As a kid in Florida, JJ Fleming grew up watching catfish walk through his front yard while gators sunbathed out back. Sometimes he watched old horror movies on TV with his body in the kitchen and his head in the living room. In elementary school, he spent hours reading and staring at Where The Wild Things Are and d’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths. He lived in a town called Atlantis and intentionally got lost in the woods. He started writing by telling his friends weird stories on the bus. Eventually, he wrote them down. He spent one summer mowing grass on a golf course. He spent another summer dressed up in a foam garbage can named Garby, passing out recycling literature at grocery stores. When he goes to the beach, he digs a hole to make sure there are no Sand Snakes lurking below. For fun, he throws Frisbees into baskets from long distance; as a disc golf player, he has 175 aces.
Writing as John Henry Fleming, he has published novels and stories for adults. His first novel, The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman, was called “winningly satiric” by the New York Times, “marvelously inventive” by Booklist, and “an engrossing and highly entertaining tale” by Library Journal. He wrote an illustrated bestiary about which horror novelist Peter Straub wrote, “Like Where the Wild Things Are, Fearsome Creatures reminds us why we obsessed over monsters as children.” The Book I Will Write, his novel-in-emails about a publisher and a would-be writer, was originally published a chapter at a time as readers made plot suggestions. Songs for the Deaf, his short story collection, was called “a joyful, deranged, endlessly surprising book” by writer Karen Russell. He once contributed a series of entries for The Future Dictionary of America. Book reviewers have compared his stories and novels to ones by Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and George Saunders. A Sun Sentinel reviewer called the stories in Songs for the Deaf “campfire tales from the state’s coolest scout leader.”
JJ Fleming would be very happy to serve as Coolest Scout Leader for America’s weirdest state. He’s been awarded two Literature Fellowships from the State of Florida and an International Book Award for Songs for the Deaf, which was also short-listed for CLMP’s Firecracker Award. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from The University of Louisiana-Lafayette, a Master’s in Creative Writing from The University of Southern Mississippi, and a BA in Psychology from The University of Virginia. He eventually set down his smiley-face garbage can and foam hightops to teach others how to write good stories at the University of South Florida, where he also founded the literary magazine Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art. One issue of Saw Palm is made entirely of postcards and features a postcard written by Judy Blume. Every day, he rides his e-bike to the local coffee shop to order an iced mocha that supercharges his afternoon writing. He loves monsters and creatures and storms and all things weird and funny. He lives in Tampa with his wife and two cats.
Wonders of Shadow Key is his first book for children, and he hopes to write many more.
