Steve Coffman grew up in South Bend, Indiana where he wrote his senior class “play.” At the University of Michigan he won 3 Avery Hopwood creative writing awards and had several plays produced. After productions at University of Detroit, Norfolk State College, Bowie State College, The Smithsonian Institution and by the The Dundee Players.

His move to a rural lifestyle gradually caused Coffman’s writing to move toward fiction and creative nonfiction. He has had stories published in “The Little Magazine” and “Nantucket Review” and four in “Redbook” (including “Freshening” which was also anthologized in Redbook’s Famous Fiction, Vol II.)

Published nonfiction includes two political memoirs, Peace Meal and Messy Freedom (Foothills Publishing, 2005 and 2006), and the country memoir How To Walk A Pig (1995) which was expanded into Chicken Justice (Hearst, 2006).

Coffman has taught writing at the University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Keuka College and the Elmira Correctional Facility. He has given readings from Madison, CT to Seattle WA, including dozens in New York State. He has led NYS writing workshops in Dundee, Penn Yan, Indian Lake, Finger Lakes Community College, Canstota, Tupper Lake, North Creek and Attica Correctional Facility.

His occupations have also included: Lightbulb Salesman; Encylopedia Salesman; Parking Lot Attendant; Little League Umpire; YMCA Camp Chaplain; Oriental Rug Salesman; Short Order Cook; Harris Pollster; Ad-Visor Disseminator. And more seriously: Counselor and Teacher for Keuka College at the maximum security Elmira Correctional Facility (1986 - 1993); and Coordinator of the Custody & Visitation Mediation Program in Yates County Family Court (1996 - 2005).

Since 1972, Steve Coffman and his wife Bobbie have lived on a defunct farm at the end of a dirt road on one of the highest hills in rural Yates County, where they have raised two children, bounteous flowers and vegetables, occasional cows, horses, pigs, chickens and many acres of glorious trees.