John Claude Bemis
John Claude Bemis grew up in rural eastern North Carolina, where he loved reading, swimming in the swampy creeks around his house, and playing music in youth orchestras and rock bands. He began his writing career as a songwriter with the Americana roots band Hooverville. Through old-time country and blues music, he became fascinated with the way America’s myths have been passed down through songs.
Drawing on the legend of John Henry’s struggle against the stream drill, John began exploring how Southern folklore could be turned into epic fantasy. This passion grew into his first novel, The Mystifying Medicine Show, a story set in a mythical 19th-century America full of hoodoo conjurers and cowboys, battling trains and steamboat pirates. With his M.Ed. in literacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, John teaches the books that he loves to academically gifted elementary students. He lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina with his wife Amy and their daughter Rose.