About the Site

Welcome to the author website of John T. Cullen. Here you will find access to the author's novels, short stories, essays, screenplays, and other writings—with affordable buy options. You will find copious free reading in the form of sample chapters. There is always at least one free novel to read in its entirety, at no obligation, no gimmicks, in the Reading Room.

You will also find here the ghosts of several acclaimed formerly stand-alone websites, including The Haunted Village launched 1996 to showcase SF/DF/H writings, Neon Blue Fiction launched 1996 to showcase suspense and thriller fiction, and Sharpwriter (writer's resources) launched 1998 and acclaimed 1999 by Writer's Market.

Still stand-alone are the sites for two iteration of a well-known web magazine (next para) and Clocktower Books (formerly Clocktower Fiction) which became the umbrella publishing site over The Haunted Village and Neon Blue Fiction in 1997.

John T. Cullen stepped into virtual reality when he crossed the threshold of the World Wide Web in April 1996—together with good friend and fellow writer Brian Callahan, who designed both sites, and did the original artwork. Brian has since moved on with his wonderful design and entrepreneurial skills to the successful and artsy/Gothic SighCo.com. Brian, who now lives in New Orleans with his wife Gwen, also designed the original Clocktower Books website, as well as the magazine Deep Outside SFFH (launched 1998) which was at one time the world's oldest professional web magazine of sf/f/h without print antecedents. The magazine was the first online SF/F/H publication listed (1999) in Writer's Market as a paying venue alongside the large pulps. In 2002, the magazine morphed into Far Sector SFFH, which continued the successful ten-year run until John laid it to rest in January 2008.

Originally, before there was e-commerce, John and Brian gave away texts for free downloads. Karen Wiesner, historian of digital and internet publishing, confirmed that John T. Cullen was the sixth online publisher in world history (Clocktower Books, with Brian Callahan, 1996). John was the second person in history to publish serial chapters weekly online (1996-7: This Shoal of Space, at that time titled Heartbreaker; and Neon Blue).

About the Author

About Site   §   About Author

Top

John T. Cullen has lived in San Diego for over 33 years. He has been a professional writer most of his life. He is the author of more than 20 books, including the acclaimed A Walk in Ancient Rome (Nonfiction/Ancient History). He has been a newspaper reporter, and held writing jobs as a soldier in the U. S. Army in West Germany during the 1970s. He worked for many years as a technical writer/editor/trainer/product demonstrator in the aerospace and computer systems development industries.

During his six years of research for his virtual tour guide to ancient Rome, an old and puzzling acquaintance, the Sator Rebus, popped up. Over a period of several weeks during the summer of 2007, while taking a break from Rome research, John spotted an opening, a key. It began with the discovery that the Sator Rebus is not symmetrical but in fact lopsided. The word 'rotas' is not a noun but a verb, meaning the square has two sentences, one of three words and one of two. This led to, if not definitive proof, the first plausible translation and explanation of the Sator Rebus ever, and a trip to Yale University for a Canadian production company filming episodes in the history of Christianity for the History Channel. Episode six will air in spring 2010.

Also garnering increasing attention is John's concurrent three-year intensive analysis of the famous Kate Morgan saga in Coronado/San Diego (1892), which is both a famous ghost story and a famous crime story. He has published several works, including the nonfiction Dead Move: Kate Morgan and the Haunting Mystery of Coronado (scholarly analysis), a gripping thriller titled Lethal Journey (September 2009), and the screenplay Lethal Journey, currently seeking a producer.

Born in Europe (Army brat), he lived in several countries and is conversant in several languages. He worked as a summer intern reporter in New Haven, Connecticut during the 1960s. He earned a B.A. in English from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, with Relateds in History and German. During the 1970s, he served two hitches in West Germany with the U.S. Army, where he invariably fell into writing jobs at a major HQ. He earned his M.S. in Business Administration from Boston University, in the Overseas Division of Metropolitan College. Upon his return to civilian life in 1980, he worked in industry while earning a B.B.A. in Computer Information Systems from National University. He is married and has a son.

Top