Official (long) Bio

John Copenhaver is an award-winning author whose latest novel, Hall of Mirrors, was selected as a New York Times Crime Novel of the Year and recently won the Left Coast Crime Award for Best Historical Mystery. His debut, Dodging and Burning, won the 2019 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery, and The Savage Kind earned the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. He is co-editor of Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons.

A passionate advocate for queer voices, Copenhaver is a founding member of Queer Crime Writers and serves as a board member of International Thriller Writers. He is a six-time recipient of Artist Fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and a Larry Neal Awardee. His work has appeared in CrimeReads, Electric Lit, The Gay and Lesbian Review, Glitterwolf, PANK, Washington Independent Review of Books, Writer’s Digest, and other publications.

A lifelong educator, he mentors aspiring writers in the Low-Residency MFA program at the University of Nebraska Omaha and teaches creative writing and literature at VCU. Originally from the mountains of southwestern Virginia, he now lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his husband, cermanist, Jeffery Paul Herrity.

Official (short) Bio

John Copenhaver is an award-winning author whose latest novel, Hall of Mirrors, was named a New York Times Crime Novel of the Year and won the Left Coast Crime Award for Best Historical Mystery. His earlier books include Dodging and Burning and The Savage Kind, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. He co-edited Crime Ink: Iconic and serves on the board of International Thriller Writers. A founding member of Queer Crime Writers, he teaches at VCU and mentors in the University of Nebraska Omaha’s MFA program. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

What Scooby-Doo Taught Me About My Ghosts

Writing for me is about chasing ghosts and peeling off masks. I have Hanna-Barbera to thank for that.

As a kid, I would dash home from school, grab a packet of Pop-Tarts and a bottle of Mountain Dew, and hurry to the living room as that all-too-familiar jingle announced my favorite show on TV—Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? I loved this show with such furor, such unadulterated pleasure. I loved it because Scooby and Shaggy were believers. They believed in the Creeper and the Snow Ghost, the Miner 49er and the Witchdoctor even though time and time again, the mask would be ripped off, and the gloriously paranormal would be reduced to some schmuck in a suit.

I wanted to believe in ghosts too.

My father died when I was eight, and I was left with only an outline of a man, a phantom. Out of that void burgeoned my desire to write. My early compulsion to tell stories sprung from a need to fill in his outline, to uncover who he was. Throughout adolescence and my twenties, I continued chasing his ghost. During this time I married a woman, began teaching high school English, and established a conventional straight existence. But the more I pursued him, the more I realized it wasn't my father I was hoping to booby-trap and unveil, but myself. Then, much like hapless Scooby and Shaggy, I ensnared my own ghost and ripped the mask off—I came out of the closet and started living and writing truer to myself.

Now, instead of ripping off goofy latex masks, I pursue my phantoms as psychological metaphors, removing layers of deception and misdirection to unveil the truth about my characters.