Stephen Gallup

Stephen Gallup grew up in North Carolina and Virginia. He studied at NC State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in the life sciences, and then at the University of Virginia, where he received a master’s in English.

Although he remains a Southerner at heart, he now lives in California with his family.

Beginning in 1977, he worked in various roles in technical communication in the aerospace and wireless telecommunications industries, with projects ranging from proposals for satellite launches and feasibility studies of space missions, to user guides for trendy new cell phones. In the early years, he wrote occasional short fiction on the side, and features for newspapers.

Mr. Gallup’s life changed dramatically with the birth of his son Joseph in 1985. Upon learning that there was a problem, he applied his energies to a pursuit of answers that he felt certain must exist. After a year of consulting with physicians to no effect, he located other resources. For the next four years, he and his wife Judy implemented an intensive two-pronged treatment campaign that resulted in dramatic improvements in Joseph’s condition.

His memoir What About the Boy? A Father’s Pledge to His Disabled Son shows what the family did, and what happened next.