John’s Biography

John is a PK, a pastor’s kid. He grew up in Columbia Heights, a suburb of Minneapolis, with his parents and younger sister and brother. They were the terror of their local library because, every few weeks, they would come and check out crates full of books, increasing the workload of the poor librarians. In high school, though, John worked at the same library, so it balanced out.

After high school, John attended Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he majored in theatre. Upon his graduation in 1996, he moved on to Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated with his Masters of Divinity in 2000. He served as a Lutheran minister in Blue Earth, Minnesota, South Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Blue Springs, Missouri.

John married his wife in 2002 and they now have two wonderful kids who are well on their way toward being geeks. John couldn’t be prouder.

John is a life-long writer. He started with badly drawn comic books in the fifth grade. When he realized that he was a lousy artist, he moved on to badly written novels in middle school. He’s tried his hand at screenplays (don’t ask), stage plays (a little better), fanfic, teen mysteries, and religious fiction. But his first love has always been speculative fiction.

His debut novel, Failstate, was published by Marcher Lord Press in April of 2012, and was a finalist for the Christy Awards in 2013. John has been a finalist three other times with Numb, Failstate: Nemesis, and Drawn in Ash. He has also won the Realm Award for The Hive and the Realm Science Fiction Award for Drawn in Ash. John looks forward to telling even more strange tales that point people back to God and His incredible grace.