About John Schwartz

After completing in 2013 a fifty-year international career taking him around the world, John Schwartz has been publishing several books, including a memoir coming--of--age story, a romantic novel, a corporate novel with a romantic edge, and two non-fiction works. He also published, in 2017, a booklet entitled 'Audrey - A cherished Memory', which is an updated excerpt of the Audrey Hepburn chapters in 'Some Women I Have Known' (see below), in support of the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund (www.audreyhepburn.com).

"Some Women I Have Known" (published in May 2015), his first book, was inspired by a bet with a cousin, Anne van der Laan, that they could write as well as their great-uncle Josua van der Poorten Schwartz, who wrote in English and became world-famous around the 19th/20th century under the pen name of Maarten Maartens. He was even received by President Ted Roosevelt at the White House in 1907 to talk about his books. One of his volumes of short stories was titled "Some Women I have Known." The cousins "stole" their uncle's title to write stories about exceptional and not so exceptional women they had met while growing up. When Anne prematurely died, John wrote it by himself. The bet is still on.

The title of his second novel "Enchanting The Swan" (also published in 2015) was born at a writing retreat with Michael Neff. The troubled love story of the two main characters, a handsome French-American pianist and a beautiful Belgian cellist, both graduate students at William & Mary, grew from the author's passion for playing classical piano and jazz and listening to chamber music. The novel also reveals his aversion to conformism in nobility and their greed, a world with which the author is quite familiar, and his dislike of overbearing men and women.

"Enchanting The Swan" was reissued by Sun Hill Books as a paperback and Kindle reprint with a new cover on December 8, 2018.

His third novel, "Francine - Dazzling Daughter of the Mountain State," (published by Sun Hill Books in December 2017, both in paperback and KDP Kindle), heralds Francine Boyer's climb of the corporate ladder in a New York-based international mining conglomerate. Born and grown-up in West Virginia, she is the patron of the coal miners and beats the EPA and environmental overachievers in their own game. Why coal and not jewelry? Why "anti-liberal"? Because Francine's story needed to be told! Kirkus called it "A dramatically taut tale propelled by artful characterization and political relevance."

Francine's story was republished by Sun Hill Books in 2019 with a different subtitle, "The Coalminers' Dragon", to emphasize Francine's daring personality in overcoming the threats to the coalminers' livelihoods.

Turning to non-fiction, John wanted to present his great-uncle's authorship to today's readers, by summarizing his thirteen novels and four volumes of short stories, using the author's own writing. Part I (The Novels) was published in August 2015 under the title "Maarten Maartens Rediscovered - The most Popular Dutch Author Abroad," and Part II (His Best Short Stories) in May 2016. Both books have been republished by Sun Hill Books in 2018 and 2019, respectively, and are available on IngramSpark.

End 2019 John published a volume of 12 short stories, entitled "Shiver, Snicker, Schmooze." A fourth novel is in the pipeline, telling the fate of three wealthy brothers of a famed family who self-destruct, with a surprising twist in the family's rebirth.