John Schultz (July 28, 1932 – May 6, 2017) was an American writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was also a teacher of writing, the creator of the
Story Workshop method of writing instruction, and an emeritus professor in the Fiction Writing Department at
Columbia College Chicago. He was born on July 28, 1932, in
Iberia, Missouri
Iberia is a city in southeast Miller County, Missouri, United States. The population was 736 at the 2010 census.
History
A post office called Iberia has been in operation since 1838. The community derives its name from the Iberian Peninsula per ...
, served as an army medic from 1953 to 1955, and then worked in Chicago as a writer and teacher. He died in 2017 at the age of 84 in his home of Riverside, a suburb of
Chicago
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The Story Workshop
Schultz originated the Story Workshop method of teaching writing in 1965. He practiced the method at
Columbia College, teaching many writers and training teachers in the Workshop techniques. The Story Workshop method "focuses on helping you hear your own individual voice and provides a supportive, interactive, and challenging environment for developing your reading, writing, listening, speaking, critical thinking, and imaginative problem-solving capacities." The
Story Workshop Institute was founded to bring the method to elementary and secondary classrooms and other forums for writing instruction.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention
Schultz covered the
1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus maki ...
for the ''
Evergreen Review'' and later wrote ''No One Was Killed'' (1969), a first-person account of his experiences both in the
International Amphitheater
The International Amphitheatre was an indoor arena located in Chicago, Illinois, that opened in 1934 and was demolished in 1999. It was located on the west side of Halsted Street, at 42nd Street, on the city's south side, in the Canaryville nei ...
where the convention was held and on the streets and in the parks of
Chicago
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where antiwar protesters gathered, rallied, and clashed with police.
He also witnessed the subsequent trial of eight participants for conspiracy and inciting riot (the
Chicago Seven
The Chicago Seven, originally the Chicago Eight and also known as the Conspiracy Eight or Conspiracy Seven, were seven defendants—Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner—charged by ...
), which he wrote about in ''Motion Will Be Denied,'' (1972), later republished as ''The Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven''.
List of works
*''The Tongues of Men'' (Chicago: Big Table Publishing, 1969): three short novels and eight short stories
*''No One Was Killed: Documentation and Meditation: Convention Week, Chicago--August 1968'' (Chicago: Big Table Publishing, 1969; reprinted as ''No One Was Killed: The Democratic National Convention, August 1968'', with a new introduction by Todd Gitlin and a new afterword by the author, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009, )
*''Motion Will Be Denied: A New Report on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial.'' (New York: Morrow, 1972; reprinted as ''The Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven'', with an introduction by Carl Oglesby, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020, )
*''Writing from Start to Finish : The Story Workshop Basic Forms Rhetoric-Reader'' (Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1982)
*''The Teacher's Manual for Writing from Start to Finish'' (Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1983)
Notes
External links
An excerptfrom ''No One Was Killed: The Democratic National Convention, August 1968''
from ''The Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schultz, John
1932 births
2017 deaths
Columbia College Chicago faculty
Writers from Chicago
American male writers