I was born in Reno, Nevada. I spent my formative years in East Los Angeles, Southern California, in an era of street gangs, rock and roll, Vietnam, racial strife, the Cold War, drugs, and political protests. The violent White Fence gang recruited me in junior high.

I spent many of my non-school and gang hours reading the works of Ernest Hemingway, W. H. Auden, William Faulkner, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Conrad, and James Joyce, among others.

When my single-parent family moved to Orange County. I surfed and ran varsity track and cross-country in high school. My first paid job in high school was taking photographs of high school sports events and writing an accompanying brief news report for a large newspaper.

In college, I was a journalism major and editor of the campus newspaper. My college studies were derailed when I was drafted in my second year. I served 14 months in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. After military service, I continued my college education and cultivated my eclectic tastes. I played guitar for relaxation.

My writing unfolds from the bite of satire to the poignancy of essays. The muse reveals the work of mystery, science fiction, noir, thriller, poetry, memoir, short fiction, playwriting, and nature, to mention just a few.  Complex characters and compelling narrative are my trademarks.

I believe that artists, writers, and photographers are vigilant observers by inclination, background, and training. My life, which includes each of these professions, serves me well in developing and enhancing intuition, observational skills, focus, natural instinct, dedication, curiosity, compassion, and patience. People tell me that I photograph with an artist’s eye. I believe that it comes from my naturalist’s heart.

I have worked in a variety of occupations, including artist, deputy tax assessor, magazine publisher, editor, hypnotherapist, counselor, marketing manager for an aerospace corporation, director of a natural healing arts center, public relations coordinator, mental health executive director, life coach, and photographer.

• Early Writer – I was writing short stories when I was four years old. I wrote two plays, Old Glory and Adelante! I was asked to have these plays presented to the student body while I was in junior high.
• Avid Reader – I began reading at a very young age. Throughout elementary school, I read novels in class and ditched school to spend hours at the library near my home.
• Editor-in-Chief – I was editor of both my high school and college newspapers.
• Rebel – I created and wrote articles and satirical pieces for an ‘underground’ newspaper that I had the U.S. Army distribute in Vietnam during my tour of duty. I was nearly court-martialled and ordered to stop after two issues.
• Columnist – For several years, I wrote a weekly Southern California newspaper column on diverse subjects.
• Writers’ Conference Director – I organized and directed two national writers’ conferences in Oregon and Washington.
• Writers’ Group & Workshop Instructor – I created and taught numerous writers’ groups and workshops, resulting in publication for participants.

In my travels, I have lived, written, taught, and photographed in the mountains, deserts, by the bays, in large cities, small rural towns, and even on an island.

I am old enough to have earned every wrinkle in my face, puffy eyes, scars on my body, all the silver in my receding hair, and nose marks from my eyeglass frames.

I would like to say that my writing has already brought me abundance, and that I have a mountain chalet in Colorado, a 5 Bed Château in La Celle-les-Bordes, in the village of Senlisse, 135 km south-west of Paris in the south of France, and that I drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee. However, it would not be accurate – yet!

Visit my photography website at https://www.stephenbruno-photography.com/