Shannon, Harry 1948-

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SHANNON, Harry 1948-

PERSONAL: Born 1948, in NV; married Wendy Kramer; children: Paige (daughter).

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Five Star, 295 Kennedy Memorial Dr., Waterville, ME 04901. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Author and therapist. Carolco Pictures, vice president of music, 1988-93. Counselor in private practice, 1988—. Has worked as an actor, singer, song-writer, music publisher, film studio executive, and motion picture music supervisor.

MEMBER: Horror Writers Association, Mystery Writers of America.

AWARDS, HONORS: Emmy nomination for songwriting, 1982, for "The Gift of Life"; two awards for country-music songwriting from American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers; Tombstone Award for best novel of 2003, for Night of the Werewolf.

WRITINGS:

novels

Night of the Beast, Medium Rare Books Publishing, 2002.

Night of the Werewolf, Medium Rare Books Publishing, 2003.

Night of the Daemon, Delirium Books (Webster, IN), 2005.

"mick callahan" series

Memorial Day, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2004.

Eye of the Burning Man, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2004.

Author of Dead and Gone, a screenplay. Contributor of short fiction to magazines, including Cemetary Dance, City Slab, Futures, Crime Spree, Crimestalker Casebook, Twilight Showcase, and Horror World. Contributor to anthologies, including Brimstone Turnpike, Small Bites, Tales from the Gorezone, and The Fear Within.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Night of the Werewolf and Night of the Daemon, both screenplays for Chiller Films; a third "Mick Callahan" novel.

SIDELIGHTS: Novelist and short-story writer Harry Shannon writes within the horror and mystery genres, but his multifaceted career has taken him to other creative venues as well. He has been a country music songwriter who earned a pair of awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for his efforts. His songwriting has also garnered him an Emmy Award nomination. "Back in the 1970s I had a string of 'country music' hits for the likes of Eddy Arnold, Kathy Mattea, and Reba McIntire, some movie title songs and pop chart singles, but I burned out on all of that as well," Shannon related in a interview with Scott Nicholson on the Haunted Computer Web site.

"After sobering up in 1986, I went back to school to study counseling," Shannon told Nicholson. He opened a private counseling practice in 1988, while simultaneously working as a vice president of music for Carolco Pictures on films such as Terminator Two, The Doors, and the "Rambo" movies First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo III. He also worked as a music supervisor in the motion-picture industry on films such as Universal Soldier and Basic Instinct. "I have a pretty eclectic background," Shannon told Nicholson. "That helps a great deal when one is dreaming up characters and situations and trying to harness melodrama for the sake of a story."

Shannon's detours into acting and music temporarily sidelined an early interest in writing, but he returned to fiction in 1999, he related in the interview with Nicholson. Shannon has contributed short fiction to a variety of genre publications and anthologies, including Crime Spree, Cemetery Dance, and Gothic.net. His debut horror and noir collection Bad Seed appeared in 2001. He has also written a horror novel series consisting of Night of the Beast, Night of the Werewolf, and Night of the Daemon. He earned a Tombstone Award in 2003 for Night of the Werewolf.

Mick Callahan, the protagonist of Shannon's novel Memorial Day, had once been a famous pop psychologist, a television star who enjoyed every fringe benefit that being a media celebrity could bring. But an over-inflated ego and copious amounts of drugs and alcohol finally brought Callahan down. Recovering from alcoholism, Callahan returns to familiar territory, the Nevada town of Dry Wells, where he makes guest appearances on call-in radio and keeps working on sorting out his life. Callahan's career options start looking up again when he lands an interview that could put him back on television. His resurrection is delayed, however, when a pair of murders occurs. One of the victims, dubbed "Ophelia" was a regular caller to his radio show. Still haunted by his failure to help a needy client years earlier, Callahan is determined not to let Ophelia's murder go unpunished. With technical assistance from a computer-expert friend, and an investigation sure to rile the area's most prominent family, Callahan dives in to solve the murders before scandal again taints his career. "Mick's road to redemption is wry, bittersweet, and altogether touching in this notable and brilliant new addition to the mystery genre," commented an interviewer for the New Mystery Reader Web site. "The crisply detailed small-town desert setting adds to the novel's sense of freshness," commented David Pitt in Booklist, while Library Journal reviewer Rex E. Klett called Memorial Day "a most promising first mystery."

"I've known guys like Mick all my life," Shannon told the New Mystery Reader Web site interviewer. "He's a redneck at heart, but way too intelligent to be comfortable in the high desert culture that he came from—yet he is still too 'country' for the city. As a result, he tries all kinds of professions and pursues his varied interests, yet never feels like he belongs anywhere." His main character is "a mass of contradictions, as are most people I find truly interesting." Although Callahan is not Shannon's fictional alter-ego, he admitted in his interview: "I put enough of myself in Mick to make me cringe a bit at times."