SEE WEBSITE: https://stephenbgladish.com In the early 'Sixties, Steve served in the Air Force’s Sixth Weather Squadron (Mobile) at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and was deployed to many different sites--all of them dangerous-- in Tornado Alley, the Nevada Test Site, and throughout the South Pacific in Operations Dominic I and Domenic II. Mr. Gladish was born on September 14, 1939, in Glenview, Illinois, a small farming community 20 miles northwest of Chicago, Illinois. He is one of six children of Alice Smith Gladish and Dr. Donald Gladish, a homeopathic physician, and veteran of World Wars I and II. He and Betsy, his wife, Arizonans for over fifty years, travel throughout the West and love to visit Europe. The author of four novels and an acclaimed anthology, Freedom of Vision: Writings from Within Prison Walls, Mr. Gladish holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Illinois Chicago, a Masters's degree in American Literature from Northwestern University, and an M.Ed. in Counseling from the University of Arizona. He has taught college and university writing courses for forty years in Ohio and Arizona. From 1981 until retiring in 2001, he taught in the state penitentiaries of the Arizona and Ohio departments of correction. In addition to Career Development, Values Clarification, and Re-entry Programs for the Ex-Offender, he taught all subjects in the Adult Education Program, including creative writing — which inspired Freedom of Vision: Writing from Within Prison Walls. In addition, he served as an Ex-Offender Representative at Halfway Houses in Arizona, helping inmates secure jobs, education, and a second chance at life. Mr. Gladish and wife Betsy are the proud parents of four children and ten grandchildren. Both daughters earned degrees and embarked on careers. Both sons are distinguished college graduates and officers in the Army Reserves and Army National Guard—one served on active duty as a counter-terrorist in both Iraq and Afghanistan, working out of the Pentagon earning many commendations; the other an Apache Longbow Helicopter Pilot returned from a twenty-three-month deployment, including one year of combat flying in Afghanistan where he earned twelve decorations including the Distinguished Flying Cross. Steve Gladish is a life-long student of the Bible and spiritual teachers. He has been influenced by many religious leaders and literary heroes, such as Jesus Christ, the forty authors of the sixty-six book Bible, Rumi, Paramahansa Yogananda, Transcendental Meditation, Emerson, Thoreau, and most recently the huge Watchtower Library of Jehovah's Witnesses. Steve's integrated spiritual and literary method weaves its way through four young men's lives--transforming adventure stories into indispensable love sagas. Mr. Gladish has been given awards as a member of the Arizona Department of Corrections for saving a woman’s life in the Saguaro National Park East, and for saving a fellow teacher from an immediate sexual assault in her own classroom at the Arizona State Complex in Tucson. He won an award from Sixth Weather Squadron (Mobile) Alumni Board, for his role as Sixth Weather Squadron Educator, Author, and Benefactor. In a lifetime of teaching, if a prison teacher can turn six convicts around, educate them, and help their reentry into self-sufficient lives, that alone would pay that teacher’s salary for his whole life.Read more about this authorRead less about this author