Stephen Roxburgh acquired his first hardcover children's book (Lassie Come Home) at the age of ten by winning a bet that he rigged. It was the first crime he committed for a good book, but not the last. He has
been involved professionally with children’s books and publishing for more than
thirty-five years, first as an academic, then as senior vice president
and publisher of Books for Young Readers at Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
and as president and publisher of Front Street, a small,
independent press he founded, deliberately, on April Fool's Day of 1994. In 2004
Front Street was acquired by Boyds Mills Press, where Stephen was
publisher until September 2008.
Stephen
has worked with such authors and artists as Felicia Bond, Nancy Eckholm
Burkert, Brock Cole, Carolyn Coman, Roald Dahl, Donna Diamond,
Madeleine L’Engle, Martine Leavitt, Patricia McCormick, An Na, Marilyn
Nelson, Adam Rapp, Alvin Schwartz, George Selden, Uri Shulevitz, Isaac
Bashevis Singer, Garth Williams, and Margot Zemach.
Stephen
lectures and publishes widely on children's literature and children's
publishing. He is on the faculty of the Highlights Foundation. For many
years he taught in the Radcliffe Publishing Program, the Stanford
Publishing Program, and the Columbia Publishing Program.
Stephen lives in rural New Hampshire with his wife, Carolyn, his black dog, Shadow, and his black cat, Pup. He reads a lot, hawks vegetables and swaps recipes at his son-in-law's farm stand on Fridays, practices yoga, and plans to plant a field of raspberries in the spring.