Today we’d like to introduce you to Keith Steinbaum.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
After a number of years devoted to poetry, followed by about a decade and a few minor achievements as a professional song lyricist, I wound up working almost thirty-five years in the landscape industry. Sometime during that period, I realized that my desire to write was truly a need to write, and that realization eventually produced The Poe Consequence, a modern-day story combining supernatural suspense and human drama. An originally self-published novel in 2012, that year it received the Supernatural Thriller of the Year with Books-and-Authors.net. In 2015 it was included in Kirkus Reviews’ ‘The Best Books of 2015’ year-end issue. After it was signed by Black Opal Books publishing, the novel was re-released in March of 2020 and went on to be selected as the Winner in the 2021 Book Excellence Awards for Best Fiction novel and Winner of the Thriller category in the Maincrest Media Book Awards in 2022.
My second novel, a Beatles-themed whodunit murder mystery titled, You Say Goodbye, also published by Black Opal Books, was actually my first release through them, coming out in February of 2019. In 2020, the book was selected as the Winner of the TopShelf Book Awards for Best Fiction/Intrigue.
A personal, life-changing event occurred in my mid-teens that transformed me into a creative writer, and although I paid the bills through a long career in the landscape industry, in my heart I’ve always considered myself a creative writer first and foremost. It took years of piecing together reasons for occasional bouts of sadness and esteem issues to finally understand the fact that I needed to answer that calling and to do something about it. Writing The Poe Consequence, a story originally inspired by the number of gang-affiliated housing areas I worked at, was the therapy I needed that brought me back from an emotionally tough time. My second book, You Say Goodbye, originally inspired by a story in the obituary section about Alexandra Scott from the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, was the continuing byproduct of that renewed recognition of what I expect from myself.
I’m currently working on Book # 3 which I describe as a supernatural, international, time-traveling cemetery story. I hope to see its release sometime in late 2023.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I believe that most authors are an insecure breed because when one’s creativity is placed before public opinion, although we may feel that the final product has worth, what we feel doesn’t matter. And when it’s a first novel the need to believe in yourself and stay committed to the beginning, middle, and end is highly daunting, to say the least. There’s no history of achievement, no credible review of your work, so the need to keep your head down and plow ahead with your heart and head leading the way for your belief system is all you can depend on.
When I wrote my first novel, The Poe Consequence, I was in a job that required many hours and miles, so the opportunities needed to be found. I always had my laptop so whether I wrote on a lunch break, or in the garage of my office building before I went upstairs, or at home for many hours of seclusion, or in the middle of the night when I awoke with an idea, etc. it wasn’t an easy road in that regard. Because of this, the book took years to complete. When it came to my second novel, You Say Goodbye, I had been promoted to the director of my landscape company and with the fewer hours of opportunity, combined with the added fatigue, my only day of possible focused writing was Sundays. Yet, despite the years required, again, I completed the story and got it published.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’ve been writing creatively for over fifty years, starting when I was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school. At that time, I started writing poetry and continued until sometime in my college life when I began to dabble in rewriting song lyrics to songs by groups and artists I liked. This became a passion and upon graduating, while supporting myself as a tennis instructor, I pursued a songwriting career as a lyricist. By the time this period of my life ended, I had several songs recorded in various countries of Europe, as well as South Africa, Asia, and America. But I came to realize that the possibility of a prolonged career wasn’t possible. I was provided the opportunity to get a job in the landscape industry which I knew very little about, but I worked hard to learn the many things involved and wound up working in the industry for almost 35 years. I retired in 2020.
Ironically, what I’m most proud of from those many years as a landscape professional doesn’t have anything to do with my landscape work, but rather the completion of my two novels. To be able to complete these two highly difficult tasks while working long, hard hours and also being a husband and father, is something that did wonders for my emotional state of mind and renewed confidence in my creative side.
What does success mean to you?
In this world we live in, if peace of mind is an unreachable mountaintop, success is finding yourself as close to that peak as possible when all is said and done.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://keithsteinbaum.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100023430891539
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/keithsteinbaum
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m_pYE7Tqqg&t=64s
Image Credits
Matt Davies
Jim Avery
