Steve Berman


Steve Berman is an American editor, novelist and short story writer. He writes in the field of queer speculative fiction.

Biography

Berman was born on August 28, 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in southern New Jersey. Berman realized by junior high school he was gay. He attended Tulane University, earning a bachelor's degree in English literature, then later studied History at Rutgers–Camden campus in Camden, New Jersey as well as a master's degree in Liberal Studies in 2006. He began his publishing career working in pharmaceutical and medical publishing, then worked as a senior book buyer for wholesaler Bookazine, and served in the marketing department of a small Jewish press. He spent a decade as an employee engagement survey analyst for a human resources consulting firm in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Berman attended the Clarion East 2006 class, the last year that workshop was held in East Lansing, Michigan. Though raised Jewish, Berman wavers between Jewish secularism and Atheism.
Berman is a former member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and a lifetime member of the RPGA. His short fiction is mainly dark fantasy, horror, urban fantasy, and weird autofiction. He has spoken online and at convention panels on the history of LGBT-inclusive speculative fiction and on LGBT young adult topics. In 2001, Berman founded Lethe Press. The first few titles included his first short story collection, Trysts, and several books in the public domain. In 2004, he met author Toby Johnson and offered to reprint Johnson's book, Gay Spirituality. Lethe Press regularly publishes title of LGBT speculative fiction.
Several of his urban fantasy stories are set in the Fallen Area. Berman has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, seven times for the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards and five times for the Lambda Literary Award in various categories. He won the latter in 2018 for His Seed. His first novel, Vintage: A Ghost Story released in 2007 and was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award. In June 2009, he launched the quarterly publication, Icarus, the Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction, which ended in October 2013.
In August 2017, Berman moved to Western Massachusetts.

Awards and Honors

In 2018, Berman won the Lambda Literary Award for His Seed. Lethe Press was also named Best Publisher by the Bisexual Book Awards.

As editor