John Robert Mack

John studied writing in college, published the short story, "Jonny Hates Jazz," wrote a column, "Dancing The Rainbow," for two years in the regional Texas dance periodical, "The Dancer's Guide," and has written and produced five plays (one on commission). His play "Talking With Jacob" won statewide recognition in Wisconsin. He produced an adaptation of the Ray Bradbury story, "The Better Part of Wisdom" with the author's input and blessing. He also self-published (before it was cool and edgy) a book called KEEP BREATHING: Zen and the Art of Social Dance. He has a total of twelve completed novel manuscripts, six plays, and ten screenplays.

For the past twenty years, John has worked as a dance teacher. He has choreographed musicals like West Side Story and helped create and coach the original Radio Disney dance team in San Antonio, TX. As a dance teacher, he has been featured twice in the international education periodical Quality in Action, and appeared twice on KENS5, a San Antonio station.

More recently, John spent almost three years on sabbatical working exclusively on his writing (and hanging out with his brother Ryan's family) in Virginia Beach. He worked on the Board of Directors of the Hampton Roads writers, where he both attended and taught several workshops including six for their annual conference. He also took workshops at the Muse in Norfolk, run by Michael Khandelwal who helped him workshop several of his novels. He was extremely fortunate to meet Lauran Strait who has now acted as his editor for over five years. All his words are muchly gooder because of her hard work and solidly cracking whip.

Since his return to Texas, he has written a column for "Out in SA" and is a regular contributor to "SA Monthly Magazine" with both his writing and his photography. He has written five cover stories and shot for one cover and its feature.

His creation of Zen Monster Tarot has seen sales internationally, shipping out to five different countries,