John Reynolds Gardiner

On December 6, 1944, John Reynolds Gardiner was born in Los Angeles, California, to two teachers who hoped that he would be a good student. However, Gardiner did not like school or reading and never read a book until he was nineteen years old. His greatest handicap came from being a poor speller who also had trouble with grammar. But Gardiner possessed a great imagination and liked writing creative stories.

When he grew up, Gardiner attended the University of California in Los Angeles, graduating with a Master's Degree in Engineering. He then worked for McDonnell Douglas Corporation. His brother, recognizing Gardiner's humor, urged him to take a class for television writing. Time passed without any sales to television companies, so Gardiner submitted a story he'd written to a book publisher who accepted it. The idea of StoneFox sprang from a Rocky Mountain legend he'd been told while working in Idaho. Stone Fox became immensely popular, and NBC made it into a television movie in 1987.

Gardiner is still an engineer. He enjoys writing in his spare time, selling children's books for colleges and universities, and even helping adapt stories so that they can be used in children's television shows. Gardiner has written other novels including TopSecret and General Butterfingers.