John Baxter (1939– ) is an Australian writer of fiction and nonfiction, born in Randwick, New South Wales, and now living in Paris, France. Since 2007 he has served as the codirector of the annual Paris Writers’ Workshop. He began publishing his science fiction stories in New Worlds during the New Wave boom of the 1960s and also published two groundbreaking anthologies of Australian science fiction during that time: The Pacific Book of Australian Science Fiction (1968) and its sequel. Baxter serialized his first novel, The Godkillers, through New Worlds, after which it was published by Ace as The Off-Worlders (1968). But science fiction was only one of Baxter’s interests. At the same time he was writing fiction, Baxter became a member of the influential WEA Film Study Group, for which he edited the journal Film Digest. He was active in the Sydney Film Festival for many years and wrote film criticism for various publications.
Since the 1980s Baxter has turned exclusively to producing or writing such documentaries and television series as The Cutting Room and First Take. His nonfiction about the movies includes writing about, among others, Woody Allen, Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg.
The move to Paris was prequel to writing four books of autobiography, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, We’ll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris.
“The Hands” (1965) is an extremely unique and creepy science fiction horror story, one that serves as a perfect example of the successes of the New Wave era.