John McNally
Writer-in-Residence and Doris Meriwether / BORSF Professor of English
Ph.D., University of Nebraska at Lincoln
M.F.A., University of Iowa Writer's Workshop
Office: Griffin 346
Phone: 337-482-5503
E-mail: jxm6389@louisiana.edu
Pronouns: he/him
Teaching and Research Areas
Fiction Writing, Screenwriting, Creative Nonfiction, and Contemporary American Fiction
Noteworthy
John McNally has published twenty books, including the forthcoming New and Selected Stories (University of Louisiana Press, 2027). His most recent book is The Book of Ralph: 20th Anniversary Edition (2024), originally published in 2004 by Simon & Schuster’s imprint Free Press; the new edition includes an introduction by the author and 150 pages of bonus stories. John has also published an international thriller The Pinned Butterfly (2023) under the pen name Johnny Mack. He is author of two other novels (America's Report Card and After the Workshop), three story collections (Troublemakers, Ghosts of Chicago, and The Fear of Everything), a memoir (The Boy Who Really, Really Wanted to Have Sex: The Memoir of a Fat Kid), a YA novel (Lord of the Ralphs), and three books about writing (The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist, Vivid and Continuous: Essays on the Craft of Fiction, and The Promise of Failure: One Writer’s Perspective on Not Succeeding). He has edited, guest-edited, or co-edited seven anthologies. John's work has appeared in over a hundred publications, including the Washington Post, the Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Recent stories have appeared in Booth and Starlite Pulp. His fiction and nonfiction have been anthologized in Long Story Short (University of North Carolina Press), New Sudden Fiction (Norton), Don't You Forget about Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes (Simon Spotlight), Winding Roads: Essays in Writing Creative Nonfiction (Longman), and Behind the Short Story: From First to Final Draft (Longman), among others. He has had optioned screenplays (Paramount Pictures), a screenplay in development (Anonymous Content with the producer of Winter’s Bone), a development deal for a series (with the producer of Bone Tomahawk), and commissioned feature screenplays, treatments, and script doctoring from a Norwegian film studio. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award and the recipient of fellowships from Paramount Pictures (Chesterfield Writer's Film Project), the University of Iowa (James Michener Award), George Washington University (Jenny McKean Moore Fellowship), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellowship). John began teaching fiction writing in 1989. He has been Writer-in-Residence since 2013.