Before arriving at GAC, I spent my senior year of high school in Sweden as a foreign exchange student. (I lived in a Stockholm suburb called Djursholm: “Animal Island.”) After my time at Gustavus, I did some acting, touring for a year with a theatre troupe in a Chicago based show called “Broadway in Sight.” Then: shingled roofs, sold Halloween costumes, wrote for a med school paper, sang lead, played bass and/or wrote lyrics for a number of rock bands (two of them pretty decent, one of them opened for Santana in Omaha).
After ten years, I ended up with a BA from the School of Journalism at the U of Nebraska, moved to L.A., bounced around, got my first serious writing job at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, spent a few years there, went out on my own as a freelancer, wrote entertainment industry ads, trailers, DVD box copy, etc., cranked out scripts for a number of kids/teens TV shows, moved from L.A. to Iowa (!), wrote my first books, landed a skilled and resourceful literary agent (that would be Adam Schear of DeFiore and Co., New York), was elated to see my Young Adult science fiction series sold to Strange Chemistry, new imprint of one of the most admired indy genre publishers in the solar system. First novel, Zenn Scarlett, got some favorable mentions from Temple Grandin and a few of my fave sci fi/genre authors (all the grisly details at Goodreads, Amazon or my blog: www.christianschoon.com)
These days, my wife Kat and I live in a rambling Victorian farmhouse on 11 acres of rolling Iowa prairie, where we ride herd on a few ferrets, too many cats, a rotating cast of rescued horses and/or donkeys (currently 19 in various pastures) and one busy little Aussie-mix mutt named Django (the guitar virtuoso, not the Tarantino film).
When not SF-ing, I continue to write for the dreadwizards of the entertainment industry. I’m also a member of several awesomely awesome local animal welfare groups who re-hab wildlife, rescue equines and/or work to humanely reduce feral cat populations through Trap/Neuter/Release programs. Part of this involves providing barns, sheds, corrals, enclosures and other spaces on our farm for temporary housing of everything from the above mentioned horses to full-grown black bears and cougars, orphaned coyotes, raccoons, possums, feral cats, the occasional white tail fawn and, rescued from some over-eager barn cats, one very cool least weasel.