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BioJohn W. Evans is the author of The Fight Journal (Rattle, 2023), Should I Still Wish: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), Young Widower: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), and The Consolations: Poems (Trio House Press, 2014).

His books have won prizes including the Rattle Chapbook Prize, the River Teeth Book Prize, the Peace Corps Writers Book Prize, a ForeWord Reviews Book Prize, the Sawtooth Poetry Prize, and the Trio Award. Should I Still Wish was selected by Poets and Writers magazine as a “new and noteworthy” title of January/February 2017, and is published in the American Lives Series.

His work appears or is forthcoming in The Missouri Review (2016 Editor’s Prize Finalist), Poets & Writers, Slate, Boston Review, The Southern Review, New Letters, ZYZZYVA, The Rumpus, The Flyfish Journal, Pangyrus, and Best American Essays 2011 (Honorable Mention), as well as the chapbooks, No Season (FWQ, 2011) and Zugzwang (RockSaw, 2009).

John was previously the Phyllis Draper Lecturer in Nonfiction at Stanford University, where he is also the Lecturer of DCI Memoir. He was previously a Jones Lecturer and a Wallace Stegner Fellow. At Stanford, John has been recognized as a “favorite professor” by the women’s basketball, water polo, field hockey, and volleyball teams, as well as the Knight Fellows and the DCI Fellows. He lives with his three young sons in East Palo Alto, where he serves on the board of the local YMCA.