Shan Serafin is an American director, screenwriter and novelist, known for intense supernatural thrillers, action stories and crime stories, and known for dramatic productions on stage. His films and novels often tackle notions of perspective, reality, and self-worth, and frequently depict strong female characters in violent predicaments.
As a novelist, Serafin has continually collaborated with best-seller James Patterson, with whom he's co-authored The Women's War (2016), an action thriller about three female special ops; Come And Get Us (2017), a thriller about a young mother stranded in the desert; and Revenge (2017), a thriller about a hit man avenging his wife. His first solo novel, Seventeen (2004), is the story of a seventeen-year old adolescent who gives herself seven days to live. His second solo-effort is Conquest (2017), a fiction narrative of the toils of modern dating.
Serafin grew up in California as the son of two school teachers. After graduating UCLA, where he studied stage performance and filmmaking, he joined the Aresis Ensemble in Santa Monica, where he engaged in productions of French and other European works. At this time, he also began teaching high-school math in South Central Los Angeles and helped form a teenage theater troupe, which would be his training ground for writing and directing and would involve notable young talents such as Martin Starr.
Serafin's directorial work in theater burgeoned with a stage play he also co-wrote entitled The Essential Bond, a biographical narrative about the true story of two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. The Essential Bond starred John Astin and Matthew Ashford and ran for three months. Serafin went on to direct several stage productions in Los Angeles, including Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter, Patrick Marber's Closer, and Theresa Rebeck's Spike Heels.
Moving into screen work, Serafin's directorial career progressed with industrial videos and production of a six-part social documentary on teenage social issues called Youth in Action, which included one episode guest-starring personal friend Vinessa Shaw. His feature film work launched with The Forest (2011), which is a supernatural thriller shot on-location in the infamous Aokigahara Jukai suicide forest, starring Aidan Bristow and Michael Madsen. His second film, Misfire (2012), featuring Jaina Lee Ortiz, is a stylized action-thriller depicting rival female assassins converging on the same target. His third film, The Believer (2017), is a psychological thriller involving demonology within the context of domestic strife.
He was married to Beth Morrow from 2008 until they divorced amicably in 2013. He is a practicing Buddhist, belonging to the Soka Gakkai International organization of Nichiren Buddhism practitioners, wherein he had previously undertaken responsibility as a national youth leader and served for a term as the editor-in-chief of its national youth gazette Seize the Day.
