Steven M. Lerner

Steven Lerner was born in Los Angeles on September 11, 1959, and died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack in his Porter Ranch home in early August of 2025. He grew up in Encino, California, and attended the University of California at Santa Barbara and Cal State University Northridge, where he received a bachelor’s degree in music composition, focusing on jazz. Later in his life he turned from composing music to writing fiction that was distinguished by wryly humorous, sympathetic, somewhat eccentric characters and his sense of the absurd. His completed books were Moose Tales & Sleepy Little Town (2006) and The Book of Jake (2019). His family is looking forward to reading the unpublished writings discovered on his laptop. Steve was predeceased by his parents Harvey Robert Lerner, M.D., and Marilyn Weinlos Lerner. He is survived by his sisters Moira Nelson (Dency), Ava Lerner Wooton, and Beth Wilcox (Dan); nieces Jesse Lerner, Dori Nichols, Hannah Wilcox, Emily Wilcox, and Charlie Nelson Keever; and nephew David Wilcox. He was sweet, intelligent, sensitive, and hilarious, and we miss him.