By Betty Land

Three themes ran through the speech of Joe R. Lansdale, author and teacher. He spoke of his family, his craft and his art. They were the themes that gave structure to his life.

He spoke of an 11-year-old boy with a bully problem and a father who was willing to teach what he knew. He was uneducated, but he knew how to make a living “riding the rails” to fairs to wrestle in traveling shows. The father knew how to teach the skills of self-defense to his son.

He spoke of a mother who raised two sons, 17 years apart and had time to help a young man write “the first thing that I ever sold,” Lansdale said. “It was a letter entry in the ‘Farm Journal’, and it won a prize. I was 21 years old."

The lives of his children are important to him and he spoke with pride about their accomplishments. He said, “They both write.” His son is a reporter and his daughter writes songs. He was soft voiced when he talked about his wife who worked as a dispatcher for the Nacogdoches Fire Department. “She works for me, now,” Lansdale said with a grin. He talked about recent work with his older brother on a writing project.

His craft is the written word. His words appear in works with themes ranging from horror stories, westerns, and crime fighting good ole boys to the antics of “Batman and Robin”. His writing career spans over four decades.

His art is centered in the demanding world of Shen Chuan, a system of martial arts he created. As a youngster, he was able to take a class in self defense that was offered at the YMCA. Lansdale said, “I’m in the Martial Arts Hall of Fame for being a founder and a teacher and some other things.” He did not mention the seven Bram Stoker awards, the 2007 Grand Master Award for contributions to the field of Horror fiction, or the international honors he has received.

He does not speak of famous actors, but of directors and writers who have produced work he admires. Lansdale said, “I’ve been to Hollywood, I go out there get my business done and I come home.”

He spoke of works sold, “I got the check," but there was a wistful note in his voice when he said they haven’t made it onto film, “yet.” He said he hopes his optioned book, “A Fine Dark Line”, will be made.

He was dressed in black and he had not covered his bald spot with a Hollywood rug. He let his warts show and did not speak about the glamour of being a successful author.

Lansdale spoke of the early times “when I worked as a janitor here at SFA. I cleaned the gym and then I got a promotion. I was a supervisor over two buildings on campus.” He said he started making money writing “so I quit to write full time”. He said when he quit the custodial job, “things quit selling. I stayed home and raised my son. I wrote my first screen play with him sitting on my lap.”

Texas State University, in San Marcos, has Lansdale materials from the 1985-1992 years in their archives. Their biographical note is heavy on facts but contains very little of the rich flavor of his work. It said “Joe R. Lansdale was born October 28, 1951 in Gladewater, Texas. Lansdale has written horror, science fiction, westerns and mysteries. He has expressed a preference for short stories but has also written novels, comic scripts, screenplays and stage plays."

“He has edited several short story anthologies and has contributed to numerous genre magazines. All his works are informed by his life-long immersion in the atmosphere of deep East Texas. Lansdale was awarded the Bram Stoker award for "Night They Missed the Horror Show" in 1989 and for "On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead People."

The years since 1992 have seen the creation of many works with colorful dustcovers and intriguing titles that provoke questions such as, what happened in “Mad Dog Summer” and who or what was in “High Cotton?”

Who wouldn’t like to get into the mind of a man who wrote the screen play for “Bubba Ho-Tep” which is, according to Wikipedia,com, “a movie with characters such as Elvis and JFK battling a soul sucking ancient Egyptian mummy in a nursing home”? Lansdale said the Wikipedia article is “mostly accurate” unlike some other internet sources about his work.

He teaches at SFASU and writes everyday. “If you wait for inspiration you won’t make it. I don’t know anybody who made a writer waiting for inspiration. You have to do it,” Lansdale said. “It is a discipline I learned from Martial Arts.” He said the title of “professor” comes from the world of the Martial Arts where he teaches, and not from the world of academia. “Writing is what I do,” he said.

He said he started out reading comic books and that led to illustrated books of great literature. “They did a good job of them and that got me reading other books,” he said.” He liked the comic books enough to write for them later. He wrote segments for “The Lone Ranger”, “Batman” and wrote episodes for “Batman: The Animated Series”

In an interview with Nick Gevers, a writer for Infinity Plus, Lansdale said, “Edgar Rice Burroughs made it imperative that I be a writer. He is my sentimental favorite to this day, and I even had the fortune to complete a novel he left uncompleted. It was titled ‘Tarzan's Last Adventure’. I loved that, working with my hero. What he did give me was a sense of pace and a love for pure storytelling.”

It seems like a lot of different things came down U.S. Highway 80 and influenced a little boy growing up in Gladewater, Texas.