Growing up in the obsolete world of an ex-industrial North, I—Steven Mohr—spent my early life in the midst of a very character shaping environment, an environment filled with blues riffed rock and not so business minded roles. It was an environment that encouraged humility and creativity and asked its adherents for a different kind of production. The old factory lines empty, this new production was less involved in materials and goods and more with thoughts and words and abstract images. It inspired me and others around me to produce music and literature regardless of our socioeconomic background. I spent the off time in my college days driving around from one grungy stage to another playing in bands and building memories. Then taking O’Connor’s words to heart, “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days,” I chose to write about what I’ve seen and could have seen. These experiences, however, were only the beginning. Moving across country, marrying, and preparing for our first child, it feels like semi-autobiographical and entirely imaginative narratives could pour out in the volumes. Presently, living between the western mountains and the eastern shore, I wake up to the fresh North Carolina air every morning with my beautiful wife, Hannah and give thanks for all I’ve been given. On random weekends of pause, me and my transplant wife enjoy playing the parts of winter snowboarders and summer beach bums—at least once in a while!—but always returning to our adopted home somewhere in between in the vast piedmont.
