Steve H. Semken

Steve Semken has run a book publishing company for over twenty years. Like many, his initial love of books was reading and writing. Since 1990 Steve has authored six books, assisted in one other, and been included in four anthologies, and was picked as the the Writer in Residence at the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska. He has won the Kansas Notable Author award. His recent work is Soul External: Rediscovering the Great Blue Heron. His next projects include short stories on mushrooms, the supernatural in local places (The Wild Testament), and a modern day bestiary.

Professionally Steve is the CEO of the Ice Cube Press, LLC, since 1993. The press publishes 5-6 new works a year by a variety of first-time, and experienced authors. The inspiration for the press began along the Kaw River in North Lawrence, Kansas. His initial love and mission remains: using the literary arts to best understand life in the Midwest. He has served on the faculty at the Midwest Writing Center’s David Collins Writing Conference in the Quad Cities, and a lecturer at the Oklahoma Writers Convention. For over ten years he sponsored and organized the annual Harvest Lecture/Voices From The Prairie at first with Lutheran Campus Ministry, the Standing By Words Center, and finally with Humanities Iowa. Ice Cube Press is spotlighted in Poets and Writers magazine’s Small Press Points, Independent Publisher, Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness. The press' books have been reviewed all across the country: The New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Review of Books and many more. The press was honored by Radish Magazine.