Combining Writing, Photography, and Research into the New Photojournalism
Steven A. Arts
In October of 2002, I signed a contract for my first non-fiction book, titled "Mystery Airships in the Sky," and it has been published by a company in Maryland called Publish America. The book is now available to order through Publish America, Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Borders.com, and this web page. It goes straight to the publisher's page carrying my book. Hope that you enjoy reading my first book. It was exciting writing the book, and extremely exciting to have it finally published.
This page is the portal to the work of Steven A. Arts, as symbolized by the photograph to the left that I took in western Nebraska at Scott's Bluff National Monument many years ago. I am a photographer, and writer of non-fiction, fiction and poetry, who now lives in Iowa. A freelance writer and photographer with nearly 30 years of experience.
In those years I have sold over 600 articles, along with many of my own photographs, to publications regionally, nationally, internationally and online. For three years I was a reporter with a small daily newspaper in southwest Iowa, the Shenandoah Evening Sentinel, and was even society editor for a while. While there I worked at developing black-and-white film and prints, proofread the paper, wrote articles, took photographs and edited.
I also worked for a short time in a part-time capacity for a weekly newspaper in northwestern Illinois, during which time I set up their darkroom and ran it, until I left. Then there was two years freelancing for a medium-sized daily in Clinton, Iowa at about the same time, the Clinton Herald. I've also written and photographed for several weekly and daily newspapers in Omaha, Kearney, North Platte, Grand Island and Beaver City, Nebraska, as well as Fort Dodge, Iowa.
For two years in the late 1980's, I was the secretary for the Nebraska Writer's Guild, a statewide writer's group. I also founded and organized the Kearney Regional Writer's Group in central Nebraska about that time. This last group later merged with the Nebraska Writer's Guild, with my full approval.
Below are links to my non-fiction articles, fiction stories, poetry and photographs. These links are sometimes under construction, always changing, so please be patient. This will allow me to show a wider range of my work, without adding too many extra links, and thereby crowding this site.
Lately, in 2001 and 2002, I've been having quite a bit of success in selling my fiction. The year 2005 has been my best year yet financially. For editors, check out my Past Publications History link, where I give a list going back just a few years of stories, non-fiction and poetry that I've had published. I plan on writing and selling even more fiction in the future. I also plan on venturing into the travel writing field, with the publication of an article about the Omaha Botanical Gardens, called Lauritzen Gardens, to Home and Away magazine, which came out in January 2003. As well in the travel field I've sold articles to Frontier and AAA Living magazines. An article dealing with the late Dr. Frank Brewster of Beaver City, Nebraska came out in Rural Electric Nebraskan in September 2005. An article dealing with Christmas lighting events in Iowa came out in the November/December 2005 issue of AAA Living.
There is a photo gallery, containing color, as well as black-and-white photographs of mine. I've even added a few poems. As a writer I can create articles in a number of categories, including business, archaeology, history, folklore, local history, news, interviews, travel, photography, writing craft, hobbies, people, geography, arts and crafts, travel, health care, research, fiction, poetry and much, much more.
There is a wide variety of work that I can create in especially three categories. Non-fiction, fiction and poetry, besides my photography. There are links here to all three categories. These areas of interest will change over the course of time. I plan on showcasing different material from time to time.
Some of the articles have been previously published, such as the Photography-Non-Fiction article and the Airships/War Hysteria article. I plan on having only published material here one day soon. I can cover a wide variety of non-fiction subjects.
As a photographer I own and use my own 35mm cameras. I have a full range of equipment, including flash unit, studio lights, filters, tripods and a variety of camera lenses. Recently I have added a digital camera to equipment I use. I use a computer and have been online for many years now. Contact me if you need anything written, photographed, edited, or proofread.
Now I have moved to the town of Creston, Iowa in the southwestern portion of the state. I hope to make this my headquarters for quite a while, as I expand my writing and photography sales.