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Sol Stein

Author profile

born

in Chicago, The United States

October 13, 1926

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction

About this author

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Born in Chicago on October 13, 1926, Stein is the son of Louis Stein and Zelda Zam Stein. The family moved to New York in 1930. In 1941, while living in the Bronx, Stein wrote his first book, "Magic Maestro Please," followed shortly by "Patriotic Magic." Stein attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he served on the Magpie literary magazine with Richard Avedon and James Baldwin.[1] He graduated in 1942 and enrolled at CCNY, which then provided a free education.

Between the time of Stein’s enlistment in the Army Air Corps in 1944 and being called to active duty on March 1, 1945, Stein had completed nearly three years of infantry ROTC at CCNY. After qualifying for pilot and bombardier training, a backlog of pilots caused Stein to voluntaril...more Born in Chicago on October 13, 1926, Stein is the son of Louis Stein and Zelda Zam Stein. The family moved to New York in 1930. In 1941, while living in the Bronx, Stein wrote his first book, "Magic Maestro Please," followed shortly by "Patriotic Magic." Stein attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he served on the Magpie literary magazine with Richard Avedon and James Baldwin.[1] He graduated in 1942 and enrolled at CCNY, which then provided a free education.

Between the time of Stein’s enlistment in the Army Air Corps in 1944 and being called to active duty on March 1, 1945, Stein had completed nearly three years of infantry ROTC at CCNY. After qualifying for pilot and bombardier training, a backlog of pilots caused Stein to voluntarily transfer to the infantry. Overseas, he served as an Information & Education officer in the Headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division (United States) in Germany as Commandant of Division Schools, located in three cities, Regensburg, Ansbach, and Triesdorf. On 5 November 1946 Stein was cited by Lt. General Geoffrey Keyes for having organized and commanded the best occupational training schools in the Third Army Area in the American Zone of Germany.

Upon returning from Europe in 1946, Stein completed work for his degree at CCNY and simultaneously with his graduation in 1948 was employed at the college as a lecturer in social studies. While teaching, he took his Master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in 1949 and was accepted for the famed doctoral seminar conducted jointly by Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun, both of whose writings Stein was to later to edit.

From 1951 to 1953 Stein was employed by the Voice of America, eventually as senior editor of the Ideological Advisory Staff of the Voice of America. He wrote daily scripts that were translated into 46 languages and broadcast to two million people risking their lives listening behind the Iron Curtain. It was at the Voice that Stein’s association with Bertram Wolfe began; Stein was instrumental in causing the re-publication of Wolfe’s masterpiece, Three Who Made a Revolution, which had been allowed to go out of print. The book subsequently sold half a million copies in a few years and was adopted in almost all Soviet Studies programs in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In 1953 Stein, a centrist, was appointed Executive Director of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, an organization of 300 leading American intellectuals of left and right working together in support of civil liberties[2] and battling Senator Joseph McCarthy in the U.S. and Soviet propaganda and influence among intellectuals in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.[3] It was in this period that the eventual publisher supervised the writing and publication of McCarthy and the Communists, which made The New York Times Bestseller List for 13 weeks and was credited with contributing to the unseating of Senator McCarthy.

In 1952 Stein was granted a leave of absence from the Voice of America to accept back-to-back fellowships at Yaddo, an artists’ colony, and the MacDowell Colony.[4] At MacDowell, Stein completed his first play, Napoleon, under the watchful eye of Thornton Wilder, a fellow at the same time. The verse drama was produced the following year by the New Dramatists organization at the ANTA Theater in New York and was chosen by the Dramatists Alliance as “the best full length play of 1953.”

Stein completed a second play, A Shadow of My Enemy, originally intended as an adaptation of Whittaker Chambers' best-selling memoir, Witness (1952), but, when denied rights, based on public record and published in 1957.[5] The play, whose synopsis runs "A senior editor of Time magazine accuses his closest friend of being a Communist,"[6] was originally commissioned by the Theater Guild and subsequently produced on Broadway by Roger Stevens, Alfred deLiagre Jr., and Hume Cronyn. The cast starred Ed Begley and Gene Raymo(less)

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Sol Stein's Books

Average rating: 4.09 · 1,370 ratings · 185 reviews · 16 distinct works · Similar authors

	Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies 4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 1,001 ratings — published 1995 — 8 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them 3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 198 ratings — published 1999 — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Magician 3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 avg rating — 68 ratings — published 1971 — 12 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Solutions For Writers 4.21 of 5 stars 4.21 avg rating — 24 ratings — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Solutions For Novelists: Secrets Of A Master Editor 3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 avg rating — 23 ratings — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Other People 3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1979 — 10 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sol Stein's Reference Book for Writers: Part 1: Writing, Part 2: Publishing 3.2 of 5 stars 3.20 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Best Revenge: A Novel of Broadway 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1991 — 6 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Resort 3.08 of 5 stars 3.08 avg rating — 13 ratings — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Vandenberg,: A novel 3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 1971 — 5 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Sol Stein

“I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use of language. Some of this storytelling reads as if it were spoken rather than written, stuffed with tired images that pop into the writer's head because they are so familiar. The top of the head is fit for growing hair, but not for generating fine prose.”
― Sol Stein, How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them

tags: language, writing

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“It can be said that one slip of point of view by a writer can hurt a story badly, and several slips can be fatal.' Stein on Writing”
― Sol Stein

tags: writing-craft

2 people liked it

“In our not-yet-acknowledged secret garden lie the seeds of some of our best not-yet-written stories”
― Sol Stein, How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them

tags: secrets, writing

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Sol's Fans (11)

Sol Stein

Author profile

combine editionsSol Stein's Books

Upcoming Events

Quotes by Sol Stein

combine editions
Sol Stein's Books