"Hello, and thank you for visiting my bio page.

I’ve been a journalist, author, editor, and tutor for twenty-plus years.

My lifelong love of language creates an enthusiastic learning environment. I’m good-natured, genuinely caring, and young at heart. So it’s easy for me to build rapport with my students.

I’ve written news, essays, and features for the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Providence Journal, Orlando Sentinel, Twin Cities Business Monthly, Fairfax Times, and the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

I've published over 100 short stories and essays in literary journals, including the North American Review, The Kenyon Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Louisiana Literature, Alaska Quarterly Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, The Texas Review, Sou’wester, and The Iowa Review. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, my short story "The Scratchboard Project" won an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories series (2007).

I've also authored four literary novels, including a YA novel. The Night I Freed John Brown (Penguin, 2008) won the 2009 Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers and was shortlisted for Black History Month by USA Today.

Publishers of my novels include Penguin Random House, University of Wisconsin/Cornerstone Books, and West Virginia University Press.

I taught English grammar and composition at Seminole State College of Florida and tutored English at Lake-Sumter State College and essay writing for SMARTHINKING, Inc.

Finally, I also have a lifelong love of dictionaries. I studied lexicography at Marymount Manhattan College, and at Seminole State College of Florida, I made the dictionary required reading.

I hold a BA in Fine Arts from George Mason University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Central Florida.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thank you kindly,

John Michael" less...