John Celona was born and raised in San Francisco. He played professionally as a saxophonist at the famous Piano Bar, popularized by jazz great Errol Garner. John earned a Masters’ in Music Composition from San Francisco State and, after graduate study in Pittsburgh and Bloomington, he returned to California and finished a doctorate at University of California, San Diego for original work in new notational systems. John came to the University of Victoria in BC where he taught music composition, theory, orchestration, film composition and left the department to become Associate Dean in Fine Arts. John began writing beat poetry that led to screenplays that now led to the creation of novels. He currently lives on Vancouver Island with his artist wife Alexis.