Steven Atwater bio

Steven Atwater was born in 1983 to Margaret and James Atwater in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Atwaters were a blue-collar family, with James working construction and Margaret occasionally taking odd jobs to supplement the family's income.

The stress at home from the financial strain spurred Steven to escape into books from the public library. He buried himself in the novels of Zane Grey and other adventure writers. His home might be run down, but Steven didn't care because he was racing down the plains on the run from marauders.

When he graduated from high school, Steven married his longtime girlfriend, Linda Ames. The young couple had two children within three years while Steven worked as a repairman. By the time he was thirty, Steven found himself fighting with his wife about money with an alarming frequency.

Even though he worked overtime and took on as much extra work as possible, Steven also spent freely on scheme after scheme, saying it takes money to make money. But his plans never repaid their investment, and Linda grew tired of his promises that never amounted to anything. Their quarrels sometimes became violent. While they never actually struck each other, there were plenty of thrown plates and smashed knickknacks.

On his thirty-first birthday, Steven moved out. He drove north to Oxford, where a friend had found him a property maintenance job for a landlord with hundreds of rental units. In his first few months in Oxford, Steven spent all his time working or drinking. He kept a cooler in the back of his truck filled with beer iced down for quitting time.

The longer Steven worked at the university-area apartments, the more he resented the privileged college students. He'd spent years laboring and had only a broken marriage, estranged kids, and mounting debt to show for it. And then, on any given Monday morning, he'd have to go fix a sink after some drunken frat boy decided to cram the exhaust pipe from a Geo Metro down the garbage disposal.

One night, Steven stopped by Square Books on his way to a bar and saw a flyer for a flash fiction contest. Remembering the tales he'd devoured in his youth, he decided to enter. How hard could it be? He submitted his story less than 24 hours later. He didn't win, but his interest in writing was piqued.

Over the next few months, Steven cleaned up his drinking and continued writing short stories, occasionally handing them out to people for criticism. Although few people in Oxford thought he had much pure talent, they couldn't deny his energy and work ethic, and he developed a reputation as a hard-working writer who might get lucky someday.

When he took a creative writing class at Ole Miss, Steven appreciated what he learned there, but his disdain for the college students kept getting in the way. What did these kids know about life? He was writing about the real world—things that mattered, not fraternity parties.

So, five years ago, Steven formed the Oxford Writers Circle as a place for more mature writers to discuss their work. At first, it was sparsely attended, but Steven kept at it, and eventually, the group swelled to maximum capacity. He had to limit members, and new people could join only when an existing participant resigned.

Despite the local writing community's respect for him, Steven's list of published works is relatively short. A few of his stories have been published in small quarterlies and online. Recently, he compiled a collection of short stories and has been shopping it around to publishing companies.