Stephen has been the Director of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio since 2005. He has led nineteen sessions of the program and hosted more than 1200 students. Stephen attended Kenyon College, where he majored in English, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he studied with Deborah Eisenberg, Margot Livesey, Ethan Canin, and Frank Conroy. His first novel, Irreplaceable, was published by Hyperion/Voice in 2009 and translated into German, Dutch, and Chinese. Irreplaceable received the Dana Award for the Novel and a James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award. Stephen lives in Iowa City, and is working on a second novel.