About Todd Walton
Todd was born in San Francisco on October 17, 1949. He wrote and performed his first original song “Chocolate Chip Cookies”, and his first short story, “Albert the Alligator and Billy Brown” when he was six years old. Before Todd’s parents and teachers could squish him, the adulation of his classmates inspired him to become a writer and musician. A thespian and athlete in high school, he took up the piano at sixteen, attended college from 1967-69, and subsequently fled academia to play the guitar.
He sold his first short story for actual money in 1975 to Cosmopolitan magazine. In 1978, Doubleday published Todd's critically acclaimed novel Inside Moves. A movie of the book, with a script by Barry Levinson and directed by Richard Donner, was made in 1980 (and recently released on DVD after thirty years in cold storage.) Available from Netflix and Amazon, an interview with Todd is included on the DVD of Inside Moves.
Note: Todd doesn’t make a dime from the DVD of the movie, which we feel is a travesty of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of a sham. Todd’s second novel, Forgotten Impulses, was published in 1980 by Simon and Schuster and was chosen by The New York Times as one of the best novels of that year. Louie & Women was published by Dutton in 1983, and Night Train was published by Mercury House in 1986.
In 1996, Todd finally convinced another publisher, Bantam, to take a chance with his fifth novel, Ruby & Spear. Todd’s first non-fiction work, Open Body: Creating Your Own Yoga, was published by Avon in 1998. Todd’s fable Of Water and Melons was published by Red Wing Press in 1999. In May of 2000, Ten Speed Press published The Writer’s Path, a book of Todd’s original writing exercises co-written with Mindy Toomay.
Todd published his award-winning collection of short stories Buddha in A Teacup in 2008 and his novel of stories Under the Table Books (with drawings by the author) in 2009. He is currently writing the sequel to Under the Table Books (working title: The Return of Lord Bellmaster), reading his novels and stories for Audible. Com, and recording an album of piano tunes.
An avid gardener, Todd lives in Mendocino, California with his wife Marcia Sloane and their two cats. Here is a picture of Todd and the cats Hootie (black) and Django (gray).