Biography

Author, screenwriter, and musician John Mason Skipp was born in 1957. In 1979 John released a solo album under the band name Arcade. He moved to New York City in 1981 and worked as a street messenger prior to getting his writing career off the ground. Skipp's first published short story "The Long Ride" was printed in "Twilight Zone" magazine. John achieved his greatest success and popularity with several well-received bestselling novels that he co-wrote with fellow author and musician Craig Spector: "The Light at the End," "The Cleanup," "The Scream," "Dead Lines," "The Bridge," and "Animals." (The pair also wrote the novelization for the 1985 vampire horror feature "Fright Night.") Skipp and Spector were two of the principal writers involved in the "splatterpunk" horror fiction movement of the 1980s. Moreover, the duo appear together in bit parts in the films "Death Collector" and "Nightbreed" as well as collaborated on the script for "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child." In addition, they served as editors on the acclaimed zombie horror short story anthologies "Book of the Dead" and "Still Dead: Book of the Dead 2." John parted ways with Spector in 1993. He did uncredited work co-writing the script for "Class of 1999." He has penned the solo novels "Conscience" and "The Long Last Call," plus co-written the novels "The Emerald Burrito of Oz" with Marc Levinthal and "Jake's Wake" with Cody Goodfellow. John Skipp lives in Los Feliz, California.