Shiguro Takada

Life in the beautiful Pacific Northwest was easy for the easygoing young Shig during the '70s and '80s, so it’s hard to imagine such a guy winding up as the author of a book such as Contingency Cannibalism.

One day in 1983 Shig was considering a job offer from a brand new little local software company called Microsoft, when a Marine recruiter cold-called him. Shig began to laugh. After a heated exchange, the sergeant suggested that Shig didn’t have the guts to just stop by, adding his opinion that personal computers were just a fad. Thirty days later, a stunned Shig was standing on yellow footprints painted on the deck at San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD). Within a week his girlfriend back home was dating a certain recruiter. The Corps changed the boy. He never regretted joining up.

A stint as a Guide in Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) school gave Shig a taste for leadership and his first Office Hours/Article 15 for fighting (he won). The camaraderie, combined with hitting targets consistently with an M16A1 at 500 yards, dropping down a Hell Hole from a CH 46, and carting a hypothermic lance corporal strapped to a stretcher down Mt. Rainer with a few other guys are fond memories. Shig loved the Marine Corps, but he left it.

Later, in college, he was introduced to survivalism through a friend name Albert from Croatia who possessed a creative interpretation of laws. Albert eventually shifted from being an interesting person to being a person of interest. He was spotted by a particularly sharp state trooper one day, and Shig was out a good friendship but richer for the new perspective he’d gained from Albert.

After graduating from the University of Washington, Shig served as a loose cannon/ commissioned officer in the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division. Following some very uncomfortable questioning by the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) about his activities in Panama just after Operation Just Cause and an embarrassing incident involving an experiment using a Stinger missile, a Vulcan reflective sight, and a shotgun at Fort Drum, New York, the army and Shig decided a separation would be mutually beneficial.

Shig wound up in prison, fortunately as a staff member. He acquired the job with the benefit of a surprisingly squeaky-clean record which he attributes to blind luck, quick talking and fast thinking more than anything else. The intensity and sinister nature of a prison fascinated him; he had finally found a job with the right amount of edge to it to keep him interested. It was like finding a home. He’ll stay involved in corrections, one way or another.

Shig’s been to several small islands in the Pacific, parts of Africa, and up the Amazon several times, but he divorced her in ‘97.

Shig writes very, very dark fiction as well as humorous nonfiction. He really likes people, and not just culinarily. When he’s not seeking spiritual enlightenment, he’s getting into deep, respectful conversations with intelligent women or working toward world peace (or so he claims.)