“John Shore is one of those rare writers who can make people laugh and think at the same time. He’s one of the most talented, funny, and deeply thoughtful writers I know. He’s a sincere pleasure to read.”— Richard Louv, author of the international bestseller, Last Child in the Woods, and Fly Fishing for Sharks.
John Shore is a remarkably gifted writer who knows exactly what he is doing.” — Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean (an Oprah’s Book Club selection), Twelve Times Blessed and The Breakdown Lane.
“John Shore, the legitimate son of Kurt Vonnegut and Dave Barry, writes with a freaky energy and humor and imagination that illuminate his characters’ and readers’ hearts. He’s the real thing.”— Richard Lederer, author of more than thirty books on the English language, including the bestselling Anguished English series and A Man of My Words.
Hi. My name’s John. I write for a living. Which is better than having a real job, and no two ways about it. Which isn’t even a complete sentence. So you can see how exacting the standards are for becoming an Actual Writer. Whoo-hoo!
In the world of secular/mainstream books, I’m represented by Deborah Schneider, of Gelfman Schneider. My agent to the world of the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) is Greg Johnson, of Wordserve Literary Group.
My first book, published in 2005 by Seabury Books, was/is Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang: Why I Do The Things I Do (by God, as told to John Shore). This book is my best shot at once and for all proving to non-Christians that just because someone is a Christian doesn’t mean they’re insane and/or incapable of rational thought. You can read more about Penguins here. A German edition of Penguins came out in late 2007; a Korean edition is in the offing. Or off the iffing. Or … something good, anyway.
My second book, which I co-wrote with Famous Grammarian guy Richard Lederer (author of the bestselling Anguished English series, among others) is Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation (St. Martin’s Press, 2005). First it came out in hardback; then we did a second printing in hardback (whoo-hoo!), then it came out in paperback (whoo!). You can read more about Comma Sense here.
You can read here about my third book, I’m OK–You’re Not: The Message We’re Sending Nonbelievers, and Why We Should Stop (NavPress, 2007).
With Steve Arterburn (author of the Every Man series), I’ve also co-authored two books: Midlife Manual for Men (Bethany House, 2008) and Being Christian (Bethany House, 2008). The result of our third collaboration, Regret Free Living, will be out in Fall/Winter 2009.
Before I started writing books, I worked as an editor and/or writer for (among others) San Diego Magazine, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The San Diego Reader (the third largest alternative weekly newspaper in America), and San Diego’s KPBS (one of the largest public broadcasting companies in the country). I have also done extensive writing for websites E!Online, Microsoft’s San Diego Sidewalk, and AOL’s Digital City San Diego. I’ve also published fifteen short stories in little literary magazines all over the country.
Before all that I worked as (among other things): a recreation leader, door-to-door encyclopedia salesman (I never sold one set), shoe salesman (good at selling shoes that people already wanted; awful at selling job-securing purses and socks I was supposed to inspire them to want), pizza “chef,” 7-11 clerk (graveyard shift at the most-robbed 7-11 in northern California!), shipper-and-receiver, Taco Bell miscreant, nanny (for the Rothschild family!), Macy’s stock boy, truck-loading Teamster, janitor, bookstore clerk, data input drone, Trader Joe’s “shipmate,” Jiffy Lube monkey, law office flunky, and church relations manager for a Rescue Mission.
I grew up—well, I got older—in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Cupertino, California, which when I was a kid was mostly orchards and tract homes, but later became the very heart of Silicon Valley. Talk about your little town disappearing.
I have been married 28 years to a woman who gives whole new meaning to the word “patient.” Catherine is by far and away the smartest, kindest, funniest, wisest person I’ve ever met. About 100 times a day she basically freaks me out with her Giant Brain and her infinite capacity for immediate, absolute love.
Awhile back one of my Facebook friends tagged me in one of those deals where you’re supposed to write 16 random things about yourself. Here’s how I responded:
1. I am, by nature and training, extremely adverse to saying or writing anything about myself that anyone could ever construe as bragging or pretentious. Which sounds pretty darn pretentiously braggy. So never mind.
2. I’m acutely aware of the determining quality of contexts. Just now, for instance, I’m experiencing a deep appreciation of what a large number 16 can be.
3. I haven’t spoken with or had any contact with my mother in some 30 years.
4. I’ve seen my sister maybe four brief times in the past 35 years.
5. I am missing the gene that I think is supposed to inhibit my saying just about anything about my life to just about anyone. What do I care what people know about me? I figure life happens about the same to all of us. So what’s to hide?
6. I find an extraordinary amount of stuff funny. I would say the single biggest blessing of my personal brain is how readily it makes stuff funny for me.
7. I have spent virtually all of my life learning to write as well as I do. Of course that hardly means I’m a great writer; it only means that (duh) I know how I’ve spent my life.
8. While I believe that for the good of all people God opted to manifest on earth as the figure known to history as Jesus Christ, I’m not at all keen on telling people I’m Christian, since I know how likely it is they’ll then automatically ascribe to me a whole universe of beliefs that I don’t even almost hold.
9. I’m convinced that in about 20 years poetry is going to be huge. Text messaging plus exhaustion with endless exposure to the strict linearity of conventional plotlines plus a universalized imperative for intense, succinctly expressed personal aesthetics is guaranteed, I say, to equal Poetry Resurgence. You just watch.
10. I think that perhaps the primary purpose of the human sex drive is to force everyone, in their most private heart of hearts, to constantly realize how utterly and absolutely out of control they are of the Gargantuan Forces that determine and define the very nature of life.
11. I believe that it’s an exceedingly terrible idea to make your living, as so many religious leaders and authors (almost necessarily) do, as a Moral Leader. The moment you set yourself up as someone more moral than anyone else, you’re screwed.
12. I think about the most important need people have is be loved for who they are, instead of for what they do. I think that need is what often drives popular public figures such as celebrities, politicians, and religious leaders to self-destruct. They destroy what’s bringing them the love they don’t want.
13. I’m (still) pretty thoroughly insane for the song “One Nation Under a Groove” by George Clinton and Funkadelic.
14. In junior high, quite by accident–and despite my being Gilligan thin–I set a California state junior high school record for the shot-put. I’d never putted a shot (as we in the trade say it) in my life. Suddenly I’d shattered a record for it that had stood for, like, thirty years. Complete freak.
15. After high school, instead of taking advantage of the four-year, fully paid scholarship offered to me by the University of Santa Clara, I moved from my lily-white neighborhood of Cupertino, CA to east Oakland, CA, where I remained the only white guy I saw for six months. I thought that experience might come in handy for me in my later life as a writer. And was I ever dead freakin’ right about that.
16. I make my living writing. Which means I work at home. Which means I make dinner and clean the house every night before my wife comes home from her job. Which means I have to go now. But this has been an excellent way to kill an hour. Thanks for reading it if you did!
If you’d like to e-mail me, do so at johnshore[at]sbcglobal[dot]net. Or send me a message using the form below:
