Guest Author Interview: Stephen Carpenter

Please welcome today's guest author Stephen Carpenter!  Stephen is the author of Killer, and The Grimm Curse.

EJ:  When did you begin writing?

Stephen:  I began writing in the 7th grade. I was fascinated by Poe, Shakespeare, and popular authors. I began by trying to write plays, then I started writing short stories. But I later gravitated toward writing screenplays, which is how I've made a living.

EJ:  What brought you to the paranormal genre?

Stephen:  I came to the fantasy/paranormal genre through my interest in Stephen King on my own, and later, through my son, after reading so much of Harry Potter, Twilight, etc.

EJ:  If you could be any paranormal or have any one supernatural talent, what would it be? Why?

Stephen:  As pedestrian as it sounds, my one supernatural talent of choice would be the ability to stop time. I would get a lot more done, and be more rested, and thus, better looking. But mainly, I would be able to live out the fantasy of the famous Twilight Zone in which Burgess Meredith finds the stopwatch that stops time at will.

EJ:  Tell us why readers will enjoy your new release.

Stephen:  I hope people like The Grimm Curse (Once Upon A Time Is Now) because they can find a contemporary re-telling of the famous fairy tales we all grew up with. It's one thing to think of Little Red Riding Hood in a forest long, long ago...it's quite another to think of her as a high school girl in a red hoodie who is stalked by a football player from the Wolverines, from a rival high school. It's all about reinvention.

EJ:  If your book(s) were being made into a movie, who would you cast for the leading roles? Why?

Stephen:   I would cast unknown actors for the simple reason that I am tired of the same old faces all the time. Aren't we all?

The Grimm Curse (Once Upon A Time Is Now) by Stephen Carpenter.

Fifteen year-old Jake Grimm is the last living descendant of the Brothers Grimm, who wrote the famous fairy tales in the 1800's. But Jake grew up with foster parents in Los Angeles, never knowing his true destiny until he ran away from his unhappy foster home, to the place of his birth--Woodland--a small town nestled deep in a Northwestern forest.  In Woodland, Jake discovers that the famous fairy tales are all real, and they are happening today. And Jake, as the last living Grimm, is the only one who can stop the witches, big bad wolves, and evil stepmothers who are all alive and well, and about to wreak havoc in the small town of Woodland, following the death of Jake's great-uncle Eustace.  But these fairy tales creatures are not like those in the old stories. Woodland is a modern place, and the creatures Jake battles seem like completely normal, modern people--to everyone but Jake. Only Jake can see them for what they really are, and, together with his friend and apprentice, Madeleine, he must fight to prevent the evil that is all around the unsuspecting teens at Woodland High.

Thank you Stephen for joining us here today at From the Shadows!