John currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his brilliant English wife Deb. She keeps his life fun and bright while he writes about the dark and macabre. He might be a Boomer, but he feels more like a late-Millennial. John is the first son of Jack (John P., Sr.) and Willie (Dwillis) Wallman. He has a brother Mark, and a sister Mary Louise whom everyone calls Mimi. He enjoys visiting his twin sons, Lance and Drew, and their families—especially his grandchildren. He’s an avid tennis fan and a pretty good player. He reads a lot of fantasy and science-fiction. He loves a good vampire horror story, and he’s a die-hard Star Trek aficionado. The first half of his adult years he spent as an English/language-arts teacher. The second half he spent in human capital management, the nuclear energy industry, and lately in corporate retail. He’s been around.When he was ten years old, he had his first taste as a writer. Inspired by the classic movie War of the Worlds and its source novel (he read an abridged version), he wrote his own Martian incursion tale “Earth Invaded.” He copied it neatly onto notebook paper and took it to his teacher who agreed to read it to the class—sight unseen. That may have been a mistake, for as she read the gruesome parts, there were quite a few grimaces among his fellow students. John was delighted. At the end, the class gave him a standing ovation. In college, he began a high-fantasy novel where he developed the concept of Dark Matter. Life happened, and he had to put it aside.Fast forward to his teaching years at South Middle School in Morgantown, West Virginia. On a challenge from his students, he wrote the beginning of a vampire story that later became the seed story for The Dark Matter Series. Years after leaving teaching, he was laid off during the Great Recession. What to do as he waited for the economy to bounce back? He dug up that old vampire story and embarked on a journey of reluctant heroes and angels and vampires and lyl. Looming over all was the return of the Queen of the Night. Now with a contract with Courage Publishing, John’s dream of becoming an author is about to come true. The Dark Stirs, book one of The Dark Matter Series, releases on June 28, 2022Check out a related short story on Kindle Vella, "The Long Shadow of Rising Night," and get a taste of what The Dark Matter Series if all about.Read more about this authorRead less about this author