John has taught high school health classes and coached basketball as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya; written award-winning stories on education, crime, and other community issues as a newspaper reporter in Virginia; and coordinated a program that trained undergraduate creative writing students to mentor at-risk seventh graders in Georgia. In addition to writing grants for AchieveMpls, John teaches writing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Georgia College.