John Shirley (born 10 February 1953; age 72) is an American science fiction and horror author and screenwriter who wrote the teleplay for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine third season episode "Visionary". He is known for his work in the "cyberpunk" genre of science fiction.
Ira Steven Behr commented: "[Shirley] hadn't written for television and he wanted to take a shot at it. I won't say it was the most pleasant experience he ever had in his career." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. 217)
Hailing from Houston, Texas, and raised in Portland, Oregon, Shirley began writing in the 1970s. His most significant "cyberpunk" novels are considered to be City Come-A-Walkin' (1980) and those of the Eclipse trilogy (1985-1990; also known as the A Song Called Youth trilogy). His short story collection Black Butterflies won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers of America and the International Horror Guild Award and was selected as one of the best books of 1998 by Publishers Weekly.
His other novels and novellas include The Brigade (1981), In Darkness Waiting (1988), Silocon Embrace (1996), Demons (2000), Spider Moon (2002), and Crawlers (2003). Using the pseudonym John Cutter, he wrote several books in the Specialist series of novels; one of those books was the basis of the 1994 film, The Specialist (photographed by Jeffrey L. Kimball).
Shirley's best-known screenwriting work is The Crow (1994), for which he wrote the initial script. Henry Kingi, Jr. and Tony Todd were among those cast in the film.
In addition to Deep Space Nine, Shirley has submitted work to the series Poltergeist: The Legacy and VR.5. He has also written scripts for animated series such as Batman Beyond, The Real Ghostbusters, and Filmation's BraveStarr.
Shirley has also written various tie-in novels and novelizations of feature films including Constantine (2005) and Doom (2005, starring Karl Urban and The Rock) and wrote the novel Batman: Dead White as a tie-in to Batman Begins (2005). In 2014, Shirley wrote Watch_Dogs //n/ Dark Clouds, which tied into the video game Watch Dogs.
Several of Shirley's writings are currently being optioned for potential feature films. Besides writing, Shirley has also fronted his own punk and funk rock bands and has written lyrics for such bands as Blue Öyster Cult.