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John Donohue has been banging around dojo for more than 30
years. He's an expert on the study of the martial arts.
Fascinated with the themes of human action and potential he
uncovered in his research, John began thinking about the fictional
possibilities inherent in the world of the martial arts. He began
working in earnest on Sensei , the first Connor Burke thriller, in
2000. It was released in 2003 ( a paperback edition followed in
2004). The sequel, Deshi, was published in 2005 (paperback in
February 2006).
The third "burkebook," Tengu, will be published in Fall 2008.
Current writing projects include the fourth installment of the
adventures of Burke and Yamashita (Kage), a new series Wave
Man, as well as a non-fictional memoir of martial arts training,
Lessons from My Sensei.
John has always been fascinated with other cultures and was
attracted to the Asian martial disciplines because of their blend of
philosophy and action. He began studying Shotokan Karatedo in
college. He joined practical training with more formal education,
completing a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the State University of New
York at Stony Brook. His doctoral dissertation on the cultural
aspects of the Japanese martial arts formed the basis for his first
book, The Forge of the Spirit . (For links to this or any of the books
listed on this page, click here.)
John has worked in the hospitality, advertising, and publishing
industries, but for the bulk of his non-writing career he has been a
higher education professional, working as both a teacher and senior
level manager at a number of colleges--strapped, as he says, to the
wheel of administrative karma (for further information, click here.) .
During that time he continued to think about and do martial arts. He
wrote Warrior Dreams: The Martial Arts and the American
Imagination as a companion piece to Forge of the Spirit . Always
interested in the spiritual dimension of martial training, he wrote
Herding the Ox: The Martial Arts as Moral Metaphor . Fascinated
with the process of learning the modern Way of the Sword (kendo),
he wrote Complete Kendo . He recently edited a book of martial
arts readings, The Overlook Martial Arts Reader, Vol. 2.,
published in 2004 John is also the author of many articles on the
martial arts (to see a complete list, click here ). Fusing the way of
the pen and the way of the sword, while writing John has trained in
the martial disciplines of aikido, iaido, judo, karatedo, kendo, and
taiji. He has dan (black belt) ranks in both karatedo and kendo.
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Because you can't work all the time:
my wife and I kayaking
on the NIagara RIver
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John Donohue
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