John Repp

Poet, Fiction Writer

Erie, PA
Pennsylvania US

Author's Bio

John Repp is a writer, folk photographer, digital collagist, voracious reader, baseball crank, film noir and sequential art devotee, music fanatic, collector of ephemera (especially family and found snapshots), and aficionado of Civil War and Reconstruction history, mental hygiene classroom films, Depression-era documentary photography, 1950s/60s American and Japanese popular culture, and the cultural history of the lands bordering the Delaware Bay. A native of the Pine Barrens region of southern New Jersey, he grew up along the Blackwater Branch of the Maurice River and later lived in northern New Hampshire, Michigan's Lower Peninsula, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Crawford Township before settling in Erie, Pennsylvania in 2000. 

Before landing his first full-time teaching position in 1986, Repp worked as a retail clerk, gravedigger, billing supervisor, groundskeeper, egg packer, house painter, storekeeper, export clerk, data processor, woodcutter, typist-for-hire, freelance editor, and part-time university instructor. From the fall of 1991 until retiring in August, 2020, he taught writing at Edinboro University.

Writers Retreats: 

Publications & Prizes

Fiction

Book:
Heart of Joy (March Street Press, 2009)
Chapbook:
The Old West (and Other Tales) (March Street Press, 2001)

Poetry

Books:
Never Far From the Egg Harbor Ice House (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025)
,
The Soul of Rock & Roll: Poems Acoustic, Electric & Remixed, 1980-2020 (Broadstone Books, 2021)
,
Fat Jersey Blues (University of Akron Press, Akron Poetry Series, 2014)
,
Gratitude (Cherry Grove, 2005)
,
The Fertile Crescent (Cherry Grove, 2004)
,
Thirst Like This (University of Missouri Press, 1990)
Chapbooks:
Star Shine in the Pines (Seven Kitchens Press, 2024)
,
Cold-Running Current (Alice Greene & Co, 2020)
,
Madeleine Wolfe--A Sequence (Seven Kitchens Press, 2019)
,
Music Over the Water (Alice Greene & Co, 2013)
,
Big Conneautee (American Haibun) (Seven Kitchens Press, 2010)
,
Fever (Mayapple Press, 2007)
,
No Away (Pudding House Publications, 2007)
,
Time to Get Some Things Straight (March Street Press, 2005)
,
White Doe (Mayapple Press, 2004)
,
Soon (Pudding House Publications, 2003)
,
The Meaning of Rock and Roll (March Street Press, 2002)
Prizes won: 

Akron Poetry Prize (2013) Lyre Prize (2004) Devins Award (1990) NEA Creative Writing Fellowship (1987)

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Vineland, NJ
New Jersey
Raised in: 
Vineland, NJ
New Jersey
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Mar 22, 2025