About the Author
Stephen Alder was born in 1952 in Greenville, Texas. Shortly thereafter his father joined the U.S. Army, and he was off to see the world. After living in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, his family moved to Germany in 1960, where he resided until 1963. This was a significant time in the history of the world, as the border between eastern and western Berlin was closed and a concrete wall was erected in 1961. In 1962 the Cuban missile crisis occurred, which put American forces in Europe on alert. Then in June of 1963 JFK visited Berlin and made his famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech. During this time Stephen and his family lived in Kassel (photos of the base), in western Germany, about 30 miles from the inner German border, which separated the Allied and Soviet controlled regions of Germany after World War II. Cold War anxiety notwithstanding, it was an enjoyable time as the family traveled all around western Germany and visited the Netherlands, Austria, and Italy.
More Travels
Next, Stephen moved to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York while his father attended Chaplain School. He was in a classroom at PS 104 when JFK was assassinated in November 1963. Six months later Stephen moved to Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington, living there until 1966. That year the Army sent his father to Viet Nam and Stephen lived in Oklahoma City with his mother and brothers. Then in 1967 it was on to Topeka Kansas where his father studied at the Menninger Clinic. Returning to New York City in 1968, Stephen lived on the Fort Wadsworth military base while his father served as an instructor at the Chaplain School. Living on Staten Island until graduating from college in 1970, Stephen then moved to Washington state to attend college.
Arriving at the Present
Meanwhile, Stephen’s family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where Stephen’s father was stationed at Tripler Army Medical Center. Stephen joined his family in 1972 and lived in Hawaii until 1976 when he moved to Los Angeles, California. While in Los Angeles, where he currently resides, Stephen embarked on a career in technical writing. Finally, around 2014, he determined to start that fictional novel he had been wanting to write and began to work on it in earnest. Taking much longer than planned, he published Deehabta’s Song in 2020.