Steve Procko is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, historical nonfiction author, and documentary storyteller whose work explores overlooked people and stories from America’s past. After founding and leading a successful film and television production company for more than thirty years, he turned his lifelong interests in history, research, and narrative storytelling toward the written word.
His book, Gilded Breeze, explores the extraordinary world of James Lawrence “Jimmie” Breese and his family as their lives intersect with some of the defining people and innovations of America’s Gilded Age. Drawn from nearly 1,000 historical sources, the book moves through New York high society, architecture, photography, early automobiles, and aviation, bringing together a remarkable cast that includes Stanford White, Samuel F. B. Morse, and the pioneering aviators of the NC-4.
Procko’s Captured Freedom (2023), the true story of Union officers who escaped from Confederate prison camps during the Civil War, received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and was named a 2025 Independent Press Award winner.
His first book, Rebel Correspondent (2021), tells the story of a little-known Confederate journalist whose eyewitness accounts provide an unusual window into the Civil War. It was named an Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite.
In addition to his books, Procko produces There’s History Around Every Bend, a short-form video series devoted to bringing overlooked people, places, and stories from the past to a wider audience.
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