Goodreads asked Jay Sherer:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jay Sherer I participated in a short film contest (Write of Passage) where the organizers selected the following passage for the writers to a short film about:

"So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift."

And my process, when it comes to a writing prompt, is to study the source material (in this case, the Bible), and then try to find out what it's really truly attempting to address. In my mind, this is about guilt, shame, reconciliation, and community, and the interconnectedness of those themes.

Then, I took those themes, set a supernatural western theme over it, and wrote the short film. Years later, Nathan Scheck (my co-writer on the novel) and I took the story, added steampunk/dark fantasy/western elements, and turned it into something a whole lot crazier, but kept the exploration of that passage and its themes as the guiding work behind what now is "DEATH OF A BOUNTY HUNTER."

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