Gene Stewart was born on the 146th birthday of Charles Dickens in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He began writing eight years later and publishing three years after that.
Editor Jeanne Cavelos favorably compared one of his unpublished short novels, Box Set, to J. D. Salinger’s work, while writer Harlan Ellison has called his work “Scintillant”.
Stewart’s fiction spans many styles and genres but hallmarks of his work include compassion for the common man; themes of doubt, paranoia, and the discovery of hidden worlds or agendas; and the integrity of the individual when faced with astounding events or intense challenges. Transformation by encountering and dealing with these hidden or wider worlds defines Ficta Mystica, which is the term he coined for what he most often writes. It might also be called mystical realism.
In 1980 he married his fiancée, who had just joined the US Air Force. For the next 22 years they traveled all over the United States, experiencing the deserts of Texas, the beaches of coastal Mississippi, the swampland of Georgia, the valleys of Ohio, and the prairies and plains on the region of the ancient Tethys Sea bed called Nebraska.
In addition, they enjoyed extended stays in Japan and Germany.
His family includes three sons and two lively terriers. He currently lives in the American midwest, where he is researching and writing a novel of ancient sins, modern lies, and eternal truths.