An active member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Mystery Writers of America, he also writes a quarterly column on genre fiction for Mensa, and as served in the Writing Mentor Program of the New York Chapter of the MWA, as well as lectured on the craft of writing genre fiction. In addition, he served as the moderator of the Write-or-Die writers group and spent four years serving as the Senior Assistant Fiction Editor of the Triangulation speculative fiction anthology, which is why he now has an aversion to reading slush piles.

J F Benedetto is a Historian, an Editor, and the author of a host of published short stories set in three different genres. The series all share the same universe, but are set at vastly different times and places. These are the In Peril in China historical adventures (Past), The Fifth Precinct mystery stories (Present), and The Keleyat on Mars science fiction tales (Future). He is also a Derringer Award Finalist and the author of short stories and articles that have been published in magazines, short story collections, and anthologies in both the United States and Australia.

Born in an army field hospital in Germany and educated by nuns in Rome, J-F came to America at an early age and attended school alongside the country music singer John Corbett. John went on to Cerritos College, while J-F attended West Liberty University, and earned a degree in Computer Systems Engineering.

His work history includes being a short-order cook, a cub reporter, a computer systems engineer, and a security operative of the Pinkerton Agency. He took up writing fiction professionally on New Year's Day, 1982, and his first paid piece appeared in print two years later. This also means he has been at this long enough to have started out on a manual typewriter. (A Smith-Corona Super-G designed by Ghia of Italy, hence the racecar motif. See picture at right.) He is at his best when he's sitting at the keyboard plotting theft, rape, and murder--the perennial favorites of the scum who inhabit those mean streets down which a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

As a foreign-born crime author, he always tries to bring a touch of the unusual to his stories, be it stopping an execution in a flooded field in Imperial China, preventing an international incident in a Midtown precinct house, or solving multiple murders on a mining station in the Asteroid Belt. Justice may be sought after by a former cowboy-turned Marine, an ex-mercenary working as a Chinatown private eye, or a Martian corporate officer now working for the revolutionaries, but in the end, Justice will be found ... and served, one way or another.

In the Beginning...

His work

Author, Editor, Historian

J F Benedetto