We recently connected with Steven Prouse and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Steven, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My novel Handlebars has to be one of my more meaningful recent projects. I took a break from writing for about a decade and only started again when I incorporated it into writing for my sons. I wrote a few short stories, including my children’s book Sammy the Squirrel-tle, at first.

Handlebars was the first novel I wrote and gifted to them.

I conceived of the story in 2016 while watching a Trump-Clinton debate with music playing in the background (they really didn’t deliver anything of substance to listen to). Handlebars by the Flobots came on and I focussed on that song instead. During that debate, I tried envisioning either candidate as a child riding a bike… and I couldn’t. Two people vying for one of the most powerful elected seats on the planet, and I couldn’t picture them as children at play.

The next few years presented the world with a clear image of what it would look like as our worst tribal inclinations seized our fears and divided us.

I wanted to warn my kids against giving in to fear and bigotry. I wanted to tell them how I dabbled with rightwing lunacy and how I could have easily tumbled down that path. So, I wrote Handlebars.

To make sure the project was wholly mine, I painted the cover. I wanted to give my sons a piece of my history and who I’ve become as a lesson to not follow that path. And, they received it well. In fact, they enjoyed the novel so much, they demanded a sequel. I’m now working on a trilogy follow-up story set about 15 years after Handlebars concludes.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began writing young. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I wrote and drew my own comics. I can’t say they were great, but they put me on a path to telling better and stronger stories. In college, I coupled my love of television and movies and pursued film and television writing.

Once out of school, I refocused on comics. I found myself surrounded by people with a strong passion for the medium. We combined our efforts and launched 803 Studios in 2001. For four years, we toured the country promoting one self-published title after another. We were fortunate enough to work with and publish amazing creators from around the world. We were honored to have sat on several very popular self-publishing and independent creator convention panels.

I had three properties optioned for film and television development. While they didn’t go anywhere at the time, the ideas were amazing, and I hope to return to that world soon.

While adult life tugged each of us away, I’m proud to say that all of my studio mates continue their creative passions. I dropped off the radar and focused on my day job as a manager for large corporate branding projects and programs. That left little room for my creativity, but many of my stories stuck with me while I pursued a non-creative career.

Thanks to my kids, I’ve rejoined the creative world and have, since 2021, released a children’s book, a novel, a collection of short horror stories, and re-release a collection of my early comic book work. I have written an episode of the horror podcast The Gray Rooms and have five more novels and several film and television scripts working their way through development over the coming years. I’m excited to swim again in the sea of stories and cannot wait to share what I have with my fans.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Change its view on creativity.

Largely, modern society views art as escapism. As a result, we devalue creatives looking at them more as a curiosity than craftsmen and craftswomen. We walk on woven rugs, fill our homes with unique furniture that extends our personalities into our homes, and paper our walls with prints, paints, posters, and portraits. In times of strife, we look to our stories to keep us going. We’re so desperate to connect to something creative, we hope sophisticated computer programs can fill the void.

We forget why we seek out these things in the first place. Stories and art are how we connect. They’re how we explore our shared experiences and identify what about our lives makes us unique. Art is as important as food, water, and air. And we need to look at the arts through that lens.

We spend too much time training the next generation to function as labor for others that we’ve neglected what makes them human. We need to boost funding and participation in arts programs at school. We need to look at artistic endeavors as valid career paths and not dismiss them as side hustles or hobbies. While we shouldn’t be forced to commodity our passions, those who want to pursue a creative career need barriers knocked down.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to learn that an individual can never be sovereign.

Our culture has become so focused on the “self-made man” myth that we’ve lost sight of our humanity. We are a social animal. We create and thrive through community. We are strengthened by diversity.

Like the predominant mediocre white man, I spent my twenties and thirties believing that I forged myself into steel through unbridled ambition and determination. I convinced myself that we’d each be better if we remained true to ourselves.

It only takes a spoonful of humility and a dash of empathy to realize how wrong that is.

We’re shaped by our community. Our family. Our friends. Our education. Our heroes. Our successes are realized as much by those who support and guide us as they are by our drive. We know how to walk, speak, tie our shoes, and drive not because we taught ourselves, but because others gave of their time to guide us.

Beauty is abundant in humanity. The basic acknowledgment that many others have more struggles than we’ve ever imagined keeps us grounded and all of us moving in a better direction.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stevenprouse.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartaruchus77/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089911435278
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenprouse/
• Other: https://substack.com/@stevenprouse