Steve Turner

Steve Turner died last Sunday, Mar. 18, after a battle with heart disease and cancer. He was with his family at home and his passing was peaceful.

He was a freelance journalist and novelist whose work appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury News, and various regional publications in New England. His book, “Amber Waves and Undertow,” about rural decline in Washington State, was published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2010. Another book, “Drylands, a Rural American Saga,” a joint project with photographer Lionel Delevingne, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in the fall of 2011. His novel about the importation of Chinese workers from San Francisco to North Adams, Mass. to break a strike by shoemakers is forthcoming.

Born in 1937, he grew up in Garrett Park, Md. After high school graduation he joined his diplomat parents in Baghdad, Iraq for a year, before entering Middlebury College in Vermont. He graduated in 1959 and was commissioned a lieutenant in the United States Army. While learning Mandarin-Chinese at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, he met and married his wife of 51 years, Anne.

He resigned his commission in 1964 and entered graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Master of Arts degree. He spent nearly 10 years as a community organizer and anti-poverty program executive. In 1975, he fulfilled a lifelong dream by becoming a full time writer, concentrating on labor and environmental issues. He was a founding member of the National Writers Union, and helped hundreds of members with contract advice and grievances against publishers.

He is survived by his wife, Anne M. Turner; son, Nicholas; brother Terence S. Turner; sister, Allison K. Turner, two nieces and several grandchildren.

Benito & Azzaro Pacific Gardens Chapel of Santa Cruz, Calif., has been entrusted with the arrangements. His ashes will be spread at the family gathering next October in Leicester, Vt.