FIGHTS: The Weird West with Dominic Stabile

A STRONG VOICE IN THE WEIRD WEST GENRE SITS DOWN WITH ZBFBOOKS.COM

ZBFbooks.com - What part of the world are you writing out of?

Dominic Stabile - I’m currently living in a small Maine town called Penobscot. I’m from South Carolina, so most of my fiction takes place in the South East.

ZBF - What got you into the weird west genre?

DS - Joe Lansdale’s Jebediah Mercer stories. I had been writing for about a year when I read “Dead Man’s Road” in a Lansdale issue of Weird Tales. I had never read anything like it. Most of the Horror I had read up to that point would build suspense, reveal the horror, and then end with the character either dying or going mad. I was expecting the same from Dead Man’s Road. But what blew me away was that after the horror was revealed, and the hero, Jebediah, narrowly escaped death, the story kept going. He went after the creature, and the story ended in a climactic battle. It was a refreshing break from the norm, but it also crippled my own writing for years, because nothing I did could stand up to it.

ZBF - Do you have any favorite weird west stories?

DS - Well, “Dead Man’s Road,” for sure, as well as the rest of Lansdale’s Mercer stories. A novella of Lansdale’s called “On the far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks.” The films Seraphim Falls, Bone Tomahawk, Blood Moon, and others I’m sure I missed.

ZBF - Tell us about your title.

DS - The synopsis for Full Moon in the West goes: Juan “Tezcat” Medina is about to take the law into his own hands. Having lost his wife and daughter to a gang of outlaws, he strikes a deal with a local witch. She can resurrect his family. All he has to do is kill the six outlaws before dawn and bring their souls back to her. But there's something different about this gang of outlaws, something Tezcat isn't aware of until it's too late, and he's forced into a showdown with evil.

I originally wrote this for an anthology, but never submitted it. The story grew and took a path that didn’t fit with the anthology’s guidelines. By the time I was done, I had a story that was too long to submit to magazines and too short to submit to book publishers. I came across Grinning Skull Press’s Grave Marker Series, which focuses on publishing ebooks of stories in this range. They accepted it, slapped an amazing cover by Jeffrey Kosh on it, and that’s that.

ZBF -  Man, that sounds like an excellent story.  Where can people get your title?

DS - Full Moon in the West can be purchased for Kindle HERE.

ZBF - How can readers keep in touch with your progress?

DS - I write movie/book reviews at dominicstabile.com. I’m also active on facebook, Instagram , and twitter . I’ll be giving updates on my progress through the third book in my Scifi/Noir series from Mirror Matter Press (Stone Work is available on Amazon, Stone Wall and Stone Factory pending), as well as my progress on my Horror/Magical Realism novel, The Youth Room.

7.       Do you have a favorite alcoholic drink?

Oh yes. Maker’s, neat.

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BOWIE V. IBARRA is the author of the Weird West title 'The Cruel Fate of Dr. Brewster McGill', available in paperback and Kindle format. Network with Bowie at his official website, ZBFbooks.com.