Stephen J. Sotavento is a self-taught storyteller whose imagination flows, in his own words, "like water in a desert." A gay, Jewish, Latino man raised in the Midwest, Stephen started writing formally after his partner, Tony (the love of his life and his muse), encouraged him to share his gift with the world. "I wanted Ali to be the voice of a generation," Stephen explains about his protagonist. "I wanted him to have a voice to speak to all those who felt left out: the boys and girls abandoned. I wanted to reclaim that magic that the world tells us to hide." Stephen's own powerful experiences, including being thrown out of his home at age 17, deeply inform his work.