J. Michael Straczynski

Region: London (Greater London)

About / Bio

Born in New Jersey, grew up moving every six to eight months for the first 17 years of my life from one state/town/city to the other.  Always knew I wanted to be a writer.  Started at 17 and over the next several years began selling articles to newspapers and magazines.  Worked for San Diego Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and TIME, Inc. before making the leap to television.

The rest of my story is convoluted and supremely weird, leading me to write an autobiography entitled Becoming Superman.  It’s…peculiar.

I am also the Literary Executor of the Harlan Ellison Estate.



Genres

Animation
Books
Film
Radio
Television
Theatre

Writing hours

TV writing hours: 300
Audio writing hours: 20

Sample of work

Samples can be provided via my agent.


Writer's credits

After starting off as a journalist, I began writing television first in animation on such series as He-Man, The Real Ghostbusters and others, then graduated to live action, working as writer/story editor/producer on a number of shows including The New Twilight Zone and Murder She Wrote, then becoming show-runner on Babylon 5, Crusade, Jeremiah (Showtime), and Sense8 (Netflix).  In all I’ve written in excess of 300 produced television episodes.

I have also worked in film, with my first major movie being Changeling (sole writer), directed by Clint Eastwood, for which I received a BAFTA nomination.  I have also worked on such films as Underworld: Awakening, Ninja Assassin, Thor, and World War Z.  An adaptation I wrote based on the novel One Second After has just been announced as going to camera in October ’25 in Bulgaria, and I recently adapted Watchmen into two animated movies for Warner Bros.

I also write published novels (Together We Will Go), have published an autobiography, Becoming Superman, a book on writing, Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer (winner of the Independent Book Award), and I have written (and continue to write) comics and graphic novels for Marvel, DC and Image Comics, which in total have sold about 13 million copies just in the United States.  This includes runs on The Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America and others.

My work has been recognized with the Hugo Award (twice), the Saturn Award, the Ray Bradbury Award (SFWA), the Eagle Award (UK), the Cult TV award (UK), the Space Frontier Foundation Award, the Christopher Foundation Award, the GLAAD Media Award, the Eisner Award, the Inkpot Award, and about a dozen others, along with receiving two technical Emmy Awards for Babylon 5.

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