William Shunn
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William Shunn (born August 14, 1967, Los Angeles, California) is a science fiction writer and computer programmer. He was raised in a devout Latter-day Saint household, the oldest of eight children. He attended the Clarion Workshop in 1985. In 1986, he served a mission to Canada for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but was arrested for making a false bomb threat, for the purpose of preventing his fellow missionary from returning home.
After completing his mission in the northwestern US, he returned to computer science studies at the University of Utah. He went to work for WordPerfect Corporation in 1991 and was part of the team that developed WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS (the word processor's final major DOS version, released in 1993). In 1995, he moved from Utah to New York City. He left the LDS Church at the same time and created one of the earliest and best-known ex-Mormon web sites.
Shunn's first professional short story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1993. In 2002 he was nominated for the Nebula Award for his novelette "Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites." In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he created what may have been the first online survivor registry. His work often draws on his computer science background.
He lives in Queens, New York, and is cofounder with Robert J. Howe of the 8th of February Group, a private science fiction writing workshop.
[edit] Awards and nominations
- 2001: Nominated for Nebula Award for Best Novelette for "Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites" (Vanishing Acts, ed. Ellen Datlow, Tor Books, New York, NY, 2000)
[edit] External links
- Official site
- "The Practical Ramifications of Interstellar Packet Loss" (short story)
- "Love in the Age of Spyware" (short story from Salon, 16 July 2003)
- "Strong Medicine" (short story from Salon, 10 November 2003)
- "The Missionary Imposition" (personal essay)
- "Online help spawns hope for victims" (article by Charles Cooper)
- "Emergency.gov" (article by Daniel H. Pink)
