• Following a childhood aspiration to become an author, Stephanie has written three books: DAILY CORNBREAD: 365 Secrets for a Healthy Mind, Body, and Spirit (Doubleday, 1999), SEVEN SOULFUL SECRETS For Finding Your Purpose and Minding Your Mission (Doubleday, 2001), and SONG FOR MY FATHER: Memoir of an All-American Family (Atria, 2004).

Recently released on Amazon Kindle, SONG FOR MY FATHER, was reviewed in the Washington Post and Town & Country. The memoir chronicles her coming-of-age in the turbulent 1960s and paints an affectionate picture of her relationship with her dad, the late Judge Charles M. Stokes, a Republican and Seattle's first Black state legislator.

 

• In 2004, Stephanie served as editor-in-chief of Essence.com. She then was asked to assist in the merger of Essence with Time Inc. in the capacity of deputy editor, returning to the magazine for the second time. She originally joined Essence as senior editor of the lifestyle section. During her 16 years there she rose to the second-in-command position of editor of the magazine.
  
  In 1994, Oliver left Essence to become the founding editor-in-chief of Heart & Soul magazine at Rodale Press, the health-and-fitness publishers of Men's Health and Prevention. During her four years at the helm, the magazine won numerous awards, including a Best New Magazine nomination from FOLIO.

• In 1998, she formed SSO Communications, Inc., a publishing and new-media consulting firm in the New York area, contributing to O, The Oprah Magazine, Lifetime, SpaFinder, and producing the Web site of New York Women in Communications. In 2000, she became the founding editor-in-chief of NiaOnline, a popular Internet community for Black women, where she served for two years and wrote a monthly blog for six years.

• Upon graduation from Howard University with honors in Journalism, she won Glamour magazine's Top Ten College Student Contest and began her career at Glamour as beauty and fashion merchandising editor, traveling the country producing retail-store promotions.
  

• In pursuing post-graduate studies, Stephanie completed the magazine publishing program at New York University. In 2008, she was awarded a fellowship to attend Stanford University's Professional Publishing Course for Executives, with a concentration in magazine, book, and digital publishing.

• Having relocated from the New York-New Jersey area to the Caribbean in 2007, Stephanie Stokes Oliver and her husband, Reginald Oliver, are co-founders with Anguilla hoteliers-of-the-year Sherille and Franklin Hughes, of the Ultimacy Villa Retreat, an oceanfront destination for writers, readers, and thinkers.

  Stephanie is currently working on her fourth book, a memoir of moving to the Caribbean in the onset of a recession, called Sun, Sand, Sea.