A Sacramento resident, Derek Steffen is a fiction editor who assists a wide range of writers in finding an authentic voice and improving technical aspects of writing such as structure and grammar. Family focused, Derek Steffen enjoys spending time with his children in the Sacramento area and reading children’s literature.
One of the perennially popular creations in children’s fiction of the 20th century, Tove Jansson’s Moomins books combined ink and watercolor drawings with fanciful stories about a family of hippopotamus-like trolls and their whimsical companions. Growing up in an artistic family in Paris, Jansson studied at the Ateneum in Helsinki during a time of social upheaval in the 1930s. The Moomins emerged as a refuge from the sacrifices of the war, in which many family members and loved ones served as soldiers.
Her first novel, written in 1945, The Moomins and the Great Flood, paved the way for the breakthrough The Hobgoblin’s Hat in 1948, as well as a comic strip that ran parallel to the books. One of the central themes of the books that followed, culminating in Moominvalley in 1970, was the value of family and group effort in overcoming catastrophe. Other themes centered on self-transformation and acceptance, and the creation of stable bonds within a world that was rapidly changing. A winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award, Jansson lived and worked in the same studio for nearly half a century.
Derek Steffen 