{"id":2,"date":"2008-09-29T16:29:22","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T21:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefoff.com\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:11:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:11:54","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"About me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve lived in three regions of the US. As a lover of clouds, rain, and gloom, I’m happy that I ended up in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

My early life was spent in the Midwest. I grew up in Fort Wayne and earned a B.A. in English from Indiana University. I moved East to get my M.A. at the University of Pennsylvania, where I created and taught the first undergraduate classes in fantasy and science fiction. A couple of years later I began my career as a full-time freelance writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 2025 I’ve published more than 200 nonfiction books for teens and young readers. Nonfiction For Young Readers on this website has more information. I’ve published a few romance novels and, more recently, a couple of horror stories. The Fiction page has details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a reader, I lean toward horror and fantasy in fiction. Nonfiction reading includes a lot of natural history and travel narratives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Favorite places visited so far include Tibet, Iceland, Laos, Corsica, Bulgaria, Istanbul, Uruguay, Patagonia, Costa Rica. I also love road-tripping around my home state. Oregon has it all: glorious Pacific coast, forested mountain chain, and high-desert interior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>
\n

One room in my house has an ancient oilcloth map of Tibet on one wall and a view into the branches of a monster cottonwood tree. That room is my office, where I spend a good part of every day. Often I am accompanied—or distracted—by the Speckled Menace, aka the Bengal cat Xanthe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve lived in three regions of the US. As a lover of clouds, rain, and gloom, I’m happy that I ended up in the Pacific Northwest. My early life was spent in the Midwest. I grew up in Fort Wayne and earned a B.A. in English from Indiana University. I moved East to get my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3257,"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/3257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefoff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}