John Arends

John Arends earned his bachelors degree in journalism at Iowa State University, in Ames, and later completed two years of post-graduate study as a recipient of the prestigious Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing. In 2011, he was named the recipient of the James W. Schwartz Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communications at Iowa State.

He participated in the early days of Marc Smith's poetry slams at The Green Mill jazz club in Chicago. More recently he has been writing screenplays for television and Hollywood, including an original feature film for the National Football League. His screenplay, "Trice" – inspired by the true story of Jack Trice, the first and only African American to have a major FBS college football stadium named in his honor – remains one of the most downloaded scripts on The Black List website.