John “Sloop” Biederman
Born in 1968 and raised northwest of Chicago in Crystal Lake, then rural Ringwood, Sloop was pegged with writing talent by a first-grade teacher, spurring lifelong parental support. He was soon penning “old time radio” plays, winning an Earth Day poetry contest and spinning tall tales, convincing local kids (and himself) that he was an E.T. slated to return home. Sloop was drawn early to speculative fiction--Asimov, Poe, Tolkien, etc.--and humor, discerning through Twain its ability to sneakily address serious topics. His folks spurred his humorist within via their favorite comedies, especially Laurel and Hardy. In junior high he found Dungeons & Dragons, crafting his own fantasy world, and he won awards for humor columns for his high school newspaper.
Sloop went on to study journalism at the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana), but partied-out after three semesters (1986-88). The move home after his folks yanked the money brought a multi-year funk, string of grunt jobs…and alcoholism. But it also prompted a serious go at writing, pitching mostly sci-fi/fantasy to magazines, earning positive feedback and a first unpaid “sale”--poetry to a literary rag that folded before its publication. A DUI led country boy Sloop to move “temporarily” to Chicago in 1991…where he soon landed in rehab. Traditional recovery proved harmful to him, but he quit on his own in 1992 and rehab’s dark cloud revealed silver linings. His first paid story was a 12-Step critique for Gauntlet Magazine (1993) and rehab-gone-wrong became the theme of his first novel, ’Hab (1994), which he was ultimately unable to sell.
Chicago unexpectedly turned naturally introverted Sloop into a city boy. He hit poetry readings as a social outlet, becoming a competent performer whose humor verse landed him paid gigs. He returned to journalism study at Columbia College Chicago in 1994, became an award-winning humor columnist and editor-in-chief for the school’s Chronicle and interned at MAD Magazine, where he was nicknamed “Sloop.” (From the song, “The Sloop John B.”) After graduating in 1997 at 29, he became editor of Chicago Artists’ News. For the 10th National Poetry Slam fest in Chicago (1999), Sloop hosted the Limerick Slam, plugging it via a limerick-a-day e-list that’s now DailyLimerick.net, his web HQ featuring (mostly news) Limericks with commentary.
The lady who’d one day become his ex-wife moved him to Los Angeles that year, but recession and Sloop’s dislike of L.A. moved them back to Chicago in late 2000. (The marriage lasted from 2000-2005.) His writing career then boarded a common artists’ roller coaster, riding full- to part-time, freelance to in-office, oft supplemented with non-writing work. In-office has included the L.A. Daily News; freelance MAD Magazine, news poetry (Chicago Tribune, Continental Features--current) and op-ed (San Francisco Chronicle, etc.); and performance the Comedy Store (L.A.) and emceeing at dozens of Chicago clubs. He’s worked non-writing jobs from vacuum cleaner sales to private investigator. But the Great Recession and the Internet’s killing off gigs ground writing income to scarce by 2010, when he translated stage time into acting to pay bills.
But with his lifelong identity “writer,” Sloop lost his Mojo. So after the deaths of his parents (2012 and 2014), Sloop returned to his original dream by writing the first novel of “The Cosmic Misadventures of Floyd Pinkerton” comic, rock space opera series. His search for literary representation took until 2019 to dead-end, leading him to become an indie author. Today, Sloop happily resides in Chicago with Fifi--the latest on the list of stable family he’s had over his oft rough life as a writer, a list that also includes Natasha, Harley, Millie, Chester and Flo…the cats.
