Steven Stickler's Blog

Okay folks, Spy Factory is now available at Amazon in kindle format. And those who have been honing their spy skills can even find it on Goodreads. Releasing in paperback in July. Here’s the description: Sixth-grader Nate Fischer never wanted to be a spy. But when a mysterious phone call lands him at a new […]

Hello fellow secret agents, (If you are not a secret agent, please stop reading and pretend you never saw this. Really. Please.) After much anticipation and a lot of work at HQ, I finally have a cover for the first book in my Spy Factory series, My School is a Spy Factory. I’ll be rolling out a […]

I have been on a long hiatus from the blog. Yes, “hiatus” in this case just means that I have been procrastinating or slacking off or just plain too busy to get to it. The good news is that I have been hard at work on a few projects and I am happy to report [...]

It is back-to-school time for Auggie. He has been on vacation all summer. No secret agent stuff, no code-breaking, no time-travel; just a bit of rest and relaxation. Now he is ready to learn something. Summer is almost over. The Ticonderogas are freshly-sharpened, a stack of fresh notebooks is already waiting by the door, and [...]

I have been hiding out at an undisclosed location for most of the summer. Spy stuff. Very top secret. Every spy needs to hide out every so often. It’s the nature of the job, really. However, I did get a chance to sit down for an interview with Alison at The Cheap Reader. What a [...]

The key to a really useful secret code is simplicity. Spies are busy people. They have secrets to uncover, death-defying acts to perform, and super-powerful spy gadgets to deal with. The last thing most spies need is yet another thing to complicate their lives. That’s why, if you took a poll of spies, you would [...]

There’s no getting around it: secret codes are cool. Spies use them to protect secret messages and that is very cool. George Washington used secret codes during the Revolutionary War, and there is no doubt that a white-wig-wearing future President of the United States writing in secret code was mighty cool. I feel cool just [...]

In my last post, 4 bad things about youth sports today, I detailed a few troubling trends in the world of youth sports. It was a depressing post to write. I needed a few weeks to recover. Now it is time for the good news: those trends are real and they are troubling, but they have [...]

I spend my spare time coaching a youth soccer team. There is nothing better than a sunny day, a freshly-mowed soccer field, and a bunch of kids kicking around soccer balls. It reminds me of everything that is great but fleeting about youth: the boundless energy, the effortless spontaneity, and the pure joy. All of [...]

My first post of each month usually announces a new monthly theme. Change of plans. On this “National Star Wars Day” it is worth taking a moment to address the question of why Star Wars matters. It is easy to dismiss the importance of the films and the stories they convey. There is too much hype, [...]