Stephen J. Sansweet is an American author, journalist, and one of the world's foremost authorities on Star Wars. A former feature writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Los Angeles bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, he left journalism in 1996 to join Lucasfilm.
At Lucasfilm he served as Director of Specialty Marketing and later as Director of Content Management and Head of Fan Relations, becoming the company's public face to the fan community for many years.
Sansweet wrote the original Star Wars Encyclopedia and co-wrote its expanded successor, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, with Pablo Hidalgo and others, along with numerous books on Star Wars collecting and history. He assembled what is considered the largest private collection of Star Wars memorabilia in the world, later opening it to the public as Rancho Obi-Wan.
His reference works are regarded as cornerstone guides to the characters, planets, vehicles, and history of the Star Wars universe.
