John DeVera is a professional writer who ascribes heartily to the dictum of Samuel Johnson that "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." As yet, his career has not allowed him to wallow in the luxury to which he would like to be accustomed, but a few of his stories have managed to see print, and the checks, while not lining his daughter's dowry coffer, have, at times, paid for pizza, computer games and an occasional movie. But he has a realistic side as well, so the Kern High School District need not fear that he will quit his day job to pursue writing. Writing serves him as therapy, avocation, recreation, a medium for expression, and a quest to be heard.

It won't take you long to figure out that this guy has a really twisted sense of humor. He is at times cynical and reverent, enthusiastic and ambivalent. He is both traditional and eclectic. If you're a person who cares about that sort of thing, he is probably closer to being a libertarian than anything else, he votes third party way too often and he is exceptionally distrustful of anyone who bothers to go into politics. He is a member of a most conservative denomination, and yet he has managed to be ordained as a minister in The Church of God of Irony.

His writing is mostly genre fiction, though a pair of his essays have been printed in The Bakersfield Californian. His first love is fantasy, and even his science fiction has an element of contemporary fantasy set in it. There are two basic settings for his fiction, so far, although the lines between these settings is very vague. Much of the traditional fantasy takes place in "Pangaia." The science fiction and contemporary fantasy dwells in a reality called "Terra Celesti," which is a future vision of Pangaia. "Pangaia" is an alternate ancient antedeluvian earth, not yet radically changed in the Age of Noah, and again later in the Age of Peleg. "Terra Celesti" is the contemporary and future vision of Pangaia. It is not the earth we know, but an earth that grows out of a tradition which owes something to multicultural mythologies, biblical referants and the curious and wondrous art of his daughter, Hannah.

He has had several editorial essays published with a by line in The Bakersfield Californian, but since those were unpaid, and constitute an only slighly more prestigious entity than a letter to the editor, he is reticent to dwell on them. His first effort that saw publication was a story that he co-wrote with Sandra DeVera about her brother's dog, "Claudine, the Helicopter Hound." It was published in Dog Fancy, under Sandra's name.

"Well Enough," the story of Karya, an intelligent and strong female character who seems to have an odd connection to the land of Faerie, was published in Marion Zimmer-Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, in December 2000. The story was wonderfully illustrated by Rob Alexander. Sadly, the magazine has folded since the death of Marion Zimmer-Bradley. The story is set in the fantastic country called Chandalar.

"Intransitive Troll," is a humorous contemporary fantasy with an English Teacher as the protagonist. He is set upon and admirably defends himself against a hungry and vicious troll in a most unexpected manner. It was published in Futures: Short Tales for Story Lovers, in August 2001. The story has an illustration drawn by Kevin Bolk. Futures has also ceased publication due to Babs Lakey's continued and estimable successes in writing detective novels. We wish her further success even as we mourn the passage of another likely destination for submissions.

It seems to be a theme, but it really is just a coincidence, but "Troll Wedding," a humorous look at barbaric nuptials, is currently published online in the ezine EOTU. A story published in 2003 in the online Webzine, Anotherrealm, is titled "Passing Wind." The story concerns a gentle healer who is forced to magically duel a fire mage and is saved by his wife. The interesting thing about this story is that I am not positive exactly who knows what. I think the characters were smarter than I was when I wrote the story. The webzine Sciencefictionezine has purchased the rights to my short story "Ceiling of the World." The story is about the exploits of a completely alien race who lives in the water beneath the frozen surface of Europa. It belongs to that special brand of science fiction that focuses more on culture and xenology than technology and hardware.

My passion is ...

science fiction.

I know too much about ...

science fiction.

My parents always told me ...

eat all your food.

My childhood ambition ...

being a writer.

My favorite memory ...

my wedding day.

Why I write ...

because I breathe.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Nabokov, Butcher, CSI, Sarah Stockwell, Johnathan Coulton

My first job ...

Farm Laborer.

My inspiration ...

God.

Entertainment > Movie Genres Zombie movies: Which are more effective, fast zombies or slow zombies?

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Zombies must be and should always be slow. This is a cultural imperative. Revisionist films like Resident Evil or 28 Days are hurting our ability to cope with legions of slow moving eating machines. Okay, okay, let's just look at the issue from different perspectives.

Culturally, our notions of zombies come from Caribbean myths and magic, mixed with the Arab tales of flesh-eating ghouls. Hollywood mashed these two different ideas together and came up with movie zombies, who moved like Caribbean zombies, but ate like Arab ghouls. They scare us, not because they shamble and moan, nor ...

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