John Long (Venice, California) is an explorer, legendary rock climber, and best-selling author whose novella Rogue's Babylon was recast into the film Cliffhanger, starring Sylvester Stallone. His current literary fiction has appeared in everything from Granta to Reader's Digest. His rock climbing feats in the 1970s and 1980s earned him a reputation for boldness and innovation. In December 1998 he was the focus on a lengthy feature article in Climbing magazine. The article, quoting Michael Chesler of Chesler Books, noted that "Long has realized--as Conrad, London, and Hemingway before him,--that adventure literature is best written with a proper mix of real experiences and imaginary ones." His award-winning stories have been widely anthologized, and more than 750,000 copies of his instructional books are in print and have been translated into many languages.
