"This clever collection will make any short story reader sit up and take notice." All Post, all of the time.

It is just that kind of week. Excerpt? Word.

"Star Wars, parenting, movies, television and pop culture galore. This clever collection will make any short story reader sit up and take notice."

Dave Housley is Steph Post interview.

And like right here at that. Excerpt? Word.

SP: If I Knew the Way, I Would Take You Home has much in common with Commercial Fiction- your style is immediately visible on the page- but there is a seriousness bubbling under the surface of these stories, a bittersweet nostalgia, that lends weight to the stories. How was your mindset different in writing this collection?

DH: Thanks for saying that! I think the best compliment I ever got was from Steve Almond, who said “I bet people tell you all the time how funny these stories are, but they’re really sad.” I like to think I can make anything really sad, even a Wiggles concert or a Budweiser ad. The stories in If I Knew the Way have a lot of what a friend called “father/son shit” happening in them, a lot of reckoning with getting older and the disappointments and limitations that might bring. I tend to write maybe five years behind where I am in my life. I guess I process things slowly.

We get lost with the Steph Post.

And most appreciative we are for that. Excerpt? Word.

SP: Finally, in "The Darth Vader Interlude: Dads Who Rock and Those Who Kind of Suck Ass," Darth Vader is listed as your number one "suck-ass" dad. Considering Vader is my favorite Star Wars character of all time and was one of my first crushes (yes, I just admitted that), I have to ask you to go into more detail here. Yes, there was the hand-cutting-off part and the turning Luke over the to the Emperor part, but didn't Darth Vader sort of redeem himself in the end?

BT: I'm sort of stuck on the fact that you had a crush on him. And yes, his suck-assedness has nothing to do with his general awesomeness, or his redemption arc, which is nice. But Vader is most definitely an absentee dad, and not much of a listener, and if you can't at least manage those things, and then you cut your kid's arm off as well, well, that is sort of suck-ass indeed.

SP: In conjunction with the above question, if you had to write a how-to parenting guide for Vader, what would it contain? Any tips or tricks you'd offer him?

BT: Be present, it's sort of the number one rule. And when you're there, be there, listening, not plotting total world domination, or checking your texts, or whatever. Pay attention. Breathe. Which, while Vader sort of has the breathing thing down, it's not exactly in a calming way.
I should add here, that I once wrote a piece for Untoward Magazine about Darth Vader looking back on his life as an old man and questioning whether he could have been a better father. I'm not sure reading it will further answer your question, much less change your life, but if I can't hype it here, where can I?

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode One Hundred and One - Grit Lit, starring the Steph Post.

So Grit Lit we are. And so Steph Post. We are also so podcast and Justified and Star Wars and Daniel Woodrell and ink and A Tree Born Crooked and dogs and so you should so hit it now because it just might change your life.

Lost in Space Twitter hype there is.

#Fridayreads LOST IN SPACE by @BenTanzer
— Steph Post (@StephPostAuthor) January 30, 2015

And big thanks to the Steph Post for that.

This Book Will Change Your Life - A Tree Born Crooked by the Steph Post.

We suppose we could tell you how A Tree Born Crooked by the Steph Post evoked similar feelings in us as Justified does, but maybe you would expect that, given the blurbs and her Facebook posts, and our great love for the show. But what does that mean? It means that Post writes a deeply nuanced portrait of a place and the people who live there. That there is an ongoing dance between humor and dread that can leave you dizzy. That her language feels as lived in as the characters themselves. And that the characters, as well as the places they live and happen upon, are not truly all that familiar to so many of us. We don't know trailers and younger brothers named Rabbit. Much less small-time crooks with big time senses of self. Further, we may not know crime novels at all, though A Tree Born Crooked is so much more than that, a story about relationships, and how anger and pettiness, regret and distance, can so profoundly fuck things up, it can feel easier to just stay away. So yes, we can say that too. But really, what we want to say most, well besides what a great, new talent Post is, and how excited we are to see what comes next from her fertile lit brain, is that Post's book did for us what we want all books to do, it made us want to read more, Elmore Leonard and Daniel Woodrell and Donald Ray Pollock and Bonnie Joe Campbell, because we suspect that we will find kindred spirits and kindred voices, and now we want to consume those voices too. A Tree Born Crooked did that for us, and it just might for you as well. What it will certainly do, is change your life, if only for a moment at that.