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Hello, and welcome to my Web site. I hope the information you'll find here will let you learn more about both me and my writing.


Despite its spelling, my first name is pronounced "Steven," not "Steffen." And my last name is spelled with an "i" instead of an "e." If you keep those simple facts in mind, you're halfway on the road to being my friend

About Me: A Bio Sketch

I was born in the city of Philadelphia. When I was 13, my parents moved to California and, upon reflection, I decided to accompany them. It was a lucky thing I did, too; otherwise, the commute to UCLA would have been quite difficult. I eventually graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor's degree in Astronomy.

My first short story appeared in 1965, when I was 18 and still in college. Over the next few years more stories appeared. My first job out of college was as a civilian space scientist for the U.S. Navy, but after several years I left to try writing full time. I only regretted the move every other Thursday, when I would have gotten paid.

After several years of genteel poverty, I took a job as writer/editor for a pornographic humor paper, the San Francisco Ball. In retrospect, this was a great crucible; deadline pressure forced me to learn to make my writing dirty, funny, and one draft. Nowadays the dirty is no longer a priority, the funny is more occasional, and I do more drafts, but that great practice taught me invaluable lessons.

At about this time, too, I began selling novels on a regular basis. While I have, from time to time, held down other full-time employment (I helped design the Star Trek: The Next Generation computer game "A Final Unity" for Spectrum HoloByte and have also written manuals and game design documents for Maxis), my real love is fiction writing.

My first wife was fellow author Kathleen Sky. Our medieval-style wedding was a Saturday morning program item at the 1972 World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles. In the 10+ years of our marriage, in addition to our individual works, we collaborated on a pair of stories ("Painting the Roses Red" and "The Devil Behind the Leaves") about the diMedicis, a family of interstellar swindlers. We also co-authored the first edition of the highly successful nonfiction book, The Business of Being a Writer, based on a class we'd taught at California State University at Northridge.

My current wife is fellow author Mary Mason. Our wedding took place the night before EclectiCon 1 in Sacramento, at which I was the Guest of Honor. We currently live east of Oakland, California. So far we've co-authored two books in the Rehumanization of Jade Darcy series: Jade Darcy and the Affair of Honor and Jade Darcy and the Zen Pirates. More books in this series are planned.

I've lived with cats all my adult life. Intellectually, I enjoy Broadway musical albums and surrealist art. I'm also proud to declare myself an atheist.

I served the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as editor of the SFWA Bulletin and as SFWA's Western Regional Director.