About Steve Watkins

Steve Watkins is the author of Down Sand Mountain, a young adult novel published in October 2008 by Candlewick Press. Another young adult novel, Goat Girl, is scheduled for publication by Candlewick Press in spring 2011.

Steve is also author of a short story collection, My Chaos Theory (2006, Southern Methodist University Press), which was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize, and an Honorable Mention for the Library of Virginia Fiction Award. He also wrote the award-winning non-fiction book The Black O: Racism and Redemption in an American Corporate Empire, published in 1997 by the University of Georgia Press, which tells the story of the largest employment discrimination class action lawsuit in U.S. history. His fiction, poetry, and non-fiction articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, Poets & Writers, Mississippi Review, 100 Percent Pure Florida Fiction, North American Review, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.

A graduate of Florida State University, Steve teaches journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature at the University of Mary Washington. He also teaches Ashtanga yoga, and works as an investigator and advocate for abused and neglected children through the child advocacy organization CASA. He lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with his wife Janet, and four daughters–Maggie, Eva, Claire, and Lili. Steve and Janet are co-directors of the religious education program at the Fredericksburg Unitarian Universalist Church.