John McKeon

John J. McKeon grew up Irish in Brooklyn, New York, but always noticed that his family seemed to be full of Italians and his grandparents talked to each other in German. The family also abounded with legends of gangsters, bootleggers and orphan girls trying to make their way through life.

John’s novels and short stories have been shaped by this immersion in the “melting pot,” as well as by his career as a newspaper reporter, Congressional staffer and free-lance business writer.

He graduated from New York University and worked as a reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press and the (now-gone) Newburgh, NY Evening News. At the Evening News, he won the New York Publishers Association prize for distinguished local reporting.

John has lived in the Washington, DC area long enough to claim “native” status.

John’s career has embraced years as a Congressional staffer and an association executive, along with more than a quarter century as a freelance business writer. His freelance work appeared in such publications as Civil Engineering, Video Systems, Sound & Video Contractor, and Graphic Arts Monthly.

His first novel, The Serpent’s Crown, was praised as “a powerful, riveting and timely story” by The New York Times Book Review.

He is also the author of Demented Choirs (2005), Other Harbors (2017) and The Point of the Spear (2018).