From Bram Stoker Award winner Steve Burt, who also writes the FreeKs psychic teens mystery/suspense series (FreeK Camp, FreeK Show). Odd Lot is the first of four collections in the Stories to Chill the Heart series of weird ghost/horror/mystery/dark fiction tales. It won the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Award (silver) for Best Mystery Suspense Book and numerous other awards for young adult readers.
Steve Burt's writing career took a sharp turn in 1991 thanks to a snowstorm that stranded him at an airport. Already well known for his nonfiction books, Steve needed a book to pass the time, so he picked up a horror collection at the airport bookstore. As a teen he had always loved mysteries and dark fiction. He devoured the book and began reading everything he could find in the rediscovered genres. Three years later he began writing weird tales and mysteries. His first 8 stories earned honorable mentions in Year's Best Fantasy & Horror anthologies, indicating he was on the right path.
In 2001, a year after his inspirational story collection, A Christmas Dozen, became a bestseller, he turned to dark fiction in earnest. Odd Lot: Stories to Chill the Heart sold out its first printing in one summer, winning numerous awards including a Benjamin Franklin Award for mystery/suspense and a ForeWord award for Best Horror. A growing fan base clamored for more, so Even Odder: More Stories to Chill the Heart appeared and caught the attention of the Horror Writers Association, whose members made it 1 of the 5 Nominees for the world's top horror prize, the 2003 Bram Stoker Award (it lost to Harry Potter). Burt's next book, Oddest Yet (2004) made it into a Stoker field of 4 that included Dean Koontz and Clive Barker, then tied Barker to win Steve Burt his first Stoker. Wicked Odd came out in 2005 and was named an Ippie Award finalist. By then Burt was well-decorated but still a relative unknown.
But that changed in 2009 when Connecticut Magazine profiled him as "The Sinister Minister" (during the day he's a small church pastor) and the article got him into everyone's living room. In 2010 he published FreeK Camp: Psychic Teens in a Paranormal Thriller, a "crossover" book that appealed to adults, teens, and tweens in the same way Harry Potter had. Both fans and critics loved it, and the book earned 12 awards including the New York, San Francisco, Hollywood, New England, London, and Paris Book Festival Awards; 2 Mom's Choice golds, 2010 and 2011 Beach Book of the Year, a Moonbeam Children's Book Award, and a Next Generation Indie. In the spring of 2011 it rose to #1 Top-Rated Teen Fantasy/SciFi/Mystery//Detective/Espionage ebook in the Amazon Kindle store.
The frequel, FreeK Show: Where Nothing Is as It Appears, came out in November 2011 as an e-book and will appear as a paperback in spring 2012.
Dr. Burt and his wife/editor Jolyn Joslin live in Warwick, Rhode Island. His website is www.BurtCreations.com.
