Guest Profiles

Guest Profile: John W Sexton

John W Sexton was born, somewhere in Ireland, in 1958. He is variously a poet, a rock singer, a short story writer, a children’s novelist, and a radio playwright.

As a poet, John is the author of one collection, The Prince's Brief Career (Cairn Mountain Press, 1995), as well as having been a contributor to the anthology Poets For The Millennium (Bradshaw Books, 1999), in which he has seven poems. His poetry has also been published extensively in literary journals, both in Ireland and abroad.

He has also written 103 episodes of The Ivory Tower for RTÉ Radio. This is a radio drama featuring the adventures of Johnny Coffin, the 12-year-old drummer with a band called The Dead Crocodiles, and reluctant boyfriend of Enya. The show has led to him writing three books so far based on the various adventures of Johnny and Enya, The Johnny Coffin Diaries, Johnny Coffin - School Dazed and The Enya Murphy Diaries, all published by O’Brien Press. More are to follow.

Although the primary market for these books is young adults, they can really be read and enjoyed by anyone. He is on the Arts Council’s Writers In Schools Scheme, where he goes to various schools around Ireland to talk to the students about writing. John’s work also regularly appears in Albedo 1, Ireland’s award winning SF short story magazine.

Occasionally, John W Sexton becomes Sex W Johnston. Sex is the lead singer, lyricist and one half of Sons of Shiva, the other half of whom is punk god Hugh Cornwell, original frontman with The Stranglers. They have released one CD so far called, simply enough, Sons of Shiva. This is available in two slightly different formats, the earlier version of which was only available from Hugh Cornwell’s website. It has since been re-released by Track Records with an extra tenth track. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

John is one of the good guys, with a weakness only for a good cigar and an occasional whiskey. We are delighted to have him.

Guest Profile by Pádraig Ó Méalóid