John’s career in education spanned over 30 years in a variety of roles including—junior and senior high teacher, director of career services at Seattle Pacific University, and policy analyst for the Washington State Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board. John also has journey-level industrial experience as a furniture maker, and is a past member of the International Woodworkers of America (AFL-CIO). He has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Education from Western Washington University, and both a M.Ed. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington. John and Becky, an artist and also a retired teacher, have been married for over 40 years and reside in Olympia, Washington.
John Knold authored Bluebird Song under the pseudonym Morrison Phelps in an effort to guard against the possibility of his former students mistakenly identifying themselves, or anyone else, as one of the fictitious characters in the story.
He dedicates the profits from Bluebird Song to The Evergreen State College’s Gateways for Incarcerated Youth program, and the profits from Kickback to PFLAG Olympia.
“At age 45, having drifted too far from my original reasons for becoming a teacher, I quit a cushy policy analyst job and returned to the classroom. My colleagues thought I had lost my mind. Teaching young felons, I soon discovered that my work at a state education agency, my two-decades old teacher training, and two graduate degrees were essentially useless. In retrospect, my ten years working with troubled youth were by far the most rewarding, and eye-opening, of a 30-year career.” – John Knold, from the back pages of Bluebird Song
Published by Mud Flat Press:
Bluebird Song – by Morrison Phelps (a pseudonym)
Hotel Fargoan . . . a three-part series by Eileen Torgersen-Smith (a pseudonym)
Book One – A Romance Begins / Book Two – Summer on The Farm / Book Three – A Single White Orchid
Kickback – by Tracy Gunn (a pseudonym)
And soon to be published (in 2022), Johnny’s Jokes – by John Arthur (a pseudonym).