Oronte
John Griswold, who uses the pen name Oronte Churm at Inside Higher Ed and elsewhere, was born in Vietnam and raised in coal country in Southern Illinois. His stories, poems, and essays have appeared in War, Literature and the Arts; Brevity; Natural Bridge; and Ninth Letter. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, listed as notable in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009, and included in The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 3 (WW Norton).
He is the author of a novel, A Democracy of Ghosts, and a nonfiction book, Herrin: The Brief History of an Infamous American City.
He teaches in the MFA program at McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana.
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Most Recent Articles
December 28, 2007
My brother-in-law’s grandfather was kind and had an infectious laugh, but he was also a tough old bird, and to watch him eat was to be shown what he’d endured in his time. As a young man he’d been a machine-gunner in World War I, which he spoke of as a life’s adventure, and when he came home he went straight to the mines and then the munitions factory. He was middle-aged in the Depression, in already-depressed Southern Illinois.
December 21, 2007
Aaahhhhh.
Hear that? That's the sound of no-students, the sound of final grades being deposited in a bank of computer servers. It's the sound of our cat, Gargantua, eating our Christmas tree.
December 14, 2007
I can explain later (or not), but I'm quite serious. Please answer the following:
John or Paul, and why?
December 13, 2007
Paul has said, famously, that the song “Yesterday” came to him in a dream. It was so complete that he couldn’t believe it was original and went around humming the tune to see if people had heard it before.
December 7, 2007
I know that on the page “my pud” sounds nasty, but you should see it in person. Better yet, drop by and have a taste.
December 5, 2007
When I enlisted in the Army years ago, I was offered half-a-dozen duty stations for my first posting. I chose Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division. The Screaming Eagles were famed for their service in World War II, especially at Bastogne, where General McAuliffe made his famous retort—“Nuts”—to the Germans demanding surrender.
November 28, 2007
My guest today is John Warner, editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a man who once took a chance on a young nobody with a glint in his eye who strode into John’s office one summer afternoon wearing only a jaunty cap plumed with cock’s feathers. That young nobody was…Jonathan Ames. Later, Warner also let me write for the Tendency.
