William Shunn is a science fiction writer and memoirist. He is the eldest of eight children born to Donald William Shunn (a school teacher) and Ann Partridge Shunn (a computer programmer). He lived in Los Angeles, California, until the age of six, and thereafter in a series of small towns in Utah including Liberty, Grantsville, Bountiful, and Kaysville, where he attended junior high and high school.Shunn entered the University of Utah in 1984 on a full academic scholarship. In the summer of 1985 he studied science fiction writing at the prestigious Clarion Workshop at Michigan State University, where his teachers included Kate Wilhelm, Damon Knight, Joe Haldeman, Michael Bishop, and Algis Budrys. From 1986 to 1988 he took time off from college to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He returned to school thereafter and received a B.S. in computer science in 1991.He went to work for WordPerfect Corporation that fall as a technical writer and software developer. His first fiction publication, "From Our Point of View We Had Moved to the Left," appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1993, and numerous other publications followed. In 1995 he relocated to New York City and publicly renounced the LDS faith, creating one of the earliest ex-Mormon web sites.Shunn married Laura Chavoen in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2001. In 2002, his novelette "Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites" was shortlisted for the Nebula Award. In 2007, his novella "Inclination" was shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards. The couple lived in Chicago from 2007 to 2013. While there, Shunn hosted the popular Tuesday Funk reading series for three years. They now live in New York City again.