Author Steven Houchin

BIOGRAPHY

Steven is the award-winning author of novels, short stories, non-fiction articles, technical papers, and is the former editor of Weekly Review, a newsletter for the Lake Forest Park Writers Workshop critique group. He has been selected four times to read, critique, and score manuscripts submitted to the Pacific Northwest Writers Association's annual Writing Contest for Unpublished Work.

Steven has held memberships in Seattle's Pacific Northwest Writers Association , Oregon's Willamette Writers , Seattle Free Lances, and the Washington State Historical Society. He regularly participates in the Lake Forest Park Writers Workshop critique group.

When not writing, Steven provides critique and copy-editing services for other writers, and works as a freelance software developer as the owner of Forest Park Lab , a Seattle-area software consulting company. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in History from Washington State University , and also serves as his family's unofficial genealogist.

NOVELS

  • Linear Descent (formerly Century Trust) is a suspense novel completed in 2005. In it, a small-time con man's lust for the high life sucks him into a downward spiral of events beyond his control.

  • Double Fire, which was selected the winner of the 2007 Pacific Northwest Writers Association's Zola Award (Mystery/Thriller category), is an historical suspense novel set in 1889, where a rogue Pinkerton detective races cross-country in pursuit of an arsonist who leaves behind riddles as a clue to his next target.

  • A Suitable End (formerly Snowbound) was a finalist in the 2009 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest (Mystery/Thriller category). It's a suspense novel where a mystery writer, trapped by winter snows, discovers a sabotage plot targeting WWII-era Seattle.

  • The Ignominious Idol was a finalist in the 2017 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest (Mystery/Thriller category). It's a cozy, locked-room mystery set in 1930s Maryland. An ancient statuette of a Sumerian goddess, secure behind a vault door in a mansion's basement gallery, vanishes with puzzling clues left behind.

  • Life and Death at the Roxy is a noirish mystery novel completed in 2022. Set in a small, midwestern town in 1940, a budding female private detective is coerced by a small-time gangster to retrieve a missing package, while also trying to solve the murder of a client she just met.

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