He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe.

[2][3] One of three children born to a single mother, he grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs of Covina, Glendora, Azusa, and San Dimas.

After graduating, Scalzi became a corporate consultant and wrote opinion columns and film reviews for the Fresno Bee.

[20][21] As a result of the coverage, Scalzi began maintaining a web repository for links to "All Things Bacon" on the Whatever site.

[25][26] A first-contact story, it is about a young Hollywood agent hired by a space alien to make their species more appealing to humans.

It received mixed reviews; Booklist called it "absurd, funny, and satirically perceptive,"[27] while Publishers Weekly criticized the plot as predictable.

[30] Scalzi intended to sell the book commercially, so he chose the genre of military science fiction because he felt it would be the most marketable.

[34] In February 2007, a novelette set in the Old Man's War universe, called "The Sagan Diary", was published as a hardcover by Subterranean Press.

[35] An audio reading of "The Sagan Diary" was offered through Scalzi's website in February 2007, featuring the voices of fellow science fiction authors Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Cherie Priest, Karen Meisner and Helen Smith.

[37] Zoe's Tale, the fourth Old Man's War novel, presenting a different view of the events covered in The Last Colony, was published in August 2008.

The audiobook featured the voices of Battlestar Galactica actors Michael Hogan, Alessandro Juliani and Kandyse McClure and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form in 2009.

Scalzi explained that it had been "basically written just for the fun of it and for sort of getting into the habit of actually enjoying writing science fiction again."

[43] Scalzi decided to write Redshirts after noticing that while many short satirical works dealt with the idea of "'redshirts'—the unnamed, low-ranking characters of Star Trek who always died on away missions," there was a dearth of novels exploring the concept.

[47] His story "Automated Customer Service" was also adapted for the second season of Love, Death & Robots, with Scalzi himself co-writing the script.

The book, You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing; was released by Subterranean Press in February 2007.

The original solicitation was posted in March 2005 with the unique requirements that submissions would only be accepted electronically in plain text, and ONLY during the period between 10/1/05 and 11/1/05 instead of before a traditional deadline.

[55] On March 29, 2007, it was announced that Scalzi had again been nominated for a Hugo Award, this time in the category Best Fan Writer, for his online writing about the science-fiction field.

Notably, in June 2007 he raised over $5000 in 6 days for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State after fellow writer Joe Hill challenged him[57] to go visit the Creation Museum that had just opened near Cincinnati, not far from Scalzi's Ohio home, if Hill paid for the ticket, offering to match the cost with a donation to the charity of Scalzi's choice after he filed a comprehensive report on the trip online.

Scalzi extended the deal to all Whatever readers, raised 256 times the admission price, and posted his critical report on the Creation Museum on November 12, 2007.

In September 2010 he joined with Subterranean Press and authors Wil Wheaton, Patrick Rothfuss, Catherynne M. Valente, Rachel Swirsky and others to create a story collection called Clash of the Geeks, offered online in exchange for donations to the Michigan/Indiana affiliate of the Lupus Alliance of America.

[4] After writing a satirical blog post in October 2012 criticizing some conservative politicians for their positions on abortion,[59] Scalzi was targeted by writer Vox Day and his supporters.

[60] Scalzi pledged to donate $5 to RAINN, Emily's List, the Human Rights Campaign, and the NAACP every time Day mentioned him on his website.

While he capped his donation at $1,000, Scalzi raised over $50,000 after others, including actor Wil Wheaton, promised to match this pledge.

[59] In addition to his personal site, Scalzi was a professional blogger for America Online's AOL Journals and AIM Blogs service from August 2003 through December 2007.

In this role he created participatory entries (most notably the Weekend Assignment and Monday Photo Shoot), answered questions about blogging from AOL members, and posted interesting links for readers.

Scalzi also blogged professionally for AOL's Ficlets site beginning in March 2007, writing about literature and other related topics.

On December 7, 2007, Scalzi announced that by mutual agreement, his contract with AOL would not be renewed at the end of the year, in part so that he would have more time to devote to writing books.

[61] In 2008, Scalzi began writing a weekly column on science fiction/fantasy films for AMCTV.com, the Web site of cable television network AMC.

[68] On March 30, 2016, the Los Angeles Times announced that Scalzi was one of ten "Critics-at-Large" who would contribute to the newspaper as a columnist writing on literature and culture.