Pecan pie is serious business to Steven Petrow. It’s not just a cherished and delicious family tradition, but also a memory bank of shared gifts, goofs, and changes. Over the years, he has come to appreciate the value of mixing into each pie a good story, regardless of where it lands on the truth meter. He also attempts to sort out the pronunciation controversy over p-e-c-a-n.

Steven Petrow is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and author. His work regularly appears in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today. He is the author of the best-selling Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Older, as well as Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners and The New Gay Wedding: A Practical Primer. A former president of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, Steven is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian Institution, the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), and the National Press Foundation. In 2017, he became the named sponsor of the Steven Petrow LGBTQ Fellowship at the VCCA, a prize that is awarded annually. Steven lives and bakes in Hillsborough, NC, with his cocker spaniel, Binx Bolling, cheering him on.