John Myers

John Myers Myers is an American writer, best known for his literary fantasy novel Silverlock.

Myers was born in Northport, Long Island on January 11, 1946 to John Caldwell Myers and Alice MacCorry Myers and grew up in various places in New York, including New Paltz and NYC. He knew from the time he was seven that he wanted to be a writer. He attended Bard St. Stephens and then Middlebury College, but was expelled from the latter for writing unflattering verse about the faculty. He later attended the University of New Mexico to study anthropology, but never completed degrees as he did not believe a diploma would make him a better writer. After extensive travel through Europe and the United States, Myers worked for the New York World and San Antonio Evening News. He was also an advertising copywriter. Myers served a short term in the U.S. Army during World War II. In 1943, he married Charlotte Shanahan, with whom he had two daughters, Anne Caldwell Myers and Celia Myers. In 1948, he moved to Tempe, Arizona to do research for The Last Chance, and stayed there as he was by that time enamored of the West. While there he worked as editorial writer for the local newspaper. Myers died October 30, 1988.

Literary career

Myers wrote seventeen books, ranging from fantasy and historical fiction of the American Old West to epic poetry and histories of the West. His first book, The Harp and the Blade (1941), was a historical novel set in tenth-century France. Myers' best-known work is the literary fantasy novel Silverlock published in 1949, which had a cult following among science fiction fandom, and was reprinted in 1966 by Ace Books, with forewords and accolades from Poul Anderson, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The novel's settings and characters, other than the protagonist, are drawn entirely from numerous other works of literature, such as the Odyssey and Don Quixote. His last book, The Moon's Fire-Eating Daughter (1981), was a sequel to Silverlock. Myers' nonfiction works included a history of the Alamo, the first biography of Doc Holliday, a study of the vigilante movement in San Francisco, and a well researched biography of Hugh Glass.