John m glionna biography
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I’m an award-winning journalist who has traveled the world as both a tidningsman and magazine writer. After spending 26 years at the Los Angeles Times, a career that included stints as a utländsk and national correspondent, inom am now a human-interest blogger and literary nonfiction writer looking for new foreign and domestic adventures. My work has been included in such national anthologies as “Best American Sports Writing” and “Best Los Angeles Times utländsk Reporting.” Over the years, I have optioned the film rights to numerous stories and wrote a screenplay for Jon Peters based on my Los Angeles Times story that delved into the subculture of drag queens in Los Angeles. I currently have two film projects in the works: one on the sad and sweet life of a Jewish baker who cooked for the Nazis during World War Two and another on tent boxing in the Australian Outback. As a Seoul-based LA Times utländsk correspondent from 2008 through 2012, my beat covered one-quarter of the world’s water
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No Friday Night Lights
"No Friday Night Lights features a smart, sharp reporter taking us to a place we'd never be able to visit on our own—a place, frankly, we probably wouldn't want to visit. Glionna finds humanity and community there, and occasional glimpses of hope."—Will Leitch, Los Angeles Review of Books
“In his nuanced, deeply reported, and beautifully written book, John Glionna takes us to a tiny town with a rugged past, uneasy present, and uncertain future. Still, the indomitable residents and their high school’s struggling eight-man football team carry on. Glionna reminds us why such towns and teams matter.”—Steve Padilla, editor with the Los Angeles Times
“With a lysergic flair for heart-of-America storytelling, John M. Glionna takes us deep into a football country where few boys are left with what they need to bring a much-needed win to a town on the other side of glory days. Get in the truck an
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Writers’ Wednesday – On The GO! – Rebels and Outliers: Real Stories of the American West (Off-site, KOP)
Writers’ Wednesday – On The GO!
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
5:00 – 5:30 pm – Building open
5:30 – 6:30 pm – Lecture
Speaker: John Glionna, author, and Randilynn Beach, photographer
Title of Talk: Rebels and Outliers: Real Stories of the American West
Book Overview:
Rebels and Outliers: Real Stories of the American West shines a spotlight on the unforgettable characters that author and journalist John M. Glionna has encountered during his more than 30 years crisscrossing the western United States for some of the nation’s top newspapers. With sharp insights, Glionna captures the essence of the modern West through the lives of its most intriguing, unconventional inhabitants. From the struggles of a Navajo Nation police officer grappling with the tension of enforcing laws among her own people to the quirks of a pig farmer who