Steve J. Stern (born 1947) is an author from Memphis,

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. Much of his work draws inspiration from

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

folklore.

Biography

Stern was born in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

in 1947, the son of a grocer. He left Memphis in the 1960s to attend college, then to travel the US and Europe and ending on a

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

commune in the Ozarks. He went on to study writing in the graduate program at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

, at a time when it included several notable writers who've since become prominent, including poet C.D. Wright and fiction writers

Ellen Gilchrist Ellen Gilchrist (born February 20, 1935) is an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. She won a National Book Award for her 1984 collection of short stories, ''Victory Over Japan''. Life Gilchrist was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, a ...

Lewis Nordan Lewis Nordan (August 23, 1939 – April 13, 2012) was an American writer. Nordan was born to Lemuel and Sara Bayles in Forest, Mississippi and grew up in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He received his B.A. at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississ ...

Lee K. Abbott Lee Kittredge Abbott (October 17, 1947 – April 29, 2019) was an American writer. He was the author of seven collections of short stories and was a professor emeritus of English at the Ohio State University in Columbus. Life Abbott was born Oct ...

and Jack Butler. Stern subsequently moved to

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

, before returning to Memphis in his thirties to accept a job at a local folklore center. There he learned about the city's old

Jewish ghetto In the Jewish diaspora, a Jewish quarter (also known as jewry, ''juiverie'', ''Judengasse'', Jewynstreet, Jewtown, or proto-ghetto) is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were ...

The Pinch ''The Pinch'' is a literary journal published at the University of Memphis. The journal is published biannually. Work that has appeared in ''The Pinch'' has been reprinted in the ''Best American Essays'' and ''Best American Nonrequired Reading' ...

, and began to steep himself in Yiddish folklore. He published his first book, the story collection ''Isaac and the Undertaker's Daughter,'' which was based in The Pinch, in 1983. It won the Pushcart Writers' Choice Award and acclaim from some notable critics, including

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

, who praised the book's "brio ... whiplash sentences ... energy and charm..." By decade's end Stern had won the O. Henry Award, two

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

awards, published more collections, including ''Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven'' (which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction) and the novel ''Harry Kaplan's Adventures Underground,'' and was being hailed by critics, such as

Cynthia Ozick Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist. Biography Cynthia Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children. She moved to the Bronx with her Belarusian-Jewish parents from Hlusk, ...

, as the successor to

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

. Stern's 2000 collection ''The Wedding Jester'' won the National Jewish Book Award in 1999, and his novel ''The Angel of Forgetfulness'' was named one of the best books of 2005 by ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

.''"Book World Raves: The best books of 2005, brought to you by our extraordinarily diverse band of reviewers,"
''Washington Post'' (December 4, 2005). Stern, who teaches at

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a private liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,650 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree in one of more than 60 areas of study. History Sk ...

, has also won some notable scholarly awards, including a

Fulbright fellowships The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

and the Guggenheim foundations Fellowship. He currently lives in Ballston Spa, New York, and his latest work, the novel ''The Pinch,'' was published in 2015.

Works

* ''Isaac and the Undertaker's Daughter'' (Lost Roads Publishers, 1983) * ''The Moon & Ruben Shein'' (August House, 1984) * ''Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven'' (Viking, 1986) * ''Mickey and the Golem'' (St. Lukes Press, 1986) (children's book) * ''Hershel and the Beast'' (Ion Books, 1987) (children's book) * ''Harry Kaplan's Adventures Under Ground'' (Ticknor & Fields, 1991) * ''A Plague of Dreamers: Three Novellas'' (Scribner's, 1994) * ''The Wedding Jester'' (Graywolf Press, 1999) * ''The Angel of Forgetfulness'' (Viking, 2006) * ''The North of God'' (

Melville House Publishing Melville House Publishing is an American independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 and is run by the husband-and-wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey. T ...

, 2008) * ''The Frozen Rabbi'' (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2010) * ''The Book of Mischief'' (Graywolf Press, 2012) * ''The Pinch'' (Graywolf Press, 2015)

References

External links

Audio: Steve Stern at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2007

Profile of Steve Stern from ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', March 1, 1987
"Tugging at Jewish Weeds: An interview with Steve Stern"
from MELUS, the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, Spring 2007
"Journeying to the Other Side: A Q & A with Steve Stern"
in ''

The Jewish Forward ''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ' ...

'', May 29, 2008
"The Angel of Forgetfulness"

Michael Dirda Michael Dirda (born 1948) is a book critic for the ''Washington Post''. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993. Career Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree in 1970, Dirda took an M.A. in 1974 and ...

on Steve Stern in ''

'', April 3, 2005
"He's a Literary Darling Looking for Dear Readers"
a profile of Steve Stern from ''The New York Times'', April 25, 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Stern, Steve 1947 births Living people Jewish American novelists Writers from Memphis, Tennessee University of Arkansas alumni American male novelists American male short story writers 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Tennessee 21st-century American Jews