E. Jim Shannon was born August 21st 1952 in the suburb of Greater Vancouver BC known as Coquitlam. Jim had taken an interest in the arts at the age of 7 years old expressing an interst in water color painting. That failed to materialize as an interest to explore track and field took over but fell apart at the wayside. In an effort to find his creative outlook he knew at the time of the Kennedy assignation he wanted to do something big. But nothing materialized. Him developed an interest in science fiction at the age of 14 when he watched his first episode of Star Trek in 1965. The following year he developed scoliosis of the spine and went in for a back operation that took two years off his life.
“It was then I knew I wanted to write science fiction.” He states. “And seeing the movie ‘2001 a Space Odyssey’ really solidified that in me. I took an interest in story telling from it’s simplest form reading Marvel comic books.” This taught Jim about subplot and character development. But life got in the way. Around this time 1970 Jim also developed an interest in Avlon Hill board war games. “My first job was flipping burgers in 1970. I was saving up to by a typewriter. My folks needed money so I took a job stuffing newspapers with advertising one day a week. Then with CP Roil cleaning out boxcars. I bought a boxed writers course and taught myself how to write. I began writing stories based upon my favorite Marvel comic book characters and creating short stories long hand.”
After this period 1972 Jim’s family moved to Edmonton Alberta. Life’s distractions got in the way and Jim ended up taking a job at the Army & Navy Dept store in their shoe department trying to make a life for himself on his own. “At the age of 22 I didn’t know much and my aspirations of writing science fiction took a detour.”
In the mid to late 1970’s while living on his own, Jim worked as a one time art director for The Trumpeter Club newsletter. That failed to go anywhere. In 1980 Jim moved up to Edmonton and too various jobs. “I worked as a security guard before working at the Army & Navy warehouse here in Edmonton in 1979 and attended my first science fiction convention.”
That same year Jim’s parents moved back to Coquitlam to retire. It was in 1980 Jim had taken an interest in the Occult of Aleister Crowley and joined the OTO receiving 3 initiations in the 1980’s. In the early 1980’s I was chasing after the girls living on my own and I joined Amway. I forgot about my writing. I met Chris in 1984 and she caught my interest. My interest inAmway died shortly before I met Chris. She was also interested in writing. I had my first typewriter and began to resume my interest in writing. I wrote a meander novel called “Zyphrium Rising” that went nowhere.”
Jim bought his first Atari Computer at the age of 34 as a hobby and working with a fundraising firm. ”I got my Atari St in 1988 and wrote several meandering novels that went no where but I also began to send stories out to places like Writers of the Future contest and getting nothing more then rejection letters.”
In 1992 Jim had a stomach hernia operation the year fter he got his cat Pledges.
In 1994 Jim published his first short story to a black and white fanzine called “Lost worlds” “It was just for contributor copies but the story never saw print.” Two years later Jim’s father passed away. At that time I sought comfort in Christianity and flirted with the Pentecostal church. I put my writing on hold and got involved in Amway again chasing another girl. “She was my first girlfriend at the time and also in the church. I enjoyed my stay in Amway at the time but I was unemployed even though my sponsor paid for everything, I paid her back. We went on business trips to Winnipeg, Regina, Minneapolis and lots of junkets down to Calagry. They brainwashed me or were trying to by saying I can write when I go Diamond. I got out of that the year I met my wife.”
E. Jim got his first real computer in 2000 and began to take his writing more seriously. In 2001 he became a Freemason and has held his membership ever since. In 2001 Jim began to get back into his writing late in life. “Better late then never.” He began writing short stories in 2002 and further his study in the craft of story telling. He wrote several test novels and published a story in Keith Graham’s “Science fictional.” Called “Crosshairs.” He then wrote his first ‘real’ novel called “Foliage” This novel is currently in development. “I hope to have it ready for submission around Remembrance Day.”
At the age of 54 since 2000, Jim is currently employed full time as a call center agent. He currently lives with his wife Anne in a 2- bedroom apartment somewhere in Clairview North East Edmonton. Jim and Anne live with their four cats Pledges (17) Silky (10), Sporty and Sparky (3) an aquarium full of fish, 2 birds and Anne’s dozen or so Hamsters. “Everything seems to be held together with an ounc of patience and our love for our cats.”
