John Shirley is the author of numerous books and many, many short stories. His novels include Crawlers, Demons, In Darkness Waiting, and seminal cyberpunk works City Come A-Walkin', and the A Song Called Youth trilogy of Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra, and Eclipse Corona. His collections include the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning Black Butterflies and Living Shadows: Stories: New & Pre-owned. He also writes for screen (The Crow) and television. As a musician Shirley has fronted his own bands and written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and others.

NEWS & EVENTS

• Saturday, May 17, 7PM: Reading. Discussing. Signing. Moderated by Terry Bisson
Variety Children's Charity
The Variety Preview Room
582 Market St. @ Montgomery
1st floor of The Hobart Bldg.

• 03.19.08: New Regency Productions ("Mr And Mrs Smith") has optioned John Shirley's forthcoming dark urban fantasy novel BLEAK HISTORY (Simon and Schuster) for development as the basis of a movie.

• 03.19.08: The option on John Shirley's novel DEMONS by The Weinstein Company ("The Lord of the Rings") has just been renewed. A director, Jim Sonzero ("Pulse") has been attached, and a script has been written and is now being revised.

• 03.18.08: Shirley-scripted EDGAR ALLAN POE's LIGEIA, a modern-setting adaptation of the classic Poe story, has been filmed by Poe Vision Productions. It is produced by Jeff Most ("The Crow") and is directed by Michael Staininger. It stars Michael Madsen, Sofya Skya, Eric Roberts, Wes Bentley, and Mackenzie Rosman. The film is now in final edit.

• 03.18.08: John Shirley's "alternative apocalypse" novel THE OTHER END has been optioned by producer Jeffrey Kinart.

• 01.27.08: Stellar review of LIVING SHADOWS: STORIES: New & Pre-owned by Terry Rafferty in the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW calling the collection "a greatest-hits album spanning a few decades of astonishingly consistent and rigorously horrifying work....all his stories...give off the chill of top-grade horror. It's a moral chill, because Shirley's great subject is the terrible ease with which we modern Americans have learned to look away from pain and suffering.... And while the matter of his stories is often shocking, his manner is calm, restrained. The prose is attitude-free and precise, its characteristic sound a minor chord of sorrow and banked anger. He writes about sensation unsensationally, with a particular tenderness toward those who manage, against the odds and by whatever means, to feel something....[quoting Coleridge:] "My endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith." That's exactly what good horror writers like Joe Hill and John Shirley do with the shadows of their imagination. And there's an explanation here, too, of the hope that can keep even the most skeptical, fed-up reader coming back to horror fiction. Watching vampires having sex may not strike you as an adequate reward for suspending disbelief. But the poetry of fear and mortality is worth all the belief you can muster." [Shirley section] [Full Review].

• 01.01.08: Production of John Shirley's script LIGEIA began in December 2007. Based on the classic Edgar Allan Poe short story, it tells of a successful writer and scholar, Johnathon, who becomes involved with a graduate student, Ligeia. She's dying of cancer and in trying to defeat death, she has been experimenting with forbidden ways to capture the human soul and to take the energy of stolen souls so to empower her own soul... so it can take over other living bodies after being forced out of its own, by death. The gothically beautiful, but scheming Ligeia tricks Johnathon's fiancee into breaking up with him. Jonathan and Ligeia fall in love-partly due to the mind control power she has developed. Their mutual obsession extends beyond her dramatic death. IMDB; Wikipedia

• 12.28.07: Part I of a new interview: "John Shirley - The Intrepid Explorer of the Dark Recesses of Our Minds".

• 12.15.07: John Shirley greets holiday shoppers with flyers as he walks the picket line with members of the Writers Guild. San Francisco Chronicle article, photo by Paul Chinn.

• 11.12.07: Podcast of the "Hour of Slack": The Rev. John Shirley reads his SubGenius short story, "1996 1997 1998" (from the Three Fisted Tales of "Bob" anthology)!

• 10.15.07: Now available: Aliens: Steel Egg by John Shirley (Dark Horse Press)

• 06.23.07: Now available: John Shirley's Living Shadows: Stories: New & Pre-Owned (Prime Books)

• 05.06.07: Now available John Shirley's The Other End

• 04.10.07: John Shirley Interview with Rick Kleffel on THE OTHER END, LIVING SHADOWS, and things.

• 03.31.07: Hear John Shirley with Obsession! A recording of the legendary NYC band from the 1980s: "I Am Electricity"!

• 12.04.06: Another Shirley's music! Check out Julian Shirley's Meda Boys hot hip-hop.

• 10.15.06: Cover (to right) for the "John Shirley" issue of WEIRD TALES illustrating his new featured novella, Buried in the Sky. The issue also includes his weird western short story, "The Claw Spurs", and an interview (that's also online)

• 08.22.06: Signs of Witness: You have to see to disbelieve it!

• 08.01.06: The Other End Web site is now live.

• 07.07.06: New Media area is now live.