Aussie on the Metro

Who is John Baxter

I’m an Australian-born writer who, after living in London, Dublin and Los Angeles, moved to Paris more than thirty years ago to marry my French wife Marie-Dominique and collaborate on producing our daughter Louise. I’ve written forty-odd books (some extremely odd…) in a number of genres – biography, memoir, film history, crime and science fiction, to name a few - and feel no inclination to quit just yet.

What I write about

No day goes by that I don’t feel like writing down my impressions of life in Paris, expressing my enthusiasm for a book, film or image, or restoring to print some essay, review, letter or reminiscence that people might find interesting. Cinema, science fiction and book-collecting are among the fields that preoccupied me at some time in my life, and there is still plenty to be said about all of them.

Why I write

Writing is a muscle that must be kept exercised – use it or lose it – and I’ve always enjoyed writing for the pleasure of it, going back to publishing science fiction fanzines in the ‘sixties. As in most human activities, the secret of success is practice, and that applies whether you’ve written a hundred books or none.

Learn more about my Paris walking tours and seasonal literary salons on my website