Author J.E. Teitsworth in his own words.
I believe a good book should be compelling enough to keep you up late and important enough to shift how you think, feel, or see the world.
Stories are uniquely equipped to build empathy. They let us see inside someone else’s head. That’s why I aim to write about people shaped by hard choices, deep ties, and the quiet struggles of everyday life. The problems they face—social disconnection, mental health, and losing a way of life—are the same ones so many of us face today. While earning my MFA in Creative Writing, I explored dark fantasy, contemporary crime fiction, and personal essays. But the people and problems remained the same.
During graduate school, I worked hard to build a sustainable writing habit, sharpen my storytelling skills, and learn to edit with intention. I also gained a deep understanding of how the publishing industry works. Before I graduated, I had self-published a short story collection and placed work in Flyover Country Literary Magazine, Down in the Dirt, and Blanket Gravity Magazine.
People around me changed when I started taking my writing seriously. They shared their own stories and their secret desire to tell them. I founded a local writing group and helped several members get published. Today, I still coach folks through the writing and publishing process—both in workshop-style classes at a local college and in one-on-one sessions.
Before writing, I masqueraded my way through a tech career, but the truth is, I never fit in. It wasn’t the work. I was good at the work, but I never got comfortable in the cubicle-farm, yes-man culture. The only reason I ended up there was because my four-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia when I was twenty-five. I was broke, desperate, and uninsured, working a low-paying job. Computer skills had always come easy to me, so when I needed a steady paycheck and health insurance, tech was the obvious choice.
What I really wanted to do was create. I’d spent three years in college studying music and English just before the cancer. Before college, I’d already lived a dozen lives: factory lines, warehouses, retail stores, bakeries, restaurant kitchens. I spent my days checking the seals on saltine cracker packages, disassembling pallets, making TV antennas, and unloading trucks. That work was demanding and monotonous—but it gave me an ear for dialogue and a deep respect for the stories of folks I worked with. I leaned into those experiences starting with my earliest writing.
Those jobs reflected the values I grew up with: hard work, follow through, and straight talk. No BS. No mealy-mouthed double-speak I later found that made it so hard to fit into white-collar offices. That’s why I work hard to write direct prose. I want the language to reflect the world I come from.
I grew up in rural Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri in a family of blue-collar men: truck drivers, roofers, and machine operators. Even when they weren’t earning a check, they were producing something. They hunted, fished, and built things in their sheds. I learned to fish before I could write a paragraph. I had my first shotgun before I wrote my first poem. Those early years nurtured my love of nature and wide-open spaces that show up in my stories.
I live with my exceptionally creative wife and youngest daughter in a house full of half-finished art projects. In my free time, I like to be outdoors fishing, kayaking, or walking along the Mississippi river near our home in southeast Iowa. I grew up with a deep connection to the land, and I still feel most like myself in quiet, open spaces.
Maybe the reason I feel so at home in solitary places is that I’m autistic. I try not to bring attention to it, but it’s shaped a lot of who I am—from my quiet, introspective nature to my intense hatred of bell peppers. Growing up, I had a hard time deciphering unwritten social rules, subtext, and my own emotions. I still have trouble with that last one. But I learned stories are a map through those hazy parts of life, and writing helps me find my way.