SimranProud
After teaching for so many years, John worked as a consultant in the Gateway Writing Project (GWP) which was supported by the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He was constantly traveling to many schools to assist teachers and students in projects related to reading and writing. John was not only following his passion but earning quite well too.
Gateway Writing Project
The Gateway Writing Project is the St. Louis branch of the National Writing Project. It works for the betterment of the students and helps students in every way to read and write so that they can have a bright future. This educational body also has consultants like John who help in uplifting the students coming from all backgrounds to achieve their goals.
Exploring
While he was teaching in the school, John also worked for a magazine named the STR8-UP Magazine for nearly 2 years. The magazine used to publish all about music, art, and cultural news happening in Belleville, Illinois. The magazine allowed him to explore his creativity and he wrote about everything without restricting himself to one particular genre.
Ideas
John had so many ideas running inside his mind about starting a venture of his own even before he started teaching in the school. So after a few years, he started writing a series of books named 99 Words to motivate people to write their feelings out. Interestingly, the series that he launched had 99 stories and contained 99 words each. The man explained in 2016 to the Sun Herald that the book can be easily called a “lesson in word economy”.
A Jolly Person
John was quite famous in his field and he was constantly making everyone proud of his independent and collaborated ventures. Even the facilitators at the Carlinville Writers Guild used to speak highly of John. Robyn seemed to be totally in awe of him and often compliments that he “manages to find humor in just about everything and he’s got great imagination.”
Positive Statements
While admiring his work and vision, she never used to forget to mention the name of the remarkable series,99 Words. The series received a lot of appreciation from John’s friends and colleagues too apart from the rest of the world. Once she said: “He came up with some hilarious stories [for 99 Words]. Some of them are just absurd, but [others] are really poignant. We love him, and we’re all really proud of him.”