Agatha Christie, and Joe Hill; King probably having the greatest influence on me after I’d found a worn-out secondhand copy of Christine in middle school and was all but unable to put it down.

When I’m not reading, writing, or doing arithmetic (my day job is in finance), I’m trying to keep up with my young son and just generally living life in the small corner of the Midwest that I call home.

I like stories that start in a world I know with people I can identify with, then introduce a little strange and unusual into the mix—watching those ordinary people as they learn that life isn’t nearly as normal as they’d once thought.

If that’s the sort of thing that interests you, too, then I’m excited to have you along.