Who is This Steele Character, Anyway?
I don't know, either. All I know is that he's a writer.
After all this time, I figured I should introduce myself to those who haven’t had the terror.
I’m Richard Steele, I write speculative fiction, transgressive fiction, and the (very) occasional poem. I wrote many pieces on Medium for around four years off-and-on, ranging from memoirs to op-eds to haiku to erotica to drabbles to science-fiction. The readership of said pieces was dismally low, and I finally closed my office door therein earlier this year.
While toiling on Medium I wrote three serial stories, two of which I am expanding into novels. Two of them are dystopian science-fiction tales; one is set later in this century here on Earth, and the other on a very distant planet about 400 years from now. The third, a modern-day supernatural fantasy, is still on the “maybe” list.
Currently, I’m looking to publish the first one—the working title is Shinaan and the Seven Sisters—in the next six months.
I reside in the Outer Rim of the San Francisco Bay Area, between The City and Sacramento. I was born and raised in Silicon Valley before the silicon showed up, until Mom thought moving to the rural outskirts of a pseudo-farm-town 90 miles to the northeast was better.
It wasn’t. At least not for my brother and I. That’s a story for another day. Or decade.
I spend my days writing and gardening, and by “gardening” I mean getting my 65-year-old ass to the front yard with a broadfork and a Root-Slayer (TM) trowel and spending late summer and most of autumn yanking out nut sedge and Bermuda grass after spraying it with a specific herbicide and then seeding the yard with nine pounds (I’m not kidding) of mini-clover seed as a ground cover.
I’m married to a long-time Rotarian. For some reason her fellow Rotarians think I’m fascinating but when I mention my writing their eyes glaze over.
Before I close this opening round, some fun facts to know and ignore:
I’m a classically trained baritone & sang a lead role in “HMS Pinafore”
For a few years I was a semiprofessional actor
From 1991 to 1996 I served in Army of the United States
I was a practicing CPA for about three minutes
I have a lot to say about the incoming pseudo-government, so stay tuned.