Stephen Grogan
Stephen Grogan has been in a battle all his life between his creative elements, less the single purpose vocation, more so the generalist everyman with a boatload of ideas seeking fulfillment. His resume would take pages, with harrowing stories, and forgettable sidebars. Suffice it to say, he has always written, whether in school, or his first job out of college (public relations) or in the entrepreneurial world where a business plan is required to be drafted.He was editor of his high school creative writing magazine and during this tenure earned $25 for a one act play he wrote spoofing a new rock group sensation called the Beatles. Fighting the battle about turning one way into writing or the other into leadership he ended up as editor of two college newspapers; did one summer stint as employee with the Denver Post, working in the newspaper's morgue with two future best-selling writers, one of them mystery writer, John Dunning. Stephen wrote book and rock reviews, and helped to start the first underground newspaper in Denver, which meant meeting stars of that era including Janis Joplin, Cream, and the Jefferson Airplane. And being present at Denver's first Love-in with Timoty Leary. At summer school (at Harvard) he received an A in Creative Writing. His best work, realism on the death of his grandmother.
For graduate school, Stephen was awarded the Shubert Fellowship in Playwriting. His two plays were based on his not-so virginal summer spent in the Wyoming oil fields, and his submitted play "Amache" was based on the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II in southern Colorado.
His two job applications outside of college (which he turned down because it meant moving) one was with IBM writing a company newsletter, the other was with Sunset Magazine, as a cub reporter. Instead he turned another direction and entered the business world which requires another book but interesting line items on the resume would have to include: being in the ground floor of the video cassette industry; the youngest candidate elected to the Denver City Council; shot by burglars; company executive of several public companies; artist; worked on movie screenplay; assisted in passing a state constitution amendment to legalize gambling in Colorado; first executive director of the Gaming Owners Association; published a news letter that became a national magazine on the expansion of gaming; started working for an inventor of casino games; and more recently appointed to the Arts Commission of Las Vegas by Mayor Goodman. In his spare time he began formulating a game concept where the clues to a monetary prize were hidden within a story's writing. His first work 'Rocky Mountain Die' remains unpublished and the clues remain buried in the Colorado mountains.
Like many biographies, there are highs and lows, good and bad times, exaggerations and deleted history far more to convey than found in this abbreviated history. At this point in his life, Stephen looks forward to finding fans who enjoy his stories, and wish to become 'Questors'.
His next book in process for 2009 is "Captain Cooked & the Poison Poi", a culinary mystery (and a Quest Mystery with GPS). He is also co-writing a cookbook with his wife, Pam, to be entitled "Las Vegas Kitchens", recipes from the best restaurants which should be released in 2011. "Nevada Craps", a sequel to "Vegas Die" will be ready for a publisher in 2010.
