Skip to main content

Steve Twomey

Biography

Steve Twomey

Steve Twomey began his career in journalism as a copyboy at the Chicago Tribune when he was in high school. After graduating from Northwestern University, he began a 14-year career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, during which he won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, and then worked at The Washington Post for the next 13 years. More recently, he has written for Smithsonian and other magazines and has taught narrative writing at the graduate schools of New York University and the City University of New York. The ghostwriter of WHAT I LEARNED WHEN I ALMOST DIED and author of COUNTDOWN TO PEARL HARBOR, Twomey lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife, Kathleen Carroll.

Steve Twomey

Books by Steve Twomey

Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack
by Steve Twomey - History, Nonfiction

In Washington, DC, in late November 1941, admirals composed the most ominous message in Navy history to warn Hawaii of possible danger --- but they wrote it too vaguely. They thought precautions were being taken, but never checked to be sure. In a small office at Pearl Harbor, overlooking the battleships, the commander of the Pacific Fleet tried to assess whether the threat was real. There were false assumptions and racist ones, misunderstandings, infighting and clashes between egos. Steve Twomey shows how careless decisions and blinkered beliefs gave birth to colossal failure. But he tells the story with compassion and a wise understanding of why people --- even smart, experienced, talented people --- look down at their feet when they should be scanning the sky.