John Warner
Affiliate Professor
John Warner is a writer, editor, speaker, teacher, and consultant whose first book (My First Presidentiary: A Scrapbook of George W. Bush co-authored with Kevin Guilfoile) was written primarily in colored pencil and turned into a Washington Post #1 best seller. Since then he’s published a parody of writing advice (Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice from a Published Author to a Writerly Aspirant), more politically minded humor (So You Want to Be President?), a novel (The Funny Man), and a collection of short stories (Tough Day for the Army). From 2003 to 2008 he edited McSweeney’s Internet Tendency for which he now serves as a contributing editor, and he writes a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune on books and reading as his alter ego, The Biblioracle. Since 2001 he’s held a series of teaching positions at four different institutions, including visiting instructor at College of Charleston from 2012-2016.
John writes the Just Visiting blog at Inside Higher Ed where he has become a national voice on issues of faculty labor and writing pedagogy. His writing for IHE has resulted in two forthcoming books on the teaching of writing, Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities (Johns Hopkins UP) and The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing (Penguin/Random House).
Publications
Books:
The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing (Penguin, 2019)
Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018)
Tough Day for the Army: Stories (LSU Press/Yellow Shoe Fiction, 2014)
The Best of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (co-editor with Chris Monks). (McSweeney’s, 2014)
The Funny Man: A Novel (Soho Press, 2011)
Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice from a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant (Writer’s Digest Books, 2005)
My First Presidentiary: A Scrapbook of George W. Bush (co-authored with Kevin Guilfoile). (Crown, 2001)
Columns:
“The Bilbioracle” at the Chicago Tribune
Just Visiting at Inside Higher Ed
Selected Humor:
“I’m Worried My Doctor May Have Watched Episode of ER Instead of Going to Medical School”
“I Am the Man Who Paints His Entire Head and Face to Resemble the Helment of His Favorite Football Team”
“A Message from Your University President on the Occasion of the Latest Rounds of Budget Cuts”
Selected Short Fiction:
“My Best Seller” and “My Dog and Me” Printers Row Fiction Supplement. (October 15, 2014)
“Nelson v. The Mormon Smile” Cincinnati Review. (Fall 2014)
“Not Schmitty” McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. (September 17, 2014)
“Return to Sensibility Problems After Penetrating Captive Bolt Stunning of Cattle in Commercial Beef Slaughter Plant #5867: Confidential Report“ Ninth Letter (Vol. 6, Issue 2. Winter 2009)