Hey, it’s me.

John Griswold

I publish under both my real name, John Griswold, and the pen name Oronte Churm. As Churm I write a column for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a creative nonfiction superblog at Inside Higher Ed, and other things around the Net.

I was born in Saigon, Vietnam—on Ho Chi Minh’s birthday—but grew up in Southern Illinois, which provided the setting for my novel, A Democracy of Ghosts. I’ve worked as a snake-wrangler at a state park, Army frogman, city bus driver, at-risk youth leader, manager of an ad agency, corporate writer, and freelancer. Since 2000 I’ve taught creative writing, literature, and rhetoric at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Thanks for coming. Drop me a line!

E-mail
griswold.john@gmail.com

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