John grew up on the banks of the curiously named Chagrin River in Gates Mills, Ohio. His early life on that river and subsequent explorations of other rivers across the United States led him to write a memoir, The Canoeist (Red Lodge Press), and two novels—The Lower Canyons (Atmosphere Press) and Solitario (Atmosphere Press). John's travels through southern Africa during the apartheid era inspired his 2024 novel, In Pursuit of the Giant Sable Antelope (https://atmospherepress/com/books/in-...). Kirkus Reviews calls this "An engaging tale of relationships forged in a changing land, loaded with historical and cultural nuggets." John earned a B.A. in anthropology from Yale University (1972) and a Masters Degree in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1976).