Testimonials: What People Are Saying About Me
I dare you to stop reading a John Glionna story. I know I couldn’t. Every time I hop on board a Glionna story I know I am in for a smart, informative and highly entertaining ride. It’s impossible not to take the journey to the end. His work is a real treat!
— Michael Connelly, New York Times best-selling author of crime fiction
John Michael Glionna may well be the best non-fiction writer in America. His eye for the off-beat and unique coupled with an innate musical ear for language makes Glionna’s writing instantly recognizable and infused with the promise of strange revelation and adventure. I defy anyone to start one of his meticulously-researched stories and not race to the finish. The man is that good.
— Mark T. Sullivan, bestselling author of “Beneath a Scarlet Sky”
Sometimes John Glionna takes you to places you’ve never been. Sometimes he’s in places you know well, mining them for illuminating details you never noticed. His deep reporting and lucid explanatory writing evokes the McPhee school, but he tends to sprinkle his meat and potatoes with a kind of cosmic Flamin’ Hot Cheeto dust from the crinkled bag of his subconscious. Enjoy the burn. And wash hands thoroughly after contact.
— Richard Fausset, New York Times Atlanta Bureau Chief
With his convincing ability to portray one quirky character after the next, I like to think of John Glionna as the Johnny Depp of Journalism — only without the IRS issues.
— Dave Wolthoff, Hollywood filmmaker, producer of movie “Concussion”
A John Glionna byline is a guarantee for an uncommon kind of journalism. You don’t just read a Glionna story. You feel it.
— Scott Harris, freelance writer and former Los Angeles Times columnist
My Dad always said ‘Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.’ I would never call Glionna angelic. But he’s never written a story without a laugh or a wink that allows it to soar. There’s always the magic combination of sweet and salty. Laughs and tears.
— Diana Marcum, author of “the Tenth Island,” Los Angeles Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner
Reading the stories of John M. Glionna is riding shotgun in a dusty muscle car through desert towns, foreign outposts and Lynchian slices of modern America. He takes us where the most human of humans live through triumphs and tragedies and everything in between, the spots where light and darkness are often indistinguishable. A Glionna dispatch is a journey into the unknown with a fearless writer whose bottomless curiosity and insight illuminate street-level, hidden-in-plain-sight tales of mystery and wonder.
— Ed Komenda, USA Today Las Vegas Bureau Chief
There are writers, especially newspaper writers, who are formed from a certain mold. Then there are those rare, talented few who break that mold. And then there’s John Glionna. With an eye that sees what no one else is even aware of, he’s captivated readers with unlikely tales including of a phone booth still operating in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Or his insane stroll where no one else dared to tread after a nuclear meltdown in radioactive Fukushima, Japan. Or going whack-about with Australian bush boxers in the deep outback. No doubt more than a bit nuts and beyond question one of the nicest guys you’ll ever encounter.
— Bruce Mcleod, former Los Angeles Times night foreign editor
Pulitzer prize winning poet-playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay once said, ‘A person who writes…willfully appears before the populace with his pants down.’ That’s John Glionna. No bullshit. No cover. Just naked observation translated into the right words. Read him and you’ll see what I mean.
— Ardith Hilliard, former Los Angles Times editor and book editor
John Glionna is a kind of Ernie Pyle of modern America— parachuting into stories fearlessly, writing what he sees, and letting the chips fall where they may. Like an old wire service reporter.
— Tom Morphet, former publisher of the Chilkat Valley News in Haines, Alaska
When I think of John Glionna and his work, two things stand out: his knack for mining unique and interesting story ideas and his ability to report and write them in a detailed, literary manner. Though largely objective, his stories are always emotional. Over the past several years, Glionna has proven to be one of the best feature writers working in the American West.
— Matthew O’Brien, author of “Beneath the Neon”
Some writers have a gift for finding a story. Others have a gift for writing it. John Glionna has both. He’s like a duck gliding serenely on the water; he may be furiously underneath the surface, but he makes it look easy”
— Kari Howard, former editor at the Los Angeles Times
A long, long time ago, John came to me to ask for some time off, problematic to the city desk schedule. He will remember that in our negotiations, I solemnly told him:
— Darryl Levings, former city and national editor for The Kansas City Star
“John, the world does not revolve around you. It revolves around The Kansas City Star.”
Now, though, I’m not so sure he wasn’t right. Although I’ve been a half continent away, I’ve been aware of some his travels and have been impressed by the energy of this refuse-to-get-old fart. Covered a lot of ground, he has. His interests range wide and his empathy runs deep. He is a man of stories. And I need to soon have a beer with him and hear a few fresh ones.
Glionna’s stories are the work of a craftsman at the top of his game
— Mike Anton, former journalist for the Los Angeles Times
Whether he’s writing about cantinas, casinos or cannabis clubs, Glionna’s one of the great chroniclers of the contemporary American West, an ink-stained wretch amid the sagebrush and shopping outlets.
— Patrick Jospeh, Editor-in-Chief, California Magazine, UC Berkeley
John Glionna is a great reporter and an exceptional storyteller. He has the unique ability to persuade people to divulge their innermost secrets. He simply won’t come back alive without the real story.
— Rick Barrs, former editor at the Los Angeles Times and at LA and Phoenix New Times
Kind, compassionate, and funny. That’s how I describe John Glionna.
— Francine Orr, staff photographer, Los Angeles Times
It has been a privilege to work with John on a number of occasions, but working with him on the story about Dolores Westfall, a 79 year old woman driving cross-country looking for work was a gift. His story “Too Poor To Retire And Too Young To Die,” changed Dolores’ life. She was overwhelmed by reader reaction. People volunteered to help. Some donated. Others offered her jobs and housing. At the end of Dolores’ life John brought her peace through friendship and through his exceptional writing. Dolores knew she was not alone.
John Glionna makes it real. Prepare to be be swept away, carried off to a place you’ve never seen or an experience you’ve never felt. He has the gift of making you believe you’re there, seeing it and feeling it with him. Get ready to enjoy the ride!
— Dierdre Wolownick, author of “the Sharp End of Life: A Mother’s Story”
John Glionna is a shoe leather reporter who writes like an angel. Give him a single city block and he will find a dozen new stories before the day is out. I read everything with his byline on it because I’m guaranteed to learn something.
— Tom Zoellner, author of New York times best-selling book “An Ordinary Man”
John Glionna can make a story sing, tap-dance, and recite “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” backwards. Whether he’s traipsing into a blazing California forest with weary firefighters or waltzing around the Australian outback with itinerant pugilists, he tells a tale that’s warm, engaging, and true.
— Steve Chawkins, former Los Angeles Times reporter and obituary writer
The Las Vegas Review-Journal nominated a series of John’s feature stories for a Pulitzer Prize. He has few peers as a writer and reporter, but what really sets his work apart is his gift for finding incredibly compelling stories in places few journalists are willing to look.
— Glenn Cook, executive editor, vice president-news, Las Vegas Review-Journal
At its finest, the press provides us with what the great Washington Post writer Alan Barth called “the first rough draft of history.” John Glionna provides us with a great first draft, but he does more than that. He tells great stories, and he writes them beautifully as well. Read, learn, and enjoy.
— Michael Green, Associate Professor of History, UNLV
In an era when most correspondents are just mimicking what others write, John is the singular reporter I know always emerges from any assignment with the most unique and memorable piece of writing that will stand the test of time in the tradition of Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.
— Steve Herman, White House Bureau Chief, Voice of America
I have spent many hours lost in John Michael Glionna’s writing. He makes his craft seem so easy.
— Joe Ekdahl, former editor at Los Angeles Times
Readers often tell us how much they enjoy reading John Glionna. They love his knack for uncovering gems n the Nevada Outback. think of Ernie Pyle’s profiles of soldiers during World War II; Glionna reveals the character of the desert one colorful inhabitant at a time.
— Mike Hengel, Editor of the Ruralite magazine
John M. Glionna doesn’t just write, he lives. And we get to go along with him on his adventurous, fun, thoughtful life and meet the whales of interesting characters.
— Joe Parnell, “The Feltist, artist, performer and bear impersonator
Can John Glionna write about anything? Probably. It’s difficult to imagine a topic … a news event… a profile ….that would not benefit from his inspection, introspection, reporting and writing. During a long, storied career at the L.A. Times, he wrote about “The American Taliban” (John Walker Lindh), San Francisco cab drivers feeling the pinch of a dot-com collapse, a random slaying that led to the demise of what had been one of L.A.’s most vibrant neighborhoods, comedian-turned actor Mike Myers, police department corruption, presidential primaries, high school basketball stars who happen to be twins, and “South Korea’s biggest cold case.” He worked as a feature writer in Los Angeles and as a national and foreign correspondent, handling all sorts of assignments as only John Glionna can – with great enthusiasm, dexterous writing and, when appropriate, an impressive devotion to defying conventional wisdom.
— Alice Short, Los Angeles Times editor
John can make a shopping list worth reading. Imagine how much fun you will have following him through the glitter of reality.
— Michael Muskal, former Los Angeles Times reporter
There is no one better at setting a mood in a story and bringing to life the complicated characters that most other reporters miss. John has a unique ability to be irreverent without meanness. Instead, the joy he feels is for the people and places he explores is infectious.
— Jenny Deam, reporter, Houston Chronicle
John gives life and texture to the short and simple annals of uncommon common folk, using his extraordinary eye and eloquent voice to tap into a mother lode of compelling stories from the Nevada desert to small town Alaska to the traffic-strangled streets of Beijing. His stories focus readers on personalities, places and rhythms of life they might not otherwise embrace. And John’s storytelling is addictive, leaving you hungry for another tale after each one you finish.
— Ed Boyer, former Los Angeles Times writer and editor
I’ve read a lot of top-drawer non-fiction in 40 years as a journalist and media critic. At the very top of that splendid work come the stories of John M. Glionna. Whether in the Australian Outback, a foreign capital or a forgotten suburb, John reports like a demon and writes like an angel. The stories that result inevitably cry out with joy, insight and humor. Plus, he’s sexy as all get out.
— James Rainey, Los Angeles Times reporter
Glionna serves us engaging stories about roustabouts and romantics. Dudes with BO and beer breath. And wistful dreamers true to their own peculiar calling. They have honor and loyalty. They throb with life. Glionna treats them with dignity and respect. He is a restless, aging bad boy and a joy of a friend.
— Ray Tessler, former editor at the Los Angeles Times
Seeing John’s byline is a signal that you’re in for a true journalistic treat.
— Dave Bowman, copy editor, Los Angeles Times
John M. Glionna is endlessly creative. He generates more and better story ideas than anybody I have ever met. His prose *moves* with great energy; every note is super-clear. The work is filled with attentive affection for people – and for settings, too. I am always left with a happy buzz when I finish one of his stories, no matter the topic, just because of the way he wrote it.
— Robert Basil, online publishing guru and Professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University
John celebrates our collective similarities by connecting urban readers with denizens of far-out places who reside beyond the highway exits many readers only see on road trips. With his uncanny literary flair, John peels away the stale formulas for reporting on the pastoral and parochial to reveal hardships, happiness, and coincidence in the hinterlands. Without a cloying veneer, his journalistic oeuvre consistently delivers the much-needed message that celebrity isn’t requisite of good storytelling.
— Kyle Roerink, former political journalist and Congressional staff member-turned rural Nevada water advocate
John M. Glionna is the master of the seemingly obvious but totally unexpected feature.
— Donald Kirk, South Korea-based freelance reporter
When I read John’s writing about his trips to China, I am on that trip, cringing, laughing, moved and learning. I never miss a line he writes.
— Deryn Warren, film director and author
Glionna finds stories others walk right by and tells them so well you barely know a story has been told, even though you’re smiling or all teary eyed or can’t sleep because he’s lodged some idea or image or little detail deep in your brain.
— Bob Sipchen, former Los Angeles Times writer, columnist and book author
Often, if I’m captivated by the page-turning pace, revealing details and compelling characters of a nonfiction piece, I’ll check the byline and, indeed, the writer is John M. Glionna. His topics intrigue and please with unexpected perspective, deep emotion and well-researched facts. Every article is a showpiece.
— Kristina Sauerwein, senior medical sciences writer, Washington University School of Medicine
I always know when I’m reading John Glionna. Each dispatch from around the country is told with urgency, empathy and, often, humor. Not only does John capture the distinct rhythms of time and place, he weaves the small but important details of people’s lives into powerful stories that stay with you for a long time, whether it’s the 80-year-old who’s too poor to retire but too young to die, the civil rights lawyer seeking to commemorate lynchings or the madcap shoppers at a one-of-a-kind grocery store in Berkeley, California.
— Jessica Guynn, senior technology writer, USA Today
I’ve known John since the 1980s, when we worked on a story on murder for The Kansas City Star. He was a font of great ideas, full of energy, a guy with an eye for the memorable quirks and characters that enliven life. Sometimes he sends me drafts of his pieces, and I’m always surprised, thinking, How’s he come up with this stuff? Even after all these years, he’s still pushing, working to improve his craft, still on the lookout for the fresh idea that’s occurred to nobody else… My only complaint is that he keeps hitting on my hottie wife. He looks into her eyes and when he thinks I’m not listening, he says, “I can take you away from all this.
— Tom McClanahan, former Kansas City Star reporter and editorial writer, Midwest writer and editor
John Glionna is the sort of stylized writer other writers read. We marvel at the yarns he comes up with — the characters he introduces to us, the unlikely places he takes us, the tales that the rest of us can only hope to stumble upon. I still remember stories Glionna wrote many years ago: youngsters taking boats along a jungle river to get to school. The South Korean farmer’s love for his cow. Teen-agers waiting to the last moment to jump off railroad trestles into water along the Southern California coastline as an Amtrak train whooshes by. I never tire of Glionna pieces, and can hardly wait to read the next one, and the one after that.
— Tom Gorman, one-time Los Angeles Times writer and editor, former executive editor, Las Vegas Sun
John Glionna writes with verve, style, humor and insight. I’ve followed his work for more than 20 years and am repeatedly dazzled. He has an impeccable sense of how to pace a story and a keen eye for small, revealing details. (I think he could write about grass growing and produce a splendid read.) He’s a stellar reporter and writer, a master at his craft.
— Ellen Whitford, former reporter, inveterate reader
John M. Glionna’s stories are compelling, lush in detail and tell something about the human condition. Glionna makes the most difficult aspects of the craft look easy: He captures expressions, conversations and scenes that are easy to miss. He embeds not as a friendly but as a silent character mining emotions. Then he orchestrates his findings and makes them sing something majestic. Some reporters are diggers who can’t write, while others are poseurs who don’t have the facts down. Glionna is a rare, double-barreled beast who has become a true master of nonfiction storytelling.
— Dennis Romero, reporter, NBC News, Los Angeles
John Glionna’s lambent prose and astute observations never disappoint, ranging from politics and plastic surgery to fundamentalism and honky-tonks. He makes the quotidian sparkle and is the master of features, getting people to share their stories and quirky perspectives, while giving them voice with exceptional empathy. He is old school in all the right ways — resourceful, dogged, skeptical and witty in challenging assumptions and stereotypes in ways that bring the world into sharper focus.
— Jeff Kingston, book author, essayist and Director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Tokyo
Every time I read a story by John Glionna, I leave feeling like I’ve known the characters for years. He has a special way of bringing out the humanity in the people he profiles. And the best part: They’re usually ordinary people that might otherwise be overlooked in society.
— Jackie Valley, award-winning reporter for NVindy political website
John’s stories are like those “off-the-menu” items at a restaurant that regulars know to ask for and are rewarded with the chef’s unique and interesting dishes that melt on the palate. He is a storyteller who finds those quirky stories and tells them in such a way that illuminates small pockets of the world while informing us a little bit about ourselves at the same time.
— David Montero, Los Angeles Times Las Vegas Bureau Chief
Like the great western artist, C.M. Russell, John Glionna is a western word painter, but where Russell incorporates words into his paintings, Glionna creates portraiture with words. His November 2015 profile, “Gay Scholar Reclaims Place in the West”, would be among his last for the Times and it only occurs to me now that he held it back for that very purpose. Today it remains my finest calling card.
— Gregory Hinton, writer, historian and curator of LGBTQ western history
John Glionna tells stories with compassion, empathy and, when appropriate, humor. He discovers tales that others might miss and dives in with abandon. Reading Glionna, I’ve learned about wild horses in the American West, workers displaced by the Great Recession who eke out a living by traveling around the country, efforts to help orphans in China and Romania, and only-in-Vegas stories that include a museum with mob memorabilia, such as a “Chicago typewriter”—a violin case that holds a hit man’s gun. Another favorite: Vegas street performers dressed as superheroes or, if we’re not so lucky, in a diaper and cooing like a baby at passersby. Let’s hope that last one really stays in Vegas. Glionna is a gleeful tour guide and a consummate story teller.
— Connie Stewart, retired Los Angeles Times Assistant National Editor
Remember the great movies of the 1970s — Deliverance. All the President’s Men. Dog Day Afternoon. They were slow, allowing character development. They were gritty, unflinching in their realism. And they were well-crafted. John Glionna writes like that.
— Michael Lasher, capital defense attorney and author
John Glionna, a poet poured over a bowl of Alpha-Bits in the early morning light.
— Ann O’Neill, former enterprise reporter, CNN
John’s reporting mixes a little gonzo with a lot of shoe leather and careful listening to produce journalism you don’t want to miss.
— Jim Schachter, vice president-news at WNYC public radio in New York
John Glionna is one of the most imaginative and versatile journalists I’ve had the pleasure to work with and learn from. He’s a master stylist, intrepid reporter – foreign or domestic – and consummate collaborator with qualities that lift him above most peers and make him great at our craft: astute powers of observation and natural empathy. Because people are at home with John, he can deliver captivating tales of human courage and quirks, tragedy and comedy.
— Charles Piller, former Los Angeles Times reporter, now investigative correspondent, Science Magazine
Literary journalism balances explicit and subtle. News photos show crashes. John writes how things come together. Photographers cover flames. A Glionna feature covers what’s burning. He’s a war correspondent in a battle of the mundane. A news editor could say, ‘Glionna, there’s a guy with a palm tree in his yard. See what you can find out.’ John would come back with something. Nobody was ever sorry they read a Glionna story, and nobody else has been able to write one.
— Pancho Doll, a recovering journalist who publishes a national series of hiking guides to remote swimming holes named Day Trips with a Splash
When I pick up one of John Glionna’s stories, I often find myself reading it in one sitting, no matter how long it is or how busy I may be. I need to read the ending. He’s an engaging storyteller.
— Yuri Nagano, investigative reporter and producer
If you want evidence that John Glionna is the real deal, consider this: He’s been banned from the Berkeley Bowl (grocery store). That means something.
— Andrew Morse, Bay Area tech journalist and former Wall Street Journal correspondent
Reading Glionna is seeing Glionna. He pays attention to those often-overlooked nuance of gesture, place and time and wraps his sentences up into short paragraphs covered with an amazing sauce. Reading his stories is like consuming amazing dollar-tacos from some street vendor. Damn, they are delicious! Give me ten, please.
— Tom Szalay, photographer and teacher
Mix up Mary Shelley and Wolfman Jack and you’ve got yourself John Glionna, a howlingly good storyteller and companionable journo road warrior.
— Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times political writer
John Glionna is a blessing for an editor. He bursts with ideas, which he knows how to corral into an entertaining or thought-provoking or memorable tale. He’s a pro.
— Julie Ryan Green, former features editor, Los Angeles Times
John Glionna and I started out together as young reporters at the Los Angeles Times on the same day, July 5, 1989. I have been an admirer since. John’s writing is rich and full. That writing is rooted in relentless reporting that’s tied to boundless curiosity. As a result, his stories are a catalogue of what it means to be, in every sense, human — more, to be fully, thoroughly alive.
— Alan Abrahamson, investigative online sports journalist and former NBC Olympics correspondent
John Glionna is a wordsmith with a feel for vast settings. His sentences flow like an Olympic skater over ice. When I’m struggling with one of my deeper stories, he is my wordsmith go-to guy. I doubt I’m alone.
— Tom Shanahan, sportswriter and author of book “Raye of Light”