Daniel Stern grew up in the Lower East Side and the Bronx in New York City. Before starting his career as a writer, Stern was an accomplished cellist and promising composer. In his twenties he earned spots in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Symphony Orchestra; however, even before graduating high school, Stern toured with jazz legend Charlie Parker. Of course, Stern wore many different hats during his lifetime. He managed successful careers at McCann-Erickson and Warner Bros.; and, for a time in the 1980's he was Vice President of CBS.However, most notably, he was a prolific and critically-acclaimed writer. He published nine novels and three collections of short fiction and also served as the editor of Hampton Shorts. His work is celebrated for explorations of post-WWII Jewish-American life, formal experimentation in the novel, and for the innovation in the short story known as the "Twice Told Tale". As a young writer he and Bernard Malamud maintained a close friendship. He collected awards for his writing throughout his career, including the International Prix du Souvenir from the Bergen Belsen Society and the Government of France, the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two Pushcart Prizes, two O. Henry Prizes, and publication in Best American Short Stories. He taught in the celebrated University of Houston Creative Writing Program from 1992 to 2006, where he was Cullen Distinguished Professor of English. Although his novels and short stories are admired for their lyricism and experimentation, he only momentarily penetrated the mainstream with the novels Who Shall Live, Who Shall Die and The Suicide Academy (the first novel of the Wolf Walker trilogy). Some consider him to be "a writer's writer", and as such remains something of a cult figure. Indeed, Anaïs Nin devoted an essay to The Suicide Academy in her collection In Favor of the Sensitive Man. Before joining the faculty at the University of Houston, Stern taught at Wesleyan, Pace, New York University, and Harvard.

Novels

• The Girl With the Glass Heart (1953)
• The Guests of Fame (1958)
• Miss America (1960)
• Who Shall Live, Who Shall Die (1963) Foreword by Elie Wiesel (1994)
• After the War (1965)
• The Suicide Academy (1968) Introduction by Anaïs Nin (1968)
• The Rose Rabbi (1971)
• Final Cut (1975)
• An Urban Affair (1980)

Collected short fiction

• Twice Told Tales (1989) Introduction by Sir Frank Kermode (1994)
• Twice Upon a Time (1992)
• One Day's Perfect Weather (1999)
• In the Country of the Young (2001)
• A Little Street Music (2004)

Uncollected short fiction

• The Oven Bird by Robert Frost: A Story (1995)
• Grievances and Griefs by Robert Frost: A Story (1995)
• The Advancer (2006)

Plays

• The Television Waiting Room. Read at Playwrights Horizons, New York, NY. 1984.