Award-winning author JOHN SHORE
Winner: Best New Fiction, American Fiction Award
Finalist: Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize
Finalist: First Novel, Indie Book Awards
"Deeply engrossing . . . a highly satisfying reading experience. . . Shore's prose is nearly transparent--which is extremely high praise. The writing is so stylistically on target that the language itself falls away, allowing the reader to enter into the subtleties of the story completely. . . . Shore's protagonist is authentically funny and rawly sympathetic. . . . This novel stands apart for its originality. It is a testament to the notion that the strongest works are often those with simple storylines, exceptionally told." -- Publisher's Weekly BookLife Prize
Hi! Welcome to my (new) online home!
I am passionate about three things: my awesome wife, what people sometimes call a "higher power" (God, The Universe, Big Mama Karma, etc.) and writing.
I’ve edited and ghostwritten best-selling fiction and nonfiction books, and have co-authored books with some of the top authors in the country. I spent twenty-five years editing and writing for general interest newspapers and magazines; I've created and written widely for nationally prominent blogs and websites (including my own blog/column on Huffington Post). I've published 13 short stories in as many literary magazines across the country.
From 2009 until I shut it down in 2014 in order to write my novel Everywhere She's Not, my personal blog did 300,000 unique views a month. So . . . that means that for about five years there I was writing one of the most-read blogs in the world. (Which I know sounds crazy, but . . . there it is.)
I funded the publication of Everywhere via what was then (and maybe still is?) the most successful campaign (in terms of amount raised) for a debut novel in Kickstarter’s history. I'm grateful every day for the people who made my dream come true through their support of that campaign.
From April 2016 until I concluded the story in November 2017, I wrote, for the Asheville Citizen-Times (of the USAToday network), Ashes to Asheville, the first real-time serial novel ever published on the website of a major daily newspaper. For three years after that I wrote a popular advice column for the Citizen-Times.
Below you'll find one of my non-fiction books, UNFAIR. Written in 2012, it's about why the assertion that being gay is an offense to God is rationally and morally indefensible. (I'm not gay—but injustice is injustice.) UNFAIR went a long way toward toward changing the Christian understanding of LGBT people and issues.
You'll also find below Comma Sense (St. Martin's, 2005), which I co-authored with renowned grammarian Richard Lederer. It's still in print.
“The touching, brave, and frequently heartbreaking letters in UNFAIR: Christians and the LGBT Question should be required reading for any Christian who claims that gay people can’t also be Christians—and for LGBT people who feel there’s some conflict between their sexual orientations or gender identities and their faith. John Shore is sharp, he’s funny, and he’s right. To find out why I’ve called him America’s preeminent non-douchey Christian, buy and read this book. And I challenge anyone who believes that the Bible justifies the persecution of their gay and lesbian neighbors—particularly those on the religious right who’ve made lucrative careers for themselves out of bearing false witness against their gay and lesbian neighbors—to read this book’s opening essay, “Taking God at His Word: The Bible and Homosexuality.” Read John with an open mind and he’ll change yours.” — Dan Savage, founder, It Gets Better; host, Savange Lovecast
"John Shore is awesome, and a brilliant writer. The minute I started reading his stuff, I knew he was a brother from another mother."-- Rob Bell, Love Wins.
"John Shore is a gadfly, calling the Christian Church everywhere to act the way it says it believes about love and justice, which of course makes him an uncomfortable presence in those churches that do not like to be forced to face reality. So were the prophets of old. So was Jesus of Nazareth." -- John Shelby Spong
"Amen! A book that gives voice to the thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning people who have been told they must sacrifice their identity to be Christian." — Believe Out Loud
“Comma Sense is a clear, entertaining, and just plain helpful guide to the American rules of punctuation.” ―Lynne Truss, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves
“Of my 465 books on punctuation---I've read them all---Comma Sense is the wisest and funniest. It's the only one you really need.” ―Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner's Modern American Usage
“A thorough field guide to the pesky little critters of the punctuation forest.Lederer and Shore hit the marks!” ―Bill Walsh, author of The Elephants of Style
“Who else would call the exclamation point 'this titan of tingle, this prince of palpitation'? Who else would call the apostrophe the Jesse James of punctuation? Who else would compare the dash to Fred Astaire, the semicolon to Duke Ellington, and parentheses (yes, my darlings) to Louella Parsons? It can only be Richard Lederer, Viceroy of Verbivores, and his trusty sidekick, John Shore.” ―Patricia T. O'Conner, author of Woe Is I
“Punctuation needn't be perplexing or painful, as Richard Lederer and John Shore make abundantly clear. Comma Sense is full of easy-to-understand guidance for the grammatically challenged—and loads of laughs besides!” ―Martha Barnette, co-host of nationally syndicated radio show, A Way with Words.
Writing well is important for business, but it also can be crucial in love, the writers warn. Do you want to say, "I would like to tell you that I love you. I can't stop thinking that you are one of the prettiest women on Earth," or "I would like to tell you that I love you. I can't. Stop thinking that you are one of the prettiest women on Earth." As Lederer and Shore say, "Punctuation can mean the difference between a second date and a restraining order.”―Margo Hammond, St. Petersburg Times