While Epstein was still in Italy his third book, Young Men's Gold, was published to wide acclaim, one critic calling the title poem "quite possibly the best long poem since Ginsberg's 'Howl' " and the reviewer from The New Republic comparing the love poems to those of John Donne. He returned to America in 1979 as one of the most widely read poets of his generation. He was soon under contract to the Keedick agency for a speaking tour, with Oxford University Press to translate Euripides, and accepted a position as visiting Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University. Jenny and the Phoenix was optioned by Joseph Papp for production at The Public Theatre in New York. In Baltimore he became active in a vibrant poetry scene that included such poets as Lucille Clifton, Anselm Hollo, Andrei Codrescu, and David Franks. 1980s Epstein taught poetry and playwriting at the Johns Hopkins Seminars until 1982. While he continued teaching part time, at Randolph Macon, Towson State University, and The Maryland College Institute of Art, his ongoing work in the theatre and a contract to write a textbook for D.C. Heath made an academic career impractical. The failure of Epstein's Off-Broadway play The Midnight Visitor in 1981 darkened his prospects as a playwright. In the mid-eighties he began publishing prose essays and short stories that were popularly syndicated and anthologized. The first of these, "Star of Wonder", about a boy whose parents insist upon celebrating both Hanukah and Christmas inspired hundreds of passionate letters in a dozen city newspapers when it first appeared in syndication. Later broadcast yearly on NPR's All Things Considered, it became one of the best known holiday stories since "A Christmas Carol". "Star of Wonder" is the title story of a collection of holiday tales published in 1986. On the strength of that book the author secured a two-book contract with Addison and Wesley: To Write an Autobiography, Love's Compass, and a biography of the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, Sister Aimee. The publication of these books, the first in 1990 and the second in 1993, offered the poet a chance at a second career, as a biographer and historian. 1990s While much of Epstein's best poetry was published in the 1980s and 1990s (Spirits, The Boy in the Well) his poetry has been eclipsed by the success of the biographies of Sister Aimee, Nat King Cole, and Edna St.