Bradley Steffens
Bradley Steffens (born February 10, 1955) is an American poet, playwright, novelist, and author of more than fifty nonfiction books for children and young adults. Early professional work. In the mid-1970s Steffens self-published two chapbooks of his poetry, which he sold on the streets of Southern California. In 1976, the City of Laguna Beach, California, denied Steffens a permit to sell his works within the city limits, touching off brouhaha in the local press. Steffens went to court, seeking relief under the First Amendment, but the court ruled in favor of the city. Steffens turned to writing  a series of one-act plays-in-verse, which were professionally produced as “Herod the Great: A Sequence of Pageants” by the Olympia Arts Ensemble in Minneapolis in 1981 with Michael Yonkers in the title role. Noel Bredahl of the "St. Paul Post-Dispatch" hailed the play as "an awesome creation on the part of the playwright. David Hawley, also of the "St. Paul Post Dispatch", wrote, “Steffens is a powerful, talented artist." Writing career. Steffens has published more than fifty poems over the last forty years. His poems have appeared widely in literary journals, including "Crosscurrents", "Loonfeather", "Stone Country , Sidewalks", "The Bellingham Review", "River Bottom", "The Worcester Review", "The Birmingham Review", "Black Buzzard Review", "The Lake Street Review", "Plains Poetry Journal", "The White Rock Review", "The Ball State University Forum", "San Diego Writers’ Monthly", "Encore", and "Farmer’s Market". He has received many awards for his poetry, including the Emerging Voices Award presented by The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and the Lake Superior Writing Competition Award sponsored by the Duluth Public Library. While working as a freelance proofreader for Lucent Books in 1989, Steffens wrote his first nonfiction book for children, "Animal Rights". Over the next thirty-two  years, he wrote fifty more books for children and young adults, coauthored seven, and edited the 2004 anthology "The Free Speech Movement". His works have been praised by "Booklist", "School Library Journal", "Kirkus Reviews", and "Children’s Literature". "The Fountain" called his "Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist" a “beautiful work about Ibn al-Haytham and his advancement of experimental science.” In December 2021, Kirkus Reviews named his "The Dark Side of Social Media" one of the Best YA Nonfiction Books of 2021. Steffens is a two-time recipient of the San Diego Book Award for Best Young Adult & Children's  Nonfiction. His "Giants" won the 2005 award and his "J.K. Rowling" received the 2007 prize. "J.K. Rowling" also earned Steffens the Theodor S. Geisel Award for the best published book by a San Diego County author in 2007. His "Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist" was excerpted in "Discovery Channel Magazine" in March 2010. He was the keynote speaker at the Southeast Regional Conference of The Islamic Medical Association of North America, the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, the Pacifica Institute, and Women in Dialogue. Selected works. Steffens is best known for his  2017 historical novel "The Prisoner of Al Hakim," which tells the story of the eleventh-century Islamic mathematician Alhasan Ibn al-Haytham. "The Fountain" commented, "From the very first page Steffens brilliantly brings Alhasan’s internal character to life on the page, sketching a conflicted, fascinating portrait of a reluctant hero. It’s not easy to dramatize the acts of thinking and creating—and harder still to do so in a subtle, elegant style—yet Steffens manages the trick." "Blue Minaret" praised the book, stating: “The story of Ibn al-Haytham has now been fictionalized masterfully by Bradley Steffens. Each  character is well-crafted and in-depth. Each chapter is action-packed. Fans of history will appreciate the descriptions of Cairo and Basra, the esteemed House of Wisdom, even the deserts forming the backdrop of the book. There are plenty of women with strong, independent spirits, and many men in whose hearts burns the love of both God and science.” "Wardah Books" observed: "This period novel dating back to the Abbasid and Fatimid Caliphate brings to the fore an oft-forgotten side of polymaths such as Alhasan Ibn al-Haytham, as a person who, like all of us, experiences doubt , fear and love.” Editor. Free Speech Movement (American Social Movements). San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004.