author
John Gallishaw
b. 1890
A war veteran turned writing teacher, he drew on remarkable firsthand experience to create vivid books about World War I and later helped aspiring authors develop their craft. His life moved from Newfoundland to Harvard, the battlefield, and eventually the world of publishing and screenwriting.
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About the author
Born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, John Gallishaw was a Canadian writer and teacher whose life took several dramatic turns. He studied at Harvard, but the First World War interrupted his education and sent him into military service. Accounts of his career note that he served in more than one army during the war and was seriously wounded, experiences that later shaped some of his best-known writing.
Gallishaw is remembered for war books including Trenching at Gallipoli and The Man Who Got Even with God, works that drew on the intensity and hardship of combat. After the war, he also became known as an educator, founding the John Gallishaw School of Creative Writing, first in Cambridge and later in New York.
His career widened beyond books. He published criticism and instructional writing, and he also worked for the theatre, radio, television, and Hollywood studios. That mix of battlefield witness, literary ambition, and practical teaching gave his work an unusual range and helped make him a memorable figure in early 20th-century writing.