Stephen Beale is an award-winning journalist who occasionally refers to himself in the third person. He's currently the editor of Bulldog Reporter's Inside Health Media, an online trade publication for PR people in health and medicine.

He spends many hours interviewing health journalists about their editorial work and their preferences for dealing with PR people. He also serves as the site's copy chief, production manager, IT director, database programmer and custodial crew. If you see him talking to himself, he's probably in a staff meeting.

In his ridiculously limited spare time, he freelances for HOW, a leading magazine for graphic designers.

He previously worked as a technology journalist focusing on computer applications in the graphic arts. He was one of the launch editors for Micro Publishing News and Digital Imaging, and later became news and reviews editor for Macworld magazine. As editor of Veterinary Computing, he received the Newsletter Association's 1985 Journalism Award for "Best Spot News or Exclusive Single News Story."

He is the author or co-author of seven books on computer graphics: Photo Manipulation: Fast Solutions for Hands-On Web Design (Rockport Publishers, 2002); Plug-In Power (Micro Publishing Press, 1996), The Color Scanner Book (Micro Publishing Press, 1995), GATF Guide to Desktop Publishing (Graphic Arts Technical Foundation, 1990, second edition 1995), Color Image Editing on the PC (Micro Publishing Press, 1993), Linotronic Imaging Handbook (Micro Publishing Press, 1991) and The Scanner Book (Micro Publishing Press, 1989).

The Color Scanner Book is currently ranked #4,456,925 on Amazon.com's bestseller list, making it his most successful title to date (Photo Manipulation comes in a close second at #4,554,196). Linotronic Imaging Handbook was named "Most Useful Book for Service Bureaus" (tied with Adobe Systems' PostScript Language Reference) in awards balloting sponsored by the Association of Imaging Service Bureaus.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, he currently resides in El Cerrito, Calif., best known as the home of two BART stations. "El Cerrito" is Spanish for "the little hill," but the hill is actually next door in Albany. The original residents thought "El Cerrito" was an improvement over the previous name, "Rust." For more information about his work, see his résumé and the "Bio" and "Day Job" sections above.