Mark Stein is the author of The Presidential Fringe: Questing & Jesting for the Oval Office. His other non-fiction includes How the States Got Their Shapes, which became the basis for a History Channel series by the same name; American Panic: A History of Who Scares Us and Why; and Vice Capades: Sex, Drugs & Bowling from the Pilgrims to the Present. In other realms, his writing includes the screenplay for the Steve Martin/Goldie Hawn film, Housesitter, and the stage play, Direct from Death Row the Scottsboro Boys, whose 2015 Chicago production was cited as one of that year’s best by the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times. Mark lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, a Reference Specialist at the Library of Congress. To any young person hoping to become a writer, he would urge them to marry someone who works at the Library of Congress.