My Bio
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John Roundtree
A native of New Orleans, born to parents with an unwonted sense of adventure, I
was dragged, at a youthful age, from the city’s garden district and raised on Bayou
Laforuche. Louisiana’s own version of a Darwinian primordial soup – an exotic
wilderness of small towns, bayous, and wetlands. Here, my father launched his dream
of becoming a publisher... of a local newspaper (built from the ground up) for the
dozens of remote communities in these lower parishes of Louisiana. Soon enough, I’d
learned to write, report, set type, and photograph an occasional story of interest.
Naturally, the most challenging part of my adaptation was to learn to hunt, fight, or
outrun nearly anything that slithered, crawled, or walked. But to quench a parent’s
never ending thirst for amusement, I was later compelled to set aside the pen and
sheathe the knife to discover other worlds beyond this primitive paradise.
Off to college with backpack and motorcycle, completely out of my element and
totally unprepared, I’d encountered a creature more formidable, more dangerous
than any I’d ever wrestled – woman. And wrestle, we did! At every opportunity. I
could not conquer this crafty prey, though I confess the entwined bliss of mind and
body was undeniable. So before graduation, we chose to wed in the university’s
chapel and then together, we began our journey.
With a couple of business degrees and an accompanying commission as an officer
in the United States Air Force, I graduated second in my class in pilot training. And in
the true spirit of Darwinian evolution, I’d somehow crawled out of the turbid broth of
a Louisiana swamp and reached my own evolutionary pinnacle -- Top Gun, a modern-
day fighter pilot. As chief of training in Germany, my squadron received the
distinguished award, “Best in USAFE” (United States Air Force Europe). And when
not instructing on every weapons system the aircraft was capable of delivering, I
performed routine evaluations as a test pilot hurling fighters through space at more
that twice the speed of sound, taking them beyond the realm of controlled flight, and
then safely bringing them back.
A few years, two awesome kids, and still in the company of a wonderful woman. I’ve
somehow found my way back to New Orleans. Oh, I did indeed enjoy slipping the surly
bonds of earth and dancing the skies on laughter-silvered wings, but I’ve since set
aside those toys to become a commercial airline pilot. But like my father, I've also
chosen to follow a dream -- a writer of novel length fiction.
Throughout all these adventures, from high school to the present, I’ve had a
voracious appetite for reading. And, for me, writing has always been an instrument of
both business and pleasure. In a quest to become published, I think all these
experiences have given me a perspective and a voice that I hope readers will come to
enjoy. Darwin once said: “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, not even
the most intelligent; it’s those most adaptable to change.” I’m up to the challenge…
As a new writer on a quest to become published. let’s see where this evolutionary leap
takes us.
~ John