Steven Levy was named a senior editor in September 1996, having joined the magazine in January 1995 as a contributing editor and columnist. He writes major feature stories for Newsweek's newly-inaugurated Science & Technology section, as well as a regular column, "Random Access," which appears in the monthly feature "Focus On Technology." Levy covers such wide-ranging topics as the millennium bug and Internet censorship, and helps chart the magazine's overall coverage of the world of cyberspace. He also contributes his expertise to Newsweek's website, newsweek.com.
Levy has covered the information revolution since 1981, focusing not merely on technology but people, issues and culture. His articles, opinion pieces and reviews have appeared in a wide range of publications, including Harper's, Premiere, The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. In addition, he has been an editor for the Whole Earth Software Catalog, a regular columnist for Rolling Stone and Macworld, and an original contributing writer for Wired.
Levy is one of the most respected technology writers in the country. In 1998, his report (co-written with Katie Hafner) on the Millennium Bug, "The Day the World Crashes," won the Computer Press Association Award for best news article. His "Random Access" column was honored with the Association for Women in Communications' Clarion award for "excellence in clear, concise communication" in the fall of 1997, and was named 1996 Column of the Year by the Computer Press Association. He is the author of four books, including the classic history of the computer revolution, "Hackers" (Doubleday, 1984), and his homage to the Macintosh computer, "Insanely Great" (Penguin Books, 1994). His 1988 book, "The Unicorn's Secret" (Prentice Hall) investigated the sensational 1979 Philadelphia murder of Holly Maddux, and detailed how suspect Ira Einhorn successfully eluded justice for a decade. In 1993, the book was used as evidence to convict Einhorn in absentia. Levy is currently at work on a book about the revolution in cryptography and its implications.
He is a native of Philadelphia, where he attended Central High School and Temple University. He earned an M.A. in literature at Pennsylvania State University. He lives in New York City and western Massachusetts with his wife, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Teresa Carpenter, and their son.
Levy books:
- Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (doubleday/Anchor
- The Unicorn's Secret: Murder in the Age of Aquarius (Prentice-Hall,
- Artificial Life: The Quest for a New Creation (Pantheon, 1992)
- Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that
1984; Dell, 1985 and 1994 (new edition))
1988; NAL, 1989). Journalistic enquiry into the mystery of a
prominent activist accused of murder.
Changed Everything (Viking, 1994)