About Me

Hi! I’m John. That’s me on the left. The books I’ve written are in the column on the right.

If this website was a department store, I might display in its windows this work, which is fairly representative of what I do.

I founded and wrote the 16-point tenets for the group Unfundamentalist Christians (formerly called ThruWay Christians).

If you’d like to invite me to speak before whatever group you might, email me at john[AT]johnshore[DOT]com. For a bit more on that, see here.

You can listen to a couple of radio interviews with me here.

On the home page of this site, under Posts by Theme, you’ll see that I write about Christian issues, Christian spirituality, relationships, personal things, and about lots of stuff that just plain cracks me up.

I write about everything, basically. I write about life–all of it. I hate the idea—as prevalent, and “market friendly” as I know it is—that a writer can or should write about only one thing. Who can have a decent, real thought about anything—but then about nothing else? The whole idea of being a “niche writer” is just anathema to me. It smacks of so much that I think is so wrong with the way our culture packages thought and creativity. It’s a primary reason I got out of regular book publishing; I got tired of being told that, as a writer, I had to “pick my lane. It’s also why I chose the logo and blog header design that I did. By showing myself as Leonardo da Vinci’s every man (with boxers!), I meant to convey that, with me, everything is on the table: that limits and boarders and categories and should’s and shouldn’t's do not apply.

Life’s too short. I know what I know. And this is where I write whatever of it I might.

Here are a few things others have been kind enough to say about my work:

“John Shore is America’s preeminent non-douchey Christian.” — Dan Savage, Savage Love, founder of the It Gets Better Project.

“John Shore is awesome. The minute I started reading his stuff, I knew he was a brother from another mother.” — Rob Bell, author of Love Wins, Sex God, and Velvet Elvis.

“John Shore is a gadfly, calling the Christian Church everywhere to act the way it says it believes about love and justice, which of course makes him an uncomfortable presence in those churches that do not like to be forced to face reality. So were the prophets of old. So was Jesus of Nazareth.” — John Shelby Spong. author of Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, and others.

“John Shore is funny as hell and smart as hell, which is good because I’ve heard that we’re both going to spend a long time there.” — Tony Jones, Theoblogy.

“John Shore’s unique, honest, and passionate writings draw us to dig a little deeper, to listen with the intention of truly hearing and understanding each other. He gives voice to those without a platform; he puts into words our latent questions/ observations about today’s topics that are begging to be addressed from the viewpoint of an informed Christian”– Spencer Burke, founder of TheOOZE.com

“Shore is a humorist whose work is more comedic than Donald Miller, and his appeal to Christians is more direct.”– Michael Spencer, a.k.a. The Internet Monk, author of the bestseller Mere Churchianity.

“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 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 international bestsellers Last Child in the Woods, and The Nature Principle.

“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 The Miracle of Language.

“Shore is a madman and a genius.”— Eric Metaxas, author of bestsellers Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, and, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, the Christian Booksellers Association 2011 Book of the Year.

“John Shore is a genius.” — Stephen Arterburn, author of the the bestselling Every Man’s Battle; host of the nationally syndicated radio program New Life Live.

And here’s some basic bio stuff about me:

Before I started writing books and blogging, I worked as an editor and/or writer for (among others) San Diego Magazine, The San Diego Union-Tribune (I was the “Nightlife and Music” editor for the U-T’s website, SignOn San Diego), 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 was managing editor of their in-house magazine, On Air). I was founding editor of D-Town 92101, a weekly tabloid newspaper covering downtown San Diego, and of Downtown, a glossy magazine covering the same. I have written extensively for such websites as Microsoft’s (now defunct) 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—including the front story in Central Park, a New York literary magazine then edited by Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues).

Before that I spent four years at a large university taking in classes in nothing but English, history, and philosophy.

Before 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, 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 thirty 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 one hundred times a day she freaks me out with her Giant Brain and infinite capacity for love.