Stephen Edward Poe

Template:Realworld Stephen Edward Poe (18 March 1936 – 6 January 2000; age 63) was a successful author who occasionally wrote under the name Stephen E. Whitfield, his stepfather's surname.

In 1966 Poe, an employee of an advertisement firm, was hired by model kit company Aluminum Metal Toys as a consultant for marketing and communications purposes. In that capacity he was instrumental in brokering a deal between Desilu and AMT for the latter to acquire the rights to produce model kits based on the new Star Trek show, starting a decades long association between that company and the franchise. In return AMT was to help out the studio with the construction of set pieces when required. Also, Poe was given free access to the studio which in 1968 resulted in the publication of The Making of Star Trek, a book he wrote under the name Stephen E. Whitfield. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is credited as co-author for the book, although his contributions were minimal. (Inside Star Trek: The Real Story) For many years, this was the only book on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the production of Star Trek. Roddenberry has always been appreciative of Poe's contribution and has expressed this when he presented the second tooling master model of the D7-class studio model to Poe after the series wrapped.

Thirty years later, he published his second Star Trek book, A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager.

He worked with Alcoholics Anonymous, compiling A Concordance to Alcoholics Anonymous (published in 1990) with his wife Francis.

Further reading

• "Stephen Poe's Books", Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 13, May 2000, pp. 82-84

External link

• Stephen Poe's obituary at aaHistory.com