Steve B Howard
Bio
Steve Howard's self-published collection of short stories Satori in the Slip Stream, Something Gaijin This Way Comes, and others were released in 2018. His poetry collection Diet of a Piss Poor Poet was released in 2019.
Stories (119/0)
Wash Your Hands of Her With Toxins
The first clue was her use of “chan” instead of “san” or even “sama” considering the circumstances. Japanese social etiquette demanded that “chan” was only used for small children, young girls, a younger sister, and for a very close female friend, not for your 87 year old former neighbor who was three years your senior.
By Steve B Howard2 years ago in Criminal
Bukowski's Bastard
I don’t know if he was really as mean as he made himself out to be. Certainly his scared up face and knuckles and the scared up stanzas he dropped onto his notebook pages like spurting blood indicated that he’d been through it more than once. One time not long after I’d met him and paid the ten bucks for an hour’s worth of abusive critiquing he’d looked me in the eyes and said,
By Steve B Howard2 years ago in Humans
Direction in My Writing Life
Live your creative life like a dumpster fire caught in a tornado. -Steve B Howard That is the cover is the most recent book I’ve self published, a heavily fictionalized memoir titled The Nor. Cali Crash Stories. So far I’ve written 3 novels, 1 novella, 1 memoir, 6 short story collections 1 poetry collection, and 1 novelette. 13 books total. Around 310k words. I’ve probably written another 200k at least on Medium and with the screenplays I’ve co-written in the last two years or so. I’ve also written at least 50k words worth of stand up comedy, oneliners, jokes, bits, and chunks. And that’s just the stuff typed up. There’s at least another 500k or so in notebooks too. More than a million words since 1997. Not much compared to some writers, but still not bad either.
By Steve B Howard3 years ago in Journal
My Recent Adventures in Screenplay Writing
I’m a very fortunate newbie to the screenwriting world. A good friend of mine who is sort of a fan of my short stories and novels and a very experienced screenplay writer with credentials to back it up has taken me under his wing. So far we have co-written two and a half screenplays together, one based on a novella I wrote, a comedy, and the current one we are working on.
By Steve B Howard3 years ago in Journal
Bukowski's Perseverance
It is easy to write old Charles (Hank Chinanski) Bukowski off as a mean drunk and amateur poet that got really lucky. He was a bar brawler, a pretty horrible guy to most of the women in his life, and the type of drunk that would drink until he passed out most of the time. He started drinking at 16 and didn’t stop until he died at 73. For most of his adult life he held a string of low paying jobs with a couple of longer stints as a mail man in Los Angeles. Considering how brutal his childhood was, his dad beat him with a razor strap once a week until he was ten years old, it is amazing that he didn’t commit suicide or end up a serial killer.
By Steve B Howard3 years ago in Motivation
The Safe Face of the Waves
The hot autumn days had relinquished their hold on the sun begrudgingly. At 5 pm the dried out, burnt orange of the pine trees were still visible in the glacially receding sunlight. The shimmering heat waves rising off the coils of black asphalt collided with the cool wind coming down the mountain, following the solid wall of rock carrying with it the scent of wild flowers growing on the other side in a distant valley. Only the elements were alive and moving in the early evening heat. All the living creatures were silent except for the steady clicking sound made by the grasshoppers as they rustled through the tall, dried grass on the side of the road and one other.
By Steve B Howard3 years ago in Psyche
Satori in the Slipstream
Hurry Up and Wait: As the plane lifts off the tarmac, you regret that you won't have a chance to see that conical shaped volcano one last time: so iconic to Japan. “Maybe it's best this way,” you think, but it doesn't still the eruptions in your heart. The plane flies west towards Incheon Airport and the last you see of the archipelago is a black sliver of seismic-shaped coastline jutting out into the rough gray Sea of Japan.
By Steve B Howard3 years ago in Families
My “Kundalini Awakening” Wasn’t “mystical”! It was a Neurological Experience!!!!! No Woo Woo Needed!
The most psychedelic thing that ever happened to me was during a group meditation. My wife and I were invited to a Deeksha Giving session in Eugene, Oregon in 2007. I had been a sort of an off Soto Zen guy for years, but at the time I didn’t know much about Kundalini, Shaktipad, or Deeksha, as it was called in this case.
By Steve B Howard3 years ago in Longevity
I'll Burn the Pain Out of You Baby
Every disgusting stain on those six tatami I can trace back to his giant fat ex-Sumo ass drinking himself unconscious. Blood stains, sweat stains, even sex stains, wanted and unwanted. Every cigarette burn too. I have to take the burning butts out of his fingers when he passes out so he doesn’t set our little shit apartment on fire. I’ve seen him sleep through earthquakes when he’s drunk.
By Steve B Howard3 years ago in Humans
