by John Shirley
What city is best for writers today? Tomorrow? If it were 2056, what city would you want to live in?
New York City is always best for novelists. That’s where most of the publishers are, hello. I lived there for years and loved New York. I’d live there again in a hot second. I live in the next best place now—the San Francisco area, which is pretty agreeable to writers and artists. Lots of smart, stimulating people here. Stories on every corner.
If you’re writing films, well, you don’t have to be in LA but it can help. So it’s about the people you interface with. However, for some people the best place to write might be deep in a redwood forest.
In 2056 I want to be under the dome that’s protecting Seattle, maybe, or Toronto. Cooler, safer. The Black Winds will be blocked off by the dome. Defensible …
When they do the John Shirley biopic, who do you want to play yourself? (And don’t say Johnny Depp; he doesn’t have your looks.)
William Hurt could play me as I am now. Me as a young person, I don’t know—some actor yet to be discovered who can play “out-of-control youth” and embody paradox. Good and bad, kind and selfish, hardworking and slothful. As a youth I was all those things at once.
I know you and your wife Micky take film seriously. What filmmakers do you watch? What bands or musicians? What writers?
These days I’m pretty eclectic about film. I like Peter Jackson’s stuff and I enjoyed the John Carter movie and Skyfall. But I also like, say, Terrence Malick, and David Fincher. I like certain Korean filmmakers, Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wook. I like the Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson. I think some really creative stuff is being done in science fiction films these days, like Chronicle and Looper.
Did cyberpunk die … or do a butterfly?
It was eaten alive, co-opted. Today it shows up in film and television, it’s in comics, it’s even in some so-called “military” SF. But that’s justice. We cyberpunks devoured and digested Philip Dick, Alfred Bester, Cordwainer Smith, Ellison, Delany, John Brunner …
My Jeopardy item: The answer is, Fox News. You provide the question.
What news channel should someone with a conscience and deep pockets buy? Please!
You seem to keep a line open to Hollywood. Ever tempted to live in LA?
I have lived in Los Angeles and would again if I had the right project there, something I needed to be on site for. I’d love to be hands-on, a producer on a show of my creation, so I could choose what really matter: the writers, the directors, the actors. In that order of importance.
If you are ever elected U.S. president, what will be your first executive order?
Not sure, probably something environmental. I will pick the one that will most annoy the Tea Party types.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Novels:
Transmaniacon (New York: Zebra, 1979)
Dracula in Love (New York: Zebra, 1979; 1990)
City ComeA-Walkin (New York: Dell, 1980; Asheville, NC: Eyeball Press, 1996; New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001)
Three-Ring Psychus (New York: Zebra, 1980)
The Brigade (New York: Avon, 1981)
Cellars (New York: Avon, 1982; Akron, OH: Infrapress, 2006)
Eclipse (A Song Called Youth Trilogy book one) (New York: Warner Books/Popular Library, 1985; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2000)
In Darkness Waiting (New York: Onyx/New American Library, 1988; Akron, OH: Infrapress, 2005)
Kamus of Kadizar: The Black Hole of Carcosa (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988)
Eclipse Penumbra (A Song Called Youth Trilogy book two) (New York: Warner Books/Popular Library, 1988; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2000)
A Splendid Chaos (New York: Franklin Watts, 1988; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2006)
Eclipse Corona (A Song Called Youth Trilogy book three) (New York: Questar/Popular Library, 1990; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2001)
Wetbones (Shingletown, CA: Mark V. Ziesing, 1991; New York: Leisure, 1999)
Silicon Embrace (Shingletown, CA: Mark V. Ziesing, 1996)
Demons (Baltimore: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2000; New York: Ballantine Books, 2002)
The View from Hell (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2001)
Her Hunger, short novel in Night Visions 10, edited by Richard Chizmar (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2001).
… And the Angel with Television Eyes (San Francisco: Night Shade, 2001)
Spider Moon (Baltimore: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2002)
Demons, new version with second novella Undercurrents (New York, Del Rey, 2002)
Crawlers (New York: Del Rey, 2003)
Subterranean, Constantine Hellblazer tie-in (New York: Pocket Star, 2006)
The Other End (Baltimore: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2007)
Black Glass (Chicago: Elder Signs Press, 2008)
Bleak History (New York: Pocket Books, 2009)
BioShock: Rapture, gaming tie-in novel (New York: Tor, 2011)
Everything Is Broken (Rockville, MD: Prime Books, 2012)
A Song Called Youth, complete trilogy, omnibus plus individual e-books of Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra, and Eclipse Corona (Gaithersburg, MD: Prime Books, 2012)
Nonfiction:
Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas (New York: Tarcher, 2004)
Collections:
Heatseeker (Los Angeles: Scream, 1989)
New Noir (Boulder, CO: FC2/Black Ice, 1993)
The Exploded Heart (Asheville, NC: Eyeball, 1996)
Black Butterflies (Shingletown, CA: Mark V. Ziesing, 1998; New York: Leisure, 2001)
Really Really Really Really Weird Stories (San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 1999)
Darkness Divided (Lancaster, PA: Stealth Press, March 2001)
Living Shadows: Stories: New and Pre-Owned (Rockville, MD: Prime Books, 2007)
In Extremis: The Most Extreme Stories of John Shirley (Portland: Underland Press, 2011)
Selected Screenplays:
The Crow - first writer, shares screenplay credit
The Specialist - movie was based on novel written under a pseudonym
Primal Scream/Twists of Terror - TV movie for the Showtime Channel
Mysterium - TV movie for Fox Channel based on the novel by Robert Charles Wilson
Hunter Prime - based on novels by Robert Sheckley (sold to Pressman/Jeff Most productions)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN SHIRLEY IS AN author, screenwriter, and songwriter. The author of more than thirty science fiction, horror, urban fantasy, and dark crime novels, he has garnered praise from many directions including the New York Times Book Review, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, William Gibson, the Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly.
He won the Bram Stoker Award for his story collection Black Butterflies. He was co-screenwriter of The Crow and has written for television shows such as Deep Space Nine. He has written one nonfiction book, Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas (Penguin Tarcher). His cyberpunk trilogy, A Song Called Youth, is known for its sharp geopolitical predictions and progressive point of view. His newest novel Everything Is Broken, is a near-future crime novel showing how “Tea Party” thinking could lead to social disaster.
Shirley has cowritten eighteen songs for the Blue Öyster Cult and his own bands. Black October Records has recently brought out a double CD, Broken Mirror Glass, a selection of his recordings from 1978 to 2012.
He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife.
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