Steven LaChance Blog

For as long as I can remember, writing has been a part of who I am. Even before my career took off, I was scribbling ideas and stories whenever inspiration struck. In my early life, my passion for creative expression led me to spend years working in theater and radio—mediums that taught me to listen, observe, and let my imagination run wild. These experiences laid the groundwork for everything that was to come.

For many years, though, most of my creative writing happened right at home. One of my favorite pastimes was a quirky little game I played with my kids. They would come up with a random “who, what, where, when, and how,” and I had to spin a tale on the spot. It was playful, spontaneous, and kept my storytelling muscles well exercised. Yet, even as I delighted in those moments, my more serious writing remained a private endeavor—a quiet passion nurtured away from the public eye.

That’s where the seeds for my Modern Monsters series were sown. Ideas sprouted in notebooks and on scraps of paper, growing into rich, complex narratives over time. The order in which I’m publishing these books is not the same as the order in which they were originally written. Take Grace, for instance. It began its life in 1992 as a play—a piece I always knew had the potential to become a great book. But after The Uninvited was published, the world was clamoring for my investigative works—the gritty, raw explorations of real-life supernatural mysteries. And so, Grace was put on hold, waiting for its moment.

I never really thought The Uninvited would take off the way it did. I wrote the book more for myself than anything else. It was a personal narrative and an attempt to make sense of the nightmare events that were happening to me and my family. In it—and in its sequel, Blessed are the Wicked—I stitched myself back together from all the hardship, pain, and horror I had endured. Those books were a personal exorcism.

My book Crazy was exciting because I grabbed the breathing room to create in much the same way I am today. I loved the days writing about characters who were each based on people—or a conglomeration of people—from real life and urban legend, all surrounding one very real and active haunted truck stop. My personal investigation and research inspired the story. The community and their shared stories and experiences gave it life. I wrote that book for my community more than anything else.

Then came Confrontation with Evil, the book that marked a turning point in my career. I had spent years researching the notorious St. Louis exorcism case—digging through endless documents, conducting interviews, and following leads that sometimes made me question my own sanity. The investigative work was nothing short of insane, and the events that unfolded during and after writing it were even more surreal. I’m not sure I will ever fully share the full story of that experience.

Despite its enormous success—featured on the front pages of entertainment sections around the world—the book left me feeling strangely empty. At the peak of my commercial success, I suddenly found myself with nothing left to say. I tried, but no words would come to me or onto the page. It was as if a switch had been flipped off; my mind refused to create. The creative silence was deafening.

That long silence stretched on for years until one night in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. My husband, Rick, and I were on a transatlantic cruise, immersed in conversation amid the vast, calming expanse of the sea. In that quiet, intimate moment, something inside me clicked. I realized I had spent so long writing for everyone else—publishers, critics, and the expectations of a hungry market—that I had forgotten how to write for myself. I lost my voice because I lost the one person I wrote for: me. That guy who wrote to entertain his children. That guy who created quietly for himself, as a way to make sense of the world around him. That guy who sat and wrote a true horror classic from his heart without stopping until it was done. That guy who wrote to heal himself. The fire and creative passion that was me. I lost that along the way. I lost me.

So I made a decision: from now on, I would write for me first. I would follow my own instincts, exploring the stories and ideas that had always made my heart race. And the moment I embraced that freedom, the floodgates opened. Words began pouring out again, raw and unfiltered, as if they’d been waiting for me to give them permission to return. Now I spend my days writing—sometimes an essay a day, sometimes a chapter or two a day. In fact, I’m producing so much content I’m not sure what to do with it, so I share it as much and as freely as possible.

Now, as I pick up my proverbial pen again, I write on my own terms. It’s a return to that early, unbridled love of storytelling—a love that started in theater, grew on the radio, and found its deepest expression at home with my kids. The journey hasn’t been linear, and it wasn’t always easy, but in reclaiming my creative spirit, I’ve discovered a resilience that fuels every word I write. I have not only healed but found me again in the process.