John Mauk Writer | Teacher

Learn More
About John Mauk "Mauk gives us a world you will find only here,
only here until you set the book aside
and go for a walk. Then you will begin to feel
his world surrounding you."

- Jack Ridl

Learn More
Field Notes for the Earthbound "Maybe that was rock-n-roll’s job -
to drive things to their end, to turn people
and all their contraptions into smoke."

~The Electric Nowhere, John Mauk

Learn More
Field Notes for the Earthbound "They were, like the rest of us, living that horizontal life -
roaming and forgetting, roaming and forgetting."

~The Electric Nowhere, John Mauk

Learn More
About John Mauk “John Mauk’s stories are filled with magic, violence, and wisdom.
Among the blessed and the cursed, the drunks and the perverts,
you will meet a girl who can fly, a belligerent priest,
and the son of a witch."

- Bonnie Jo Campbell

Learn More

John Mauk
Writer | Teacher

Cursed by tenderhearted witches, saved by Nazarene healers, and haunted by brazen lunatics, the characters in Field Notes for the Earthbound yearn to escape the relentless horizon of Northwestern Ohio. These connected stories chronicle an area dying to itself, shedding its magic, and awakening to the highways, bottled beer, and rock-n-roll washing over the Midwestern flatland.

Field Notes for the Earthbound

They would leave the pot, skillet, everything that clanked or banged. They would race through the final hours like spirits, like a passing dream in the sleep of Shawnee children. ~The Full Horizon

Field Notes for the Earth Bound

A Collection of Stories by John Mauk

Field Notes focuses on the far northwestern corner of Ohio—an area that went from dense forest to farmland in a matter of decades. The stories share secrets of the people in and around the small Ohio towns that were, in the mid 20^th century, struggling to manage the big cultural changes rolling at them.

It had been a solid month since his father had died from a massive stroke in the back yard and going on three weeks since his principal explained the bereavement policy, which Warren saw as an exit sign—a polite but clean way to end the droning anxiety of high school. ~The Repo Run

Field Notes for the Earth Bound

A Collection of Stories by John Mauk

Field Notes focuses on the far northwestern corner of Ohio—an area that went from dense forest to farmland in a matter of decades. The stories share secrets of the people in and around the small Ohio towns that were, in the mid 20^th century, struggling to manage the big cultural changes rolling at them.

My mom was a witch. I don’t mean a New Age earth goddess or Wiccan. She wasn’t a peacenik or spiritualist. And she wasn’t retaliating against other religions. Back then, on the open flatlands of Ohio before the turnpike brought the rest of the world zooming through, being a witch was private business. ~The Blessed

Field Notes for the Earth Bound

A Collection of Stories by John Mauk

Field Notes focuses on the far northwestern corner of Ohio—an area that went from dense forest to farmland in a matter of decades. The stories share secrets of the people in and around the small Ohio towns that were, in the mid 20^th century, struggling to manage the big cultural changes rolling at them.

Learn More

The Rest of Us

I can tell just like a dog knows when you’re sick and a horse knows about the winter ahead. I can see a curse from a hundred yards away—the greasy shimmer around all the effort. ~The Blessed

The Rest of Us

John Mauk's second collection of short stories.

John Mauk’s stories are filled with magic, violence, and wisdom. Among the blessed and the cursed, the drunks and the perverts, you will meet a girl who can fly, a belligerent priest, and the son of a witch.

Learn More

Text Books