Stephen Gladish is a fiction and non-fiction writer and teacher of writing at Pima Community College in Arizona. He worked as a teacher and career counselor in the Ohio and Arizona Department of Corrections’ Education Programs for twenty years, forming the inspiration for the anthology, Freedom of Vision, which he is editing and preparing to market with author-editor Robert Yehling. He has written education books, and numerous literary essays based upon his lifelong love of the teachings of mystical masters such as Emanuel Swedenborg and Henry David Thoreau. One of two state finalists for the Arizona Correctional Education Association’s Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, Stephen has seen many inmates achieve academic and literary successes beyond the public’s wildest dreams.

Now, he sets about bringing his own dream to life: A novel, Moonlight, Missiles, and Moana, drawn in part from his own experiences in the Samoan Islands. Stephen came of age in a proud family tradition of serving one’s country: a Marine in WWI, his father became a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy during WWII, serving in the far Pacific. Stephen served from 1959-1963 in the USAF, following his father’s footsteps, predominantly with the fabled 6th Weather Squadron (Mobile). During his stint, he spent many months in American Samoa and Nevada. He took special interest in the people, the natural surroundings, and their spiritual and metaphysical components wherever he was stationed.

A lifelong follower of eminent scientist, mystic, and revelator Emanuel Swedenborg, and graduate of The Academy Boys’ School, he returned from the Air Force to become a Junior College Honors Graduate of Bryn Athyn College in Pennsylvania. As a student of American History and Literature, including History and Literature of the American Indian, he earned his B.A. in English Literature with Honors at the University of Illinois, and his M.A. in American Literature at Northwestern University. He began his academic career in 1967 as a College and University Writing Faculty at Elgin Community College and then Northern Arizona University. He earned an M. Ed in Counseling and Guidance at the University of Arizona, and began twenty years teaching and counseling in the Ohio and Arizona state penitentiaries, beginning with Urbana University in Ohio.

Now retired from the University and Prison System, Stephen continues to teach writing half-time at Pima Community College. Stephen devotes every minute of the remainder of his time to marketing Moana’s Moonlight and Missiles, the first in a trilogy of Young Adult Inspirational Fiction, and revising future titles including Mustang Fever and Tornado Alley.

Happily married to his college sweetheart, Betsy, for thirty-eight years, Stephen is the proud father of two daughters—with full families and careers—and two adventurous sons, both Second Lieutenants currently distinguishing themselves on active duty in the U. S. Army.

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