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Reporter John Chadwell retired from BenitoLink in July 2023, ending his 50-year career as a freelance writer. This, however, proved to be just a pivot in the direction of his work as a novelist and screenwriter. His 11th book, “The War Elephant,” set for publication in 2025. His sixth book, “Werewolves of New Idria,” has recently been optioned as a movie or TV series and he is busy working on its sequel, “The Unknown Crusader.”
“John always had that dream of the big movie opportunity,” BenitoLink Executive Director Leslie David said. “He’s worked on it for a long, long time, and he’s been through very close calls. It’s great to see him getting closer to achieving it.”
Chadwell’s writing career began in 1965 when he was a radio operator on a Navy ship stationed off the coast of Vietnam. With access to an Associated Press teletype machine in the ship’s radio shack, he started a newsletter for the 650-man crew.
The Words and Worlds of John Chadwell. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
John Chadwell as technical advisor with actor Marc Singer. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Illustrations from “The War Elephant.” Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Werewolves of Idria promo. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Ghost of U-85 book cover. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Illustrations from “The War Elephant.” Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Hunt of the Sea Wolves book cover. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Illustrations from “The War Elephant.” Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
The Kid & Wild Bill book cover. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Legends and Liars book cover. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Illustrations from “The War Elephant.” Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Poster for “God’s Club.” Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Illustrations from “The War Elephant.” Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Holy Warriors book cover. Courtesy of John Chadwell. 
Books by John Chadwell. Courtesy of John Chadwell.
“We were 5,000 miles out to sea,” he said, “and I was the only person who could get news. The crew appreciated it, and that’s when the writing bug bit me.”
With nothing else to do onboard, Chadwell also became a voracious reader, favoring the works of Clive Cussler, which proved valuable as he developed his own writing style.
“It takes 30 days to go from San Diego to the Philippines,” he said. “And then we were out to sea for six months. So I would get books by the box and just read and read and read.”
After three tours of duty, Chadwell left the Navy in 1968. Following a brief stint in college, he got married in 1970 and started working as an AM radio disc jockey, first in Visalia and then in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“It’s entertainment,” he said,” but there’s writing involved because I was also doing the news. That kind of kept the writing going, but I wasn’t happy where I was, so I went back into the Navy.”
Though Chadwell was not particularly interested in returning as a radio operator, a Navy recruiter lured him back by suggesting he enlist as a journalist.
“I had never heard of journalists in the Navy,” he said. “I wrote press releases and worked with recruiters. I got some turntables and tape recorders and started making 15-minute radio shows tailored to their needs.”
Transferring to the USC to study motion picture production and scriptwriting, he continued working as a television and documentary producer, including doing an interview with President George H. W. Bush on the anniversary of his being shot down in WWII. He ended his time in the Navy doing public relations in Long Beach.
“By this time, I was beginning to be a pretty senior journalist,” Chadwell said. “Among other things, I worked on the script and narrated a top-secret presentation on Seal Team Six that was for the president and the chiefs of staff only.”
After leaving the military, Chadwell freelanced for magazines and began working in motion pictures, turning out an entire feature film script in one day as one of his first assignments.
“It was called ‘Space Patrol’ when I wrote it,” he said. “It was based on old 1950s science fiction movies. It got renamed along the way as ‘Midnight Movie Massacre.’”
It was an inauspicious start, but it led to work as a technical advisor on the TV series “War and Remembrance” and to working with screenwriters like Ronald Shusett, who co-wrote “Alien” and “Total Recall.”
“I made some money script writing and doctoring other people’s scripts,” he said. I also wrote a faith-based film starring Stephen Baldwin and Corbin Bernsen called ‘God’s Club’ in 2015. That was my best payday—I made $20,000 on that one.”
In 2011, Chadwell began publishing novels through Amazon and appeared as the subject of a 2014 BenitoLink profile, occasioned by the publication of his seventh book, “The Kid and Wild Bill.”
“Amazon started developing this self-published book thing,” he said. “I was pretty burned out on scriptwriting, but then I realized that every unproduced script I had was an outline for a book.”
In 2015, shortly after the profile was published, he began writing for BenitoLink, producing 1,170 stories before leaving in 2023.
“We found him on social media as a local writer,” said BenitoLink Executive Director Leslie David. “He worked very hard for us and it just suited him. We would need something covered, and he’d say, ‘Well, I’ll go and check it out.’ He was ready for anything.”
Chadwell covered every facet of local news, from features on the daily lives of the county’s residents to government meetings and civic issues. His years of creating relationships with community leaders and his research into the ins and outs of local events made him an invaluable resource to other BenitoLink reporters seeking contacts or background information for their own stories.
“Every day of reporting is different,” he said. “I’m a storyteller and was right in the thick of things. And I was meeting some very interesting people who I would never meet if not for the job.”
Chadwell retired from BenitoLink to give himself more time to write and to pursue his long-desired goal of seeing “Werewolves of New Idria” turned into a film.
It’s been a long and circuitous path to production that began 21 years ago when he joined the local film commission.
“I thought,’ What would bring a lot of money to Hollister?’” he said. “At the time, vampire movies were big, but I didn’t want to do vampires. I thought, ‘Whoa! Werewolves!’”
Deciding his werewolf was not going to be evil, he imagined him as the son of a wealthy man from Spain. The book, which ends with the protagonist joining the First Crusade in France, has been optioned for TV or film by Oceania Omnimedia.
“The producers told me that my job was to rewrite it and then write sequels,” he said. “There’s a lot more content that will come into play if it becomes a TV series. But the project is in their hands now and I have to move on to other stuff.”
His newest book, “The War Elephant,” to be released by Linda Guevara’s All About Kids Publishing, takes place during the time of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who fought against Rome in the Second Punic War. It will be the first in a three-book series.
“I wanted to write from a kid’s perspective rather than Hannibal’s,” he said. “I found out that there were 80 elephants in Hannibal’s campaign, and I wanted this kid to have a relationship with Hannibal’s favorite elephant, Surus. I decided he would be autistic to make it more interesting.”
Chadwell, who has a lifelong interest in cutting-edge technology, has been using Artificial Intelligence to research the book and create its illustrations.
“Using AI gave me an idea of what these characters would look like,” he said. “It was a lot of help in the beginning to visualize things like the boy meeting the elephant for the first time.”
“The War Elephant,” will be published in March 2025. As if he were not busy enough, Chadwell is outlining two more books, including one on an associate of Billy The Kid.
He looks back on his time with BenitoLink with a mix of pride and accomplishment, saying the work was always rewarding and exciting.
“I liked being involved with the community and being informed about what’s going on,” he said. “I always tried to be fair and balanced, but I didn’t let a story go if I saw something was wrong. I thought it was my obligation to put the truth out there and hold people accountable.”
Books by John Chadwell available on Amazon:
- Hunt of the Sea Wolves (2011)
- Charlie Butterfield (2012)
- Major Crime Unit – Operation Casablanca (2012)
- Pershing – The Soldiers’ General (2012)
- Legends and Liars (2013)
- Werewolves of New Idria – Holy Warriors (2013)
- The Kid and Wild Bill (2014)
- Last Sunrise (2014)
- Letter From a Soldier (2014)
- Ghost of the U-85 (2015)
- The War Elephant (coming in 2025)
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