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• Author, History is Watching: How Do We Respond to Trump? (2019) • Author, Lost & Found in Latin America: All About Brazil’s World Cup Soccer, the Argentine Pope & Mariachi (2014) • Author, The Obama Haters: Behind the Right-Wing Campaign of Lies, Innuendo & Racism (2011) • Co-Author, Life Without Oil: Why We Must Shift to a New Energy Future (2011) |
John's ancestors landed at Plymouth Colony in the early 1620s, with later generations settling in Michigan in the mid-19th Century as farmers. He was born in Flint (yes, that same city with poisoned water that Roger & Me famously documented. His great-uncle owned the biggest department store in town and was mayor of Flint. John's grandfather, for whom he was named, represented Flint in the Michigan State Senate. Infected with insatiable wanderlust, John roamed the Michigan countryside by age four and was already writing stories about faraway places. John's family moved to Los Angeles when he was eight. He attended high school in Southern California and graduated from Humboldt State University in Northern California’s pristine redwood forest. After graduating, he was a beach bum in Hawaii for a while, wrote for newspapers in Wyoming and Seattle, and traveled cross-country for six months to research a (never-published) book about ferryboats. He attended graduate school at the University of Washington.
Graduate studies, however, paled when the call of the wild caught hold of him. In 1981, he left for the adventure of a lifetime in Venezuela as a reporter and editor at the English-language Daily Journal in Caracas. After two years, he embarked on a solo two-year journey throughout Latin America and met his wife, Maria, while vagabonding in Brazil. He returned home to help the family fruit orchard in Oregon before being hired in 1985 by The Associated Press. He reported from Mexico, Central America and the United Nations, as well as working as an editor at the international news desk in New York. He coordinated and translated a package of stories about Latin American street children which won the Inter American Press Association’s prestigious Tom Wallace award in 1989. In 1993, he became bureau chief for Dow Jones newswires in Brazil, where he assembled a talented, award-winning staff in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília.
John returned to Seattle in 1996 as Pacific Northwest correspondent for Knight-Ridder Financial News, which became Bridge News. It was a great place to work, but the parent company went bust in 2001, whereupon he moved to Energy News Today as editor for news coverage in Latin America. His wife owns an expanding Brazilian food business and beauty salon, and his adult children are pursuing their lives in parenting, fashion, cosmetology, and high-tech.
His newest book is History is Watching: How Do We Respond to Trump? (Rainy City Publishing, 2019). His earlier books were Lost & Found in Latin America: All About Brazil's World Cup Soccer, the Argentine Pope & Mariachi (Rainy City Publishing, 2014) and The Obama Haters: Behind the Right-Wing Campaign of Lies, Innuendo & Racism (Potomac Books, 2011). He was co-author of Life Without Oil: Why We Must Shift to a New Energy Future (Prometheus, 2011). He translated, from Portuguese into English, Agape (Editora Globo, 2011) by Marcello Rossi, the top-selling book in Brazilian history, as well as the same author’s sequel, Agape for Children (Editora Globo, 2012).
John is available to speak to large or small groups in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Contact: john@johnswright.com
Graduate studies, however, paled when the call of the wild caught hold of him. In 1981, he left for the adventure of a lifetime in Venezuela as a reporter and editor at the English-language Daily Journal in Caracas. After two years, he embarked on a solo two-year journey throughout Latin America and met his wife, Maria, while vagabonding in Brazil. He returned home to help the family fruit orchard in Oregon before being hired in 1985 by The Associated Press. He reported from Mexico, Central America and the United Nations, as well as working as an editor at the international news desk in New York. He coordinated and translated a package of stories about Latin American street children which won the Inter American Press Association’s prestigious Tom Wallace award in 1989. In 1993, he became bureau chief for Dow Jones newswires in Brazil, where he assembled a talented, award-winning staff in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília.
John returned to Seattle in 1996 as Pacific Northwest correspondent for Knight-Ridder Financial News, which became Bridge News. It was a great place to work, but the parent company went bust in 2001, whereupon he moved to Energy News Today as editor for news coverage in Latin America. His wife owns an expanding Brazilian food business and beauty salon, and his adult children are pursuing their lives in parenting, fashion, cosmetology, and high-tech.
His newest book is History is Watching: How Do We Respond to Trump? (Rainy City Publishing, 2019). His earlier books were Lost & Found in Latin America: All About Brazil's World Cup Soccer, the Argentine Pope & Mariachi (Rainy City Publishing, 2014) and The Obama Haters: Behind the Right-Wing Campaign of Lies, Innuendo & Racism (Potomac Books, 2011). He was co-author of Life Without Oil: Why We Must Shift to a New Energy Future (Prometheus, 2011). He translated, from Portuguese into English, Agape (Editora Globo, 2011) by Marcello Rossi, the top-selling book in Brazilian history, as well as the same author’s sequel, Agape for Children (Editora Globo, 2012).
John is available to speak to large or small groups in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Contact: john@johnswright.com