John McDaid

John G. McDaid is a science fiction writer, folk/filk singer-songwriter, and freelance journalist from Rhode Island. A 1993 Clarion grad, he sold his first short story, the Sturgeon Award-winning Jigoku no mokushiroku, to Asimov's in 1995. Cory Doctorow writes, "John's an amazing polymath of a writer, one of those short story writers like Ted Chiang whose all-too-infrequent work breaks new ground."

Since retiring in 2016 from a career in corporate communications, John has been writing full time and playing at venues around the Northeast. He was a finalist for the writer/composer Pegasus in 2020 and 2021.

John released his first album, "Proverbs of Hell", in 2019. It includes his song The Internet's Own Boy: Aaron Swartz, which has special meaning to many of us in Silicon Valley. John's studio album "Trail of Mars", released in 2021, won the John Culkin Award from the Media Ecology Association. You can find his music at http://johnmcdaid.com, on Bandcamp, and on YouTube.

John is currently completing a secret history novel set in the closing weeks of WWII. In addition to teaching media theory at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, he is a citizen journalist and political activist. He blogs about Rhode Island politics at http://harddeadlines.com/. In 2010, John ran for school committee in his home town of Portsmouth. Like Margaret Thatcher, he lost his first political race.

Here is a partial list of John's fiction.

Jigoku no Mokushiroku: This award-winning story, first published in the November/December 1995 issue of Asimov's, appears online at http://harddeadlines.com/fiction/jigoku.

Keyboard Practice: This novelette, first published in the January, 2005 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Media Ecology Association's Mary Shelley Award. You will find it online at http://harddeadlines.com/fiction/keyboardpractice.

Umbrella Men: This novelette, in which giving someone an umbrella leads to world peace, was the cover story of the January/February 2012 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which is available on Kindle.

(Nothing But) Flowers: This 2012 short story is available on Kindle.

Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse: You will find this newly revised interactive SF/mystery puzzle game at https://dtc-wsuv.org/projects/uncle-buddy/archival/index.html. It is the reincarnation of John's 1992 hypertext novel of the same name.

Give someone an umbrella