STEVE HARRIS
AUTHOR BIO
Steve Harris grew up south of San Francisco in the pre-Silicon Valley days of Santa Clara, California. Early on he fell in love with reading (thank you, Beverly Cleary) and sports, especially baseball (“Say hey, Willie Mays!”).
“I started reading newspapers in elementary school,” he remembers, “especially Herb Caen and the ‘sporting green’ columnists of the San Francisco Chronicle.” In junior high he discovered Steinbeck (“Travels with Charley”), Hemingway (“For Whom the Bell Tolls”), and remembers taking Holden Caulfield with him on the traveling bus of his high school basketball team.
Later he combined those loves by writing and editing sports on high school and college papers like the “The Santa Clara High Times,” the “West Valley Norseman,” and the “Bethel Clarion.” Through a variety of life, jobs and career experiences, his love for words and telling stories has remained a constant pursuit and pleasure.
“One year I got a small, light blue Smith-Corona portable typewriter for Christmas and I loved everything about it—the way it looked, the click of the keys, the ring of its carriage bell, even the smell of the oil,” he remembers. “It felt very natural to use that typewriter to capture stories. Writing also helped me think and gave me new ways of looking at the world.”
“It felt very natural to use that typewriter to capture stories. Writing also helped me think and gave me new ways of looking at the world.”
After earning college and graduate degrees from Bethel College & Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, Harris became a pastor, teacher, nonprofit communicator and grant writer. Through those years and jobs he also continued to freelance, with his by-line appearing on scores of articles in publications including the Star-Tribune, Leadership Journal, the website of Minnesota Public Radio, Inspired Magazine, Perspective Magazine, the Fillmore County Journal, Philanthropy Journal, the Morrison County Record, and the Root River Current.
“The style of writing I’m drawn to—and the kind I most enjoy doing—is personal and conversational, and hopefully offers a few smiles. My goal? To write my own stuff, good stuff, with echoes of Didion, Keillor, Lamott, Bob Benson, Roger Kahn, and Dave Barry. Mostly I’d like to write like an angel. Roger, that is.”
For twelve years Steve and his wife, Sue, served as innkeepers at Anna V’s Bed & Breakfast in the southeastern Minnesota town of Lanesboro, Minnesota (population 754), one of the most visited and celebrated small arts towns in America. In between making beds and baking scones he wrote “Lanesboro, Minnesota,” capturing stories of the past, present and people of this hidden-treasure of a town in a well-received book that one reviewer called “…heartwarming and ingenious!”
Steve is the father of two sons, Matthew and Andrew, both of whom were diagnosed at an early age with a rare, debilitating, and incurable neurological condition called Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease. His experience of being a dad of two children with special needs recently led him to write and publish his second book, “Dads Like Us: A Survival Guide for Fathers Raising a Child with Disabilities.”
“Being a dad like us puts you face-to-face with a unique life, filled with joys and challenges,” he says. “You ride a roller-coaster of emotions and experience complex interaction with many different people, including doctors, nurses, specialists, social workers, special ed teachers and more. It can be overwhelming.
“I hope this brief book will provide honest and practical encouragement for dads living that life. Others will benefit from reading it, too, in fact anyone who cares about and works with those children, parents, families, and dads.”
Steve and Sue Harris make their home in the north woods of Minnesota on Lake Shamineau and near the Root River in Lanesboro.
After earning college and graduate degrees from Bethel College & Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, Harris became a pastor, teacher, nonprofit communicator and grant writer. Through those years and jobs he also continued to freelance, with his by-line appearing on scores of articles in publications including the Star-Tribune, Leadership Journal, the website of Minnesota Public Radio, Inspired Magazine, Perspective Magazine, the Fillmore County Journal, Philanthropy Journal, the Morrison County Record, and the Root River Current.
“The style of writing I’m drawn to—and the kind I most enjoy doing—is personal and conversational, and hopefully offers a few smiles. My goal? To write my own stuff, good stuff, with echoes of Didion, Keillor, Lamott, Bob Benson, Roger Kahn, and Dave Barry. Mostly I’d like to write like an angel. Roger, that is.”
For twelve years Steve and his wife, Sue, served as innkeepers at Anna V’s Bed & Breakfast in the southeastern Minnesota town of Lanesboro, Minnesota (population 754), one of the most visited and celebrated small arts towns in America. In between making beds and baking scones he wrote “Lanesboro, Minnesota,” capturing stories of the past, present and people of this hidden-treasure of a town in a well-received book that one reviewer called “…heartwarming and ingenious!”
Steve is the father of two sons, Matthew and Andrew, both of whom were diagnosed at an early age with a rare, debilitating, and incurable neurological condition called Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease. His experience of being a dad of two children with special needs recently led him to write and publish his second book, “Dads Like Us: A Survival Guide for Fathers Raising a Child with Disabilities.”
“Being a dad like us puts you face-to-face with a unique life, filled with joys and challenges,” he says. “You ride a roller-coaster of emotions and experience complex interaction with many different people, including doctors, nurses, specialists, social workers, special ed teachers and more. It can be overwhelming.
“I hope this brief book will provide honest and practical encouragement for dads living that life. Others will benefit from reading it, too, in fact anyone who cares about and works with those children, parents, families, and dads.”
Steve and Sue Harris make their home in the north woods of Minnesota on Lake Shamineau and near the Root River in Lanesboro.