Skip to content

International Author News on Johntext

Johntext – literature with purpose to help

Discover the captivating world of Johntext, unveiling inspiring authors narratives.

Get the latest author news: international author news, literature and poetry from Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, and the United States and Canada.

Johntext delivers free author services, author news, reviews. It supported international initiatives and projects like: Global Goodwill Ambassadors – founded by Richard DiPilla.

What’s new?
Johntext Academy is online. Check it out. Want to sponsor the blog?
Contact: hans-juergen.john@johntext.info

Hans-Jürgen John: Founder of Johntext – Website: Johntext Switzerland
Johntext supports the initiative of Richard DiPilla, Founder of Global Goodwill Ambassadors (GGA). He published the Global Newsletter on Johntext Alaska.

Who are the authors at Johntext?

Faraaz KaziJohntext Mumbai

He (born November 10, 1987) is an Indian author, primarily writing mainstream romance and best known for his debut novel Truly Madly Deeply, published by the Cedar Books imprint of Pustak Mahal and re-released by Mahaveer Publishers in 2012.

Faraaz Kazi is the only child of his parents and was born and raised in Mumbai. A student of Our Lady of Fatima High School, Faraaz moved to GuruNanak Khalsa College of Science to complete his plus two. He went on to complete his undergraduate degree in management and eventually obtained an MBA in marketing. He is a triple post-graduate with a Masters in psychology and counseling and another one in Human Resources. Faraaz also has a diploma in Freelance Journalism from The British Institutes and a certificate in Creative Writing from Xavier’s Institute of Communication.

After graduating from Xavier’s, Faraaz worked on his debut novel and eventually published it in 2010. The book was titled Truly Madly Deeply… Memoirs of a Broken Heart’s First Love! which was republished again in October 2012. It went on to become a national award-winning title apart from becoming the first book by an Indian author to win the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Debut (Romance). It remains the only Indian book in the Top 100 YA Global Fiction list.

Kazis second book titled The Other Side, co-authored with Vivek Banerjee was released on 15 November 2013 by Vikram Bhatt and the team of 1920 Evil Returns. It is the first book in the world to have an animated cover. The book is the largest attempt so far in Indian commercial horror literature.

Kazis third book titled LOVE compiled and edited by him is an anthology of cross-genre stories connected by the emotion of love. It features a foreword and one mainstream romance story titled The Doorway written by him. The book was released on 6 February 2015.

Faraaz Kazi won several awards:
Recipient of the YCOF National Excellence Award in Creative Writing
Joint-winner of the National Debut Youth Fiction Award (2013)
Goodreads Choice Readers Award for Best Debut (Romance) for his book, Truly Madly Deeply.

More about Faraaz Kazi on Wikipedia.

Perry BrassJohntext New York

Perry Brass born September 15, 1947, Savannah, Georgia is an American author, journalist, playwright and essayist.

He was an active member of the Gay Liberation Front, the first radical gay organization to be formed after the Stonewall Rebellion in New York in June 1969. He co-edited Come Out!, the influential newspaper published by the Gay Liberation Front; the last three issues of the newspaper were published by the newspaper’s collective from his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen in New York. In 1971, with two friends he co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Project Clinic, the first clinic for gay men on the East Coast. The clinic openly advocated for gay men to use condoms, almost a decade before the advent of AIDS.

He writes for The Huffington Post. Perry Brass is member of the PEN American Center. The New York City Public Library has a Manuscripts section with Perry Brass holdings. In a BlogTalk Radio interview he gives background information about his book King of Angels.

He has been a finalist several times for Lambda Literary Awards. In 2012 King of Angels was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction from New York’s Ferro-Grumley Foundation.

More about Perry Brass on Wikipedia.

Ethel Morgan Smith:Johntext USA

Ethel Morgan Smith first received recognition when her essay Come and Be Black for Me was published in more than 100 media outlets throughout the USA in 1997. The essay is still being published every year during Black History Month, but now scholars are writing about the essay.

Ethel Morgan Smith grew up in Louisville, Alabama. She holds a Masters Degree in Creative Writing English from Hollins University. While she was a graduate student she learned of a small African American community in the backdoor of the College. Most of the members of the small community are direct descendants of the enslaved individuals who first arrived at Hollins with the founder of the College and early students. As a result of this finding, she published From Whence Cometh My Help: The African American Community at Hollins College. This compelling work has been called, a wonderful and astounding combination of historical and personal research.

Reflections of the Other: Being Black in Germany is Smith’s second book and was born when a German student asked, Could she be 100% sure that there were no happy slaves? Although this work is about her personal experience, it is designed and rooted in African American literature, culture, and history.

Ethel Morgan Smith has published in The New York Times; African American Review, Callaloo, and other international journals.

She has received the following awards: Fulbright Fellowship- Germany; a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship- Bellagio, Italy; a visiting artist- the American Academy in Rome, a fellowship from The Womens Studies Research Center- Brandeis University, and a Dupont Fellowship- Randolph-Macon Womans College.

In addition, the following work is ready for publication: The House of Flowers (novel) has been a finalist for both the William Faulkner & William Wisdom Creative Writing Contest, and the James Jones Creative Writing Contest. Three chapters from the novel have already been published.

Ethel Morgan Smith is an Associate Professor of English at West Virginia University. She lives in Morgantown with her dog Lucy. Her son Marcus lives and works in the NYC area.

More about Ethel Morgan Smith on Wikipedia.

Melissa StuddardJohntext Texas

Melissa Studdard born August 5, 1969, Tuscaloosa, Alabama is an American author, poet, editor, book reviewer, talk show host, and professor.

Her bestselling middle-grade novel, Six Weeks to Yehidah won a Forward National Literature Award and Pinnacle Book Achievement Award.

She released the accompanying journal, My Yehidah, in December 2011 and it became quickly adopted by art and play therapists for clinical use in adolescent therapy sessions.

Studdard is a full-time college professor at Lone Star College Tomball and a teaching artist for The Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative. From 2010 to 2012, she was an editor for The Criterion: An International Journal in English.

She currently serves as an editor for Tiferet Journal, a reviewer-at-large for The National Poetry Review, and host of the blogtalkradio program Tiferet Talk, for which she has interviewed such notable figures as Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Robert Pinsky, Floyd Skloot, and Bernie Siegel.

More about Melissa Studdard on Wikipedia.

Manfred Eichhorn

I am proud and happy to announce that a new author from Germany joins Johntext – literature with purpose to help. On Johntext Baden-Wuerttemberg you can already find some photos, books, reviews and links to his biography on Wikipedia, his publishing houses and special events.

Manfred Eichhorn published his crime story number four: “In der Asche schläft die Glut” in October 2014.
Like the three other crime stories he wrote before, it was published by the Silberburg publishing house, Tübingen. His books are available in bookstores as well as on Amazon.

Who is the author of more than 40 books, several play scipts which were performed and a lot of contributions to anthologies and school books?

Manfred Eichhorn was born in 1951 in Ulm. When he was not older than 16 years he wrote his first book, which was not published. The following years he learned the bookstore business. Together with his wife he opened his own bookstore in 1973 in Ulm. For more than 40 years he sold books there. Soon he made the big step from selling books to writing them. At the beginning of the septuagenarian initially books of poetry were published, a novel, children’s books and other stories followed.

More about Manfred Eichhorn on Wikipedia.

Martin Becker

Martin Becker was born in 1978 in Biberach / Germany. Studies in mathematics, economics and computer science.
Versatile fields of activity, especially in active sports and music.

Creatively he moves through life and meets the seriousness with humor and an ease, which makes each interlocutor forget his own problems. The personal friendship with Hans-Jürgen John leads to the first joint writing projects. As co-author of “Wie Du liebst” on Johntext.de.
Currently he is going to be a teacher in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

More about Martin Becker on Johntext Germany.

Klaus J. Gerken: Editor and Founder of Ygdrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts in 1993Johntext Canada

Klaus J. Gerken

Klaus J. Gerken, born Cuxhaven, Germany, 1949. Came to Canada age 9, 1958. First published work, Dynasty 1968. Since then over 200 titles, Poems, Plays and Novels. Residence: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Joygopal PodderJohntext New Delhi

Joygopal Podder (born May 19, 1960, London, Great Britain) is an Indian author. According to the Limca Book of Records he is the only author who has had 14 crime fiction novels published in 45 months. Before this he went on to feature in Limca Book of Records four times. As the author with most books on crime fiction in shortest time in 2013 and in 2014. For writing five crime fiction novels in nine months in 2012 and writing 10 crime fiction within in 21 months.

Joygopal Podder was eight years old when his mother and his father, a homemaker and a surgeon moved to New Delhi. He is married and lives with his wife and two daughters in Gurgaon, India.

More about Joygopal Podder on Wikipedia.

John P. MatthewJohntext India

John P. Matthew is a writer, blogger and poet from the state of Kerala, India. After eight years in Kerala he came to Bombay for an education. In Bombay (today: Mumbai) he lived in a working class locality and attended Adarsha Vidyalaya.

John P. Matthew earned his Bachelors in Science from University of Bombay. He read extensively on literature inspired by the work of one of his uncles George Mathan, who wrote the first book of grammar in Malayalam, the language of Kerala.

First success as a writer came when John P. Matthew won publisher Penguins world-wide short story contest India Smiles in which the short story Flirting in Short Messages was selected for publication in an anthology. The collection, published by Penguin, was also titled, India Smiles.

The story P.K.Koshys Daily Rountine was also shortlisted and subsequently published in an anthology by Grey Oaks, an Indian imprint. This short story is about the post-retirement life of a Malayali pensioner living in Bombay and the abrupt changes he faces in his daily routine.

John P. Matthew started writing a blog in 2003, and today the blog ranks as one among Indias top blogs. The blog is also ranked among the top 1000 book blogs around the world by Technorati, a website rating service.

The forthcoming novel Mr. Bandookwala, M.B.A., Harvard is about a brilliant Harvard graduate who because he is honest and uncorrupt fails to make his mark in the internecine power struggle of a Bombay-based real estate company.

John P. Matthew lives in Bombay with his wife, a teacher, and son.

Shweta KesariJohntext Madhya Pradesh

Shweta Kesari was a 2nd year engineering student when she joined Johntext. She is an avid reader and loves to spend time with books. She found immense pleasure in writing after reading so many books.

For her, the best way to share her feelings and emotions is to pen down whatever strikes her heart. She has keen interest in music and stories.

Shweta Kesari writes book reviews and interviews on Johntext Madhya Pradesh. She posted almost 400 reviews.

Marta MaciejewskaJohntext Poland

Marta Maciejewska is a speech therapist. She loves rock and classical music. She loves animals.

Laura Lamarca writes on Johntext United Kingdom.

She is a widowed mother of three teenagers originally hailing from the northern county of Lancashire, but now residing on the South coast of England.

A professional poet and author of five books of poetry to date, Laura created 26 recognized forms of formal poetry, these include The Licentia Rhyme Form, the La`Tuin and the ZaniLa Rhyme Form.

In her spare time, she teaches the art of expression through the written word to pupils all over the world at no cost to them. She also writes hugely for charity and actively supports charities that raise awareness for cancer, third world plight, dolphins, pilot whales and gun and knife crime. She has the belief that there is a brighter day for all, given the compassion and commitment of others one voice can raise a thousand voices, a thousand voices can raise the whole world.

Laura will raise many social issues and discuss them openly and honestly based upon her own beliefs and experiences. She welcomes the input of all others, especially those who disagree. Different perspectives are what draw bigger pictures and allow all others to view situations from many angles. Thus allowing them to form their own opinions. She is of the belief that ultimate truth does not exist, that everything is personal perspective and probable outcome.

Nixon Issangya was a gifted author from Africa. He was born and brought up in isolated – SAKILA village of Africa. It is in the northern part of TANZANIA in MERU-LAND area.

His remote village rests between two famous mountains: Mt. Meru and, a snow­crowned peak (Roof of Africa) Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Issangya, couldn’t design of being a writer. He was ambitious his dreams were of becoming a secular singer, an engineer, a musician, an attorney… . And he never dreamed to write or to travel the World as he does today.

He emerged into the world of writers after his first book: Not A Religion. Apart from his first work he has authored seventeen books – And his autobiography of 580 pages – Tell The Nations.

Parts of his autobiography are a free reading example on his Website Johntext Tanzania

New websites will add services for Johntext authors:

johntext.club
johntext.services
johntext.academy

Johntext Authors: Melissa Studdard (USA, Texas), Faraaz Kazi (India, Mumbai), Klaus J Gerken (Canada)

Ethel Morgan Smith (USA), Shweta Kesari (India, Madhya Pradesh), Joygopal Podder (India, New Delhi)

John P Matthew (India), Hans-Jürgen John (Switzerland), Manfred Eichhorn (Baden-Württemberg/Germany)

Martin Becker (Germany), Marta Maciejewska (Poland), Laura Lamarca (United Kingdom), Nixon Issangya (Tanzania)