J.J. Paul was born September 1, 1976 in Brooklyn, NY.  During his early years in elementary school, J.J. Paul began writing and drawing comic books for recreation, bringing them to school for his friends to read.  It wasn’t until his mother brought home his first computer, soon after, that writing became a more serious pursuit. By the time his term at the NY Institute of Business Technology came around (1996-1998), J.J. Paul was in control of the school newspaper, functioning as editor-in-chief as he coordinated and participated with the writers, reporters, and designers.  However, fiction writing was his passion and thus he had been attending the Long Ridge Writers Group—the very program in which Nina Davidson (The Phantom’s Fixation) was born.  The character would later find publication in the Black Star News (1997) in a short story titled “The Case of the Joker’s Wild.”  Originally, the character had been stricken with a deadly disease, but that storyline has since been retconned in favor of a paranormal theme. Two years later, J.J. Paul would find himself interning for the Editorial and Children’s Subsidiary Rights Departments of Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1999). Although influenced by the writing of popular serialized television shows and movies, J.J. Paul’s biggest influence lies in Marcia Muller, author of the Sharon McCone private eye series.  He’d first learned of the author from his writing instructor and even managed to receive a response to a letter he’d written to her, praising Marcia’s writing as he revealed his reason for creating Nina Davidson. J.J. Paul is currently a desktop publisher.  He is preparing a children’s book for publication, writing a fantasy saga, and has already begun the next Nina Davidson novel.  He has a wife named Ummilkhair (pronounced uma-kiar), a daughter named Anisah, and a cat named Bobo, who roams the house constantly demanding wet food whenever he gets tired of the dry stuff.

“The Case of the Joker’s Wild” — published in the Black Star News (1997)