Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield (born September 1943 in Port of Spain, Trinidad) is an American novelist and author of screenplays, principally of military historical fiction set in classical antiquity. His historical fiction is well-researched, but for the sake of dramatic flow, Pressfield may alter some details, like the sequence of events, or make use of jarring contemporary terms and place names, his stated aim being an attempt to capture the spirit of the times.

To enhance his readers' immersion in ancient times, Pressfield typically writes his novels from the point of view of the characters involved. For instance, The Virtues of War is told from the first-person perspective of Alexander.

His epic novel Gates of Fire is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list. It is taught at U.S. Military Academy and United States Naval Academy and at the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico, and according to the L.A. Times, "has achieved cult status among Marines."

Pressfield served in the United States Marine Corps in the 1960s, and later graduated from Duke University.

Fiction

• The Legend of Bagger Vance (see The Legend of Bagger Vance (film) for the movie), about a young man trying to come to terms with his spiritual demons through the medium of golf (1995)
• Gates of Fire, about the Battle of Thermopylae (1998)
• Tides of War, A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War (2000)
• Last of the Amazons, in which Theseus, the legendary King of Athens, sets sail to the north coast of the Black Sea inhabited by a race of female warriors (2002)
• The Virtues of War, about Alexander the Great (2004)
• The Afghan Campaign, about Alexander the Great's conquests in Afghanistan (2006)
• Killing Rommel (2008), a fictionalized account of a patrol of the British Long Range Desert Group during the North African Campaign of World War II.
• The Profession (2011), Pressfield's first book set in the future, where military force is for hire everywhere. Oil companies, multinational corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.

Non-Fiction

• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (2002), a motivational book that investigates the psychology of creating art and how "writer's block" can be cured.
• Do The Work (2011)
• The Warrior Ethos (2011)

Online series

• Writing WednesdaysAn ongoing, blog-version of The War of Art. It's the chapters Pressfield would have written if he'd kept on writing the book.
• What It Takes A journal of the campaign to create a bestselling book.
• The Warrior Ethos
• It's the Tribes, Stupid a blog about the tribes in Afghanistan
• War Stories a blog dealing with issues of honor and virtue and courage in the face of adversity.
• The Creative Process A Q&A with a wide range of creative people—from writers to business entrepreneurs and beyond—probing how they do that thing they do.

Film work

Prior to publishing his first original works of fiction, Pressfield wrote several Hollywood screenplays, most notably 1988's Above the Law starring Steven Seagal and directed by Andrew Davis, 1992’s Freejack, a work of science fiction starring Emilio Estevez, Mick Jagger, and Anthony Hopkins, and 1993's Joshua Tree (a.k.a. Army Of One) starring Dolph Lundgren and George Segal. Joshua Tree was directed by Academy Award and Bafta winning stuntman Vic Armstrong.

His novel The Legend of Bagger Vance was made into a 2000 film starring Matt Damon as the golf pro and Will Smith as his spiritual guide.

Steven Pressfield also appeared as one of the historians in The History Channel's 2007 documentary "Last Stand of the 300".

External links

• Steven Pressfield Official Website
• Part of Learn From My Life
• Steven Pressfield leads discussion about The Creative Battleground as guest host of LitChat
• Steven Pressfield's "Writing Wednesdays" series
• New York Times Blog "At War" features article about Steven Pressfield's blog and the "One Tribe At A Time" paper, by Major Jim Gant