Steve Earle Planning To Write Memoirs, Novel

Steve Earle intends to pen a memoir and a novel over the next few years, according to the Los Angeles Times. Although the singer/songwriter is no stranger to telling stories, writing a book about his life isn’t something he’d ever thought he would ever do.

Of course, Earle’s life is filled with moments that are ripe for retelling. Not only is Earle a Grammy award-winning musician, he’s also an actor, author, and producer who has encountered his fair share of strife. Throughout the years, Earle has battled addiction, fought against injustice, and spent some time in prison. In short, he has no shortage of memoir material.

Although medium may be a bit different, Earle knows a thing or two about spinning yarns. “I’ve always written stories,” he explained during a 2011 interview. “My songs are stories. A lot of people wonder how to write a story in three minutes. With a book, you have to figure out what to prolong and what not to.”

Despite the fact that Earle already has an idea locked down for his second novel, his memoirs will apparently come first. “It’s not an autobiography, it’s a literary memoir, a little more abstract,” he explained to theMusic.co.au. “I think it’s about something besides me. It’s really about heroes and mentors good and bad, so obviously the first part is about Townes [Van Zandt], before I started making records — the record-making aspect is in other books about me I understand, I’ve never read any of them.”

“The second part is about the period of time that everybody thinks they know about but don’t, which is the three-and-a-half or four years just before I sorta slipped off the edge of the earth and the period when I was gone,” he continued. “And the third part of it is basically about recovery — I think it’s going to end long before the present day, we’ll see.”

If all goes accordingly, Steven Earle will release his memoirs in 2014, courtesy of Twelve. His novel, meanwhile, will see publication in 2015.