John Urbancik

John Urbancik shares a birthday with B.B. King and David Copperfield (with their combined talents, he can make the blues disappear), as well as England’s King Henry V. Also, in the year 16, Julia Drusilla (sister of Caligula). None of which means anything.

He began writing at a young age, creating one-page comic scripts in fifth and sixth grade, and later went on to write Star Wars–at least, an awful variation of it. Fortunately, no copies of that story exist. He saw his first published story in 1999, “A Portrait in Graphite”, and couldn’t say today where all his various stories, articles, and poems have appeared.

He spent his youth in New York City and Long Island, leaving for upstate to attend college (where he studied video and audio production, skills he rarely put to use after). Fate conspired to send him to Orlando, Florida, where he spent many long years. Fortune’s later conspiracies led him briefly to the other side of the world, Sydney, Australia. There, he met spiders. Lots of spiders.

He describes his fiction as “fantasy, dark fantasy, and horror”; his stories span these and other genres, and are often difficult to categorize.

When John Urbancik arrived in Australia, he possessed a very nice camera. (It was not his; he merely carried it), and thus began a love of photography. One day, he might actually study the craft.

At first glance, his life does not seem colorful. No time in jail or in the armed forces, and no game show victories. However, he feels lucky to have been able to see and do all he has. Among his several mottos for life: “Go everywhere, do everything.” Another is: “It’s all fun and games until someone gets eaten alive by a tiger shark.”

Currently, his whereabouts are uncertain, though he’s recently been spotted somewhere in Florida. He has several books and stories coming out in the near future, and many more to be written.