Johnny Shaw

Johnny Shaw was born and raised on the Calexico/Mexicali border, the setting for his debut novel, DOVE SEASON. Although he has been writing for over twenty years, it took that same amount of time for him to finally revisit and explore the people and places of the Imperial Valley, California and the Desert Southwest. He returns to the area in his new novel BIG MARIA, a raucous adventure set in Blythe, California and Arizona’s Chocolate Mountains. Johnny also acts as the editor-in-chief and is a frequent contributor for the online fiction quarterly BLOOD & TACOS, a loving homage to the men’s adventure paperbacks of the 1970′s & 1980′s. Johnny received his MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA and over the course of his writing career has seen his screenplays optioned, sold and produced. As a playwright, his stage collaborations with actor Jaime Arze, NATURAL ACTS and A GOOD KIND OF CRAZY, have been performed throughout Los Angeles. For the last ten years, Johnny has taught screenwriting. He has lectured at both Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara. He is the owner of Johnny’s Used Books, formerly a brick-and-mortar bookstore in Los Angeles, now entirely online. Johnny lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, artist Roxanne Patruznick (the painter of the author’s portrait above).