John Michael Cummings, author of The Spirit In My Shoes

I'm the author of three novels, two novellas, and more than one hundred short stories. My debut novel, The Night I Freed John Brown (Penguin Group, 2008), won The Paterson Prize for Books for Young People and was selected for Black History Month by USA Today. Ugly To Start With (West Virginia University Press, 2011) was a finalist in the Foreword INDIES Book of Year Award. Don't Forget Me, Bro (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016) was widely excerpted in the Chicago Tribune.

My nonfiction has been published by New York Daily News, The Providence Journal, and The Newark Star-Ledger. My short stories have appeared in Kenyon Review, North American Review, and The Iowa Review. I was a finalist in the Miami University Novella Contest, a semi-finalist in the Winnow Press 2004 First Book Award for Fiction, was twice-nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and received an Honorable Mention in The Best American Short Stories series.

I taught English at Seminole State College of Florida and wrote business news for the Fairfax Times and alternative news for the Utne Reader. I hold a BA in studio arts and graphic design from George Mason University and an MFA in creative writing from University of Central Florida.

My short story collection The Spirit in My Shoes is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press/University of Wisconsin (November 2023).