About Steve
Steve Physioc is a fiction author and a former Major League Baseball radio and TV broadcaster. He won an Emmy for his play-by-play work in 2013.
Steve and his wife, Stace, live in Colorado and love to visit and spend time with their children, Ryan and Kevin, and three grandchildren.
Steve and his wife, Stace, the inspiration for Isabella in his novels The Walls of Lucca and Above the Walls.
Steve has been telling stories for more than 40 years. When he was a play-by-play announcer for football, basketball and baseball, he peppered each broadcast with details to bring the viewer or listener closer to the game.
And then one day…Well, we’ll let Steve tell you.
It all started when…
While my wife and I were vacationing in Italy in 2006, we were staying in a charming bed and breakfast in the Province of Grosetto. I had a vivid dream one night of a great walled city. Usually, I go back to sleep, but on this occasion, I went to the bathroom, turned on the light and wrote down what I saw in the dream. The next day, while touring local villages I told Stace about my dream and she was intrigued. One week later we arrived in Lucca and I exclaimed, "This is it! This is the walled city I dreamt about!"
I started researching Lucca's history, the roots of which go back all the way to 180 BC when the town became a Roman colony. Lucca became prosperous through banking and the silk trade and consequently wanted to protect their wealth. They built fortifications over 2000 years; pre-Christian walls, medieval walls, and the beautiful renaissance walls that now ring the city for 4.2 kilometers. What I found fascinating was that in over two millennia of Lucca's history, their ramparts were never militarily tested. No one ever attacked Lucca.
I thought about the deeper message about how we humans often build emotional walls to protect us from some perceived threat and how doubts, fears, worries, keep us from realizing our own divine potential. And the story began.