William Shunn

Who is William Shunn?

William Shunn is a science fiction writer and computer programmer. He was raised in a Latter-day Saint household, the oldest of eight children. He attended the Clarion Workshop in 1985. In 1986, he served a mission to Canada for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but was arrested for making a false bomb threat, for the purpose of preventing his fellow missionary from returning home.

Shunn received a B.S. in computer science at the University of Utah in 1991. He went to work for WordPerfect Corporation and was part of the team that developed WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS. In 1995, he moved from Utah to New York City. He left the LDS Church at the same time and created one of the earliest ex-Mormon web sites.

Shunn's first professional short story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1993. He has been nominated once for the Hugo Award and twice for the Nebula Award. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he created what may have been the first online survivor registry.