Horror fiction author Steve Burt’s latest collection of short stories, “New England - Seaside, Roadside, Graveside, Darkside,” was published in early April. Many around the peninsula know, or remember, Burt from his time in the pulpit at Edgecomb Community Church (formerly Edgecomb Congregational) in 1998-1999.

How did the reverend doctor end up writing horror – supernatural, paranormal stories? For starters, it’s a favored genre dating back to his teens when he read Weird Tales magazines, The Haunted Tank; H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood and many other British horror writers, including Edgar Allen Poe and Bram Stoker. When he wasn’t reading, Burt, his sister and cousins loved playing with tarot cards and Ouija boards. And a great uncle and grandfather were spiritualists.

A writer since childhood, he went on to write short stories in college and seminary school. During his 33 years as a United Church of Christ (UCC) minister, Burt wrote Christmas short stories, devotional material, sermons, poems, articles for magazines from Reader’s Digest and the Chicken Soup For the Soul series to Writer’s Digest and Yankee, among others; and books.

“It was in the early 2000s, and I was coming home from a conference in Chicago. I picked up a ‘best of’ collection of fantasy and horror short stories at the airport,” Burt said. “I read them and thought, I could write stuff like that.’”

His first published horror genre story was in the England Ghost Story Society’s magazine, “All Hallows.” The Society went on to publish two more of his tales. In 2001, his first collection of stories, “Odd Lot: Stories To Chill the Heart” was published and earned him nine awards. This collection was followed by “Even Odder,” in 2003, a Bram Stoker Award finalist in the Young Readers category (he lost to Harry Potter); “Oddest Yet,” the winner of the Bram Stoker Award 2004; and “Wicked Odd.”

Burt is the only ordained minister to win, and be a finalist for, a Bram Stoker Award. Burt described the award as a heavy resin haunted house, maybe patterned after the one in Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher.”

“I didn’t go to the awards that year (2004). It was moved to Hollywood and I didn’t think I would win anything,” Burt vividly recalled. “They shipped the award to me. I was living in Norwich, Connecticut where I was the pastor.

“This award is important because it’s judged by peers who are members of the Horror Writers Association, not agents or editors.”

These “Odd” books are now out of print, however, Burt chose the stories he thought were the best, or personal favorites, for the “New England .. Darkside” collection. “I wanted the best to carry on, kind of like a ‘greatest hits’ collection!”

Burt chose Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire-based stories careful not to include those that were too intense. One of his favorites chosen for this collection is “John Flynn’s Banshee.” The story is about a family in Nashua, New Hampshire  that spies a hearse from hell looking for souls in the neighborhood.

“I used to read tons and tons of horror short stories … the ideas just start coming together after awhile,” said Burt. “When we lived in Vermont I walked my dog past a little family graveyard; one day at the house near it a woman was mowing. In my book she became a shapeshifter and spirit stealer tending a grave garden.

Burt is working on a new novel, a murder mystery set on an island in Maine similar to North Haven. It’s developed from a novel he started in 1992 when he was a UCC pastor living in Stonington, Connecticut. Recently he began rewriting parts of it, and now, it’s all coming together.

And, as if “New England: Seaside, Roadside, Graveside, Darkside,” wasn’t filled with enough scary, supernatural thrills, another collection of short stories, “A New England Christmas Sampler” was released in June. This book includes 10 of the 12 heartwarming stories originally published in Burt’s “A Christmas Dozen.” One of the stories, "Nana Antonia's Christmas Wish," is about a young boy and his father who can’t agree on how to make a dying great-grandmother's wish for a Christmas Eve sleigh ride come true. And there’s the one about a circus elephant and her baby, “The Thumb Island Elephants," in need of rescuing in a 1909 Christmas Eve snowstorm. The elephants are trapped in an overturned circus wagon … on railroad tracks. Will the community come together to save them? Only one way to find out.

Burt, winner of more than 50 writing awards, publishes through his own company, Burt Creations. His books are available at Sherman’s book stores, on Amazon and at www.burtscreations.com

Editor Barbara Roden of All Hallows magazine said, “Steve Burt has a firm grasp of the unsettling and the uncanny … His stories are set in a recognisable world, but they never go in the obvious direction, preferring instead to take off down dark alleys and twisting roads which leave the reader shivering and looking nervously into dark corners when the book is closed.”