Biography

In the summer of 1990, while working as a broker in Manhattan, Stephen Jermanok heard a large thud outside his office window. He jumped up from his desk and ran to the window, only to find the remnants of a man who had just plunged from the top of the sixty-story building. Jermanok soon booked a year-long ticket to the South Pacific, where he would write his first travel article, "Learning to Scuba Dive in the Cook Islands," for The Miami Herald. Since that time, he has explored more than 60 countries and written hundreds of articles on a broad range of subjects, from art to adventure. Currently a contributing editor at Boston Magazine and Art & Antiques, and guest editor on the annual travel issue for Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Jermanok writes regularly for Travel & Leisure, Outside, and Forbes FYI. He's a former columnist at National Geographic Adventure and contributing editor at Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Magazine.

As screenwriter, Mr. Jermanok collaborated with his brother Jim to pen Passionada, a sophisticated romantic comedy that was released by The Samuel Goldwyn Company in the summer of 2003. It was directed by Dan Ireland (The Whole Wide World) and stars Jason Isaacs (The Patriot, Harry Potter), Sofia Milos (CSI: Miami), Emmy Rossum (Phantom of the Opera ), Theresa Russell, Seymour Cassel, and Lupe Ontiveros.

Passionada received numerous favorable reviews. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times writes "the Jermanoks strive for and achieve a romantic comedy with humorous, fanciful plotting yet shaded by genuine tenderness and passion." Rex Reed of the New York Observer notes that Passionada is "greatly enhanced by fresh dialogue." And those icons of film criticism, Ebert and Roeper, gave it an enthusiastic "Two Thumbs Up!"

Mr. Jermanok plans to direct another script, Happy Anniversary, with Jim in the summer of 2006 in South Africa. He also wrote High Moon, a full-length screenplay commissioned by Just Betzer, the Academy Award-winning Producer of Babette's Feast.

Mr. Jermanok is the author of New England Seacoast Adventures and Frommer's Great Outdoor Guide to Vermont and New Hampshire, and co-author of Lonely Planet's Guide to New England, Discovery Channel's Backcountry Treks, Discovery Channel's Paddlesports, Outside Magazine's Guide to Family Vacations and Men's Journal's The Great Life. He is the New England columnist for www.away.com and many of his other stories can be found on www.travelintelligence.net.

Mr. Jermanok was the keynote speaker at the New York, Maine, Vermont, and North Dakota Governor's Tourism Conferences and has lectured at numerous travel symposiums across the country. A graduate of chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, he resides in Boston area with his wife and two children.