Scott Christopher Beebe's Impressions of Milwaukee and 'Our Human Condition'

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Even in the analogue age, not many children received the gift of a typewriter for their fifth birthday. “I knew what I wanted to be right then,” says Scott Christopher Beebe. He sent his first novel, written at age 13, to a publisher but he misaddressed it and the manuscript, his only copy, was never returned. Perhaps the trauma of loss has sustained his insistence on self-publishing. Nine titles, including short-story collections, memoirs, children’s fiction and a book of poems, have been released through his own imprint, Steering 23 Publications.

His latest, Our Human Condition, is a thick collection of stories that, as he writes in the introduction, took “on a life of their own.” Most of his fiction is deeply imprinted by impressions of Milwaukee, its people and places. Born in Libertyville, Ill., Beebe led a semi-nomadic life before arriving here in 1993. He has no regrets. “Milwaukee is the place where good things happened to me,” he says. “It’s so much better than anywhere else I’ve been to—it’s easy to thrive in this environment. If I moved I’d be jinxing myself creatively.”

“Humanity,” Beebe says, is the connecting tissue in the increasingly large sprawl of his body of work. “People are fragile and strong. They have faults. They have great qualities. I want people to feel empowered—to believe in yourself. That’s the message I want to give people.”

And the messages keep coming. Beebe says he has three more books in the works, including a novel drawn from his years waiting tables—a job where the faults and great qualities of humanity are on display.

Beebe reads at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 14 at Fischberger’s Variety, 2445 N. Holton St.; and 6 p.m. on Friday, March 16 at Voyageur Book Shop, 2212 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.