Dr. Stephen Dudas holds both an M.A. in Creative Writing and PhD. in Literature from Miami University. After 12 years of teaching composition, creative writing, and literature, Stephen decided to leave academia, mostly to focus on family and writing. But ALSO because higher education and its entanglement with AI were becoming a stress he found difficult to manage.
Having used sketchbooks as a daily journaling, drafting, close-reading, and drawing tool since 2008, Stephen believes deeply in the power of putting our observations and ideas on paper. When we are habitually engaged in the practice of putting marks on the page, we are being intentional about our desire to understand and be understood.
Drawing the Line and Stephen’s work as an author-illustrator, educator, book reviewer, writing consultant, and editor are dedicated to supporting folks of all different writerly and artistic ambitions. No matter what your skill level is and no matter what you want to achieve as a writer/artist/communicator, the regular work of translating your experience into language and images allows you to experiment, grow, and create.
Stephen’s writing has been published in The Great Lakes Book Project, Ohio’s Best Emerging Poets (Z Publishing House), BALLOONS, Trilobite, The Caterpillar, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, The Lion and the Unicorn, and elsewhere. He is the author of a chapbook, An August Nightmare (Prolific Press, 2018), and the author-illustrator of the collection Sketches of a Modern Square (Ope! Publishing, 2025). A new collection of poems and doodles, Scrawlings From Frozen Pond, is forthcoming from Ope! Publishing at the end of 2026.
Stephen lives and writes in Michigan with his wife, two kids, two cats, and a garden full of hot peppers.
