Author Michael Eric Stein attended Yale University, where noted Pulitzer-Prize-winning author and journalist John Hersey (Hiroshima, A Bell for Adano)  and multiple-Emmy-Award-winning television writer David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood) were his writing mentors. There he won a Peter J. Wallace Prize for short story writing.

He received a Masters in Fine Arts from the New York University School of Film and Television, edited a documentary shown on the ABC New York African-American awareness program LIKE IT IS in 1981, and went on to become a television writer and story editor for shows such as MIAMI VICE, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, KNIGHT RIDER and TRUE BLUE.  During his years in Hollywood, Mr. Stein also wrote a television movie, HIGHER GROUND, which has aired on CBS, the Disney Channel, and Encore.  He also wrote several feature screenplays.

In his subsequent career as a journalist, Mr. Stein wrote on culture, business, travel, film, restaurants, and music for a variety of publications, including THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE DAILY NEWS (in 2020 on reopening New York City) and FILMS IN REVIEW in New York, and MAUI NO KA OI Magazine, where he was Managing Editor from 1999 to 2000.  Mr. Stein’s five years in Hawaii were a fascinating and deeply moving introduction to another culture, another way of life, and experiences that included outrigger canoeing, scuba diving, and camping for three days on a still uninhabited Hawaiian island, Kaho’olawe, being reclaimed by native Hawaiians for spiritual purposes. In 2002, he won for MAUI NO KA OI a first place award from the Hawaii Publishers Association for his article “Saving The Globe One Village At A Time,” a profile of internationally praised fine art photographer and environmentalist Paige DePonte.   He also directed and produced a documentary on Maui jazz musicians.

Mr. Stein wrote the novel CONTINUOUS TRAUMA, a legal thriller set in L.A., published in 2001, and still available on Amazon. Returning to his hometown, New York City, he wrote the book of the musical ALL GOOD THINGS, which played at the New York Fringe Festival in 2004.  CATS’ EYES, set in the New York of the 60s, is his second novel, and FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY, a collection of essays, is Mr. Stein’s nonfiction exploration of that era and its links to the present day.