History, society, sports, philosophy and the outdoors.

Stephen was born on April 27, 1968 in Buffalo, New York to blue collar parents. He was a natural athlete and excelled at all sports as well in the social sciences when in public schools. During his senior year in high school, he suffered a severe knee injury that forced him to decline numerous football scholarships. This change in his life allowed him to experience the beauty of a liberal education without the burdens of a locker room. Stephen chose to attend Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing, Michigan where he randomly isolated himself, filling his mind with literature, history, and philosophy while filling his stomach with the fruits of his beautiful social setting. During his studies, he became a true student of human nature. Always having a thoughtful, reflective, and inquisitive mind, he began to appreciate and understand human behavior, savoring peoples loves, hates, joys, misgivings, and opportunities. Working as a bartender during college, Stephen filled his well of life with the looks, thoughts, stories, and actions of the thousands of people he encountered, knowing people in their daily activities while caring about them both at their best and worst times.
Upon graduation, for several months Stephen traveled throughout Europe before attending graduate school at MSU where he pursued an M.A degree in American History. He accepted a graduate assistantship where he relished the opportunity to lecture, hold office hours, and teach. Graduating with merit, Stephen found Ph. D coursework and the corresponding research to be tedious and limiting to his personal development. Approximately seven years ago, he began writing for political candidates and elected officials throughout Michigan. Working for local, state, and national candidates, he honed the craft of writing in both the office and on the campaign trail. After the 2000 elections, Stephen began the professional transformation from speech writing to that of the literary world. His first novel, Growing Home will be out in 2003 and he continues to write from his home in Denver, CO. Living a quiet and modest life, he often reflects on the many successes and failures which have molded his unique literary style. Stephen fully believes that the pain of a pen can lead to beauty on a page

Growing Home was published on January 22, 2003 by Publish America (www.publishamerica.com) Twenty-year-old college student, Angie Compton returns to her hometown on a search for discovery and second chances as she tries to repair her own misguided life. She readies herself in the wake of a family tragedy and encounters the spirit of her ‘lost aunt’ Dolly as she prepares for the grave, her once best friend Crystal who is a shadow of herself and begs for help, her impatient father, Mackenzie who has been a decade removed from both his daughter and ex-wife, and her mother, Jan who so cosmetically and unremittingly controls their small suburban town that it crosses the line between life and death. Angie struggles with the meanings of womanhood, love, friendship, loyalty, and family and in the period of five days, turns her regrets aside and begins life again, all because of those she always had in her life, but never really knew before.