ACADEMIC
John D. Nesbitt grew up in the farm and ranch country of northern California. He began his college work at Chico State College; he went from there to UCLA, where he received his B.A. in 1971. After that he went to UC Davis, where he earned an M.A. in 1974 and a Ph.D. in 1980. For these degrees, all in English, he studied British and American literature, eventually specializing in literature of the American West and writing his doctoral dissertation on the classic western novel. During that time he had part-time and limited-term teaching positions at Solano College, Yuba College, Sacramento State University, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Davis. He has been a full-time faculty member at Eastern Wyoming College since 1981, teaching courses in basic writing, composition, introduction to literature, the short story, Western American literature, creative writing, and Spanish, all on a regular basis.
From 1978 onward, he has had a wide variety of his own work published—short stories, poems, magazine articles, scholarly articles about literature, and book reviews. He has gained recognition for book publication as well, with short story collections and western novels. He has also written textbooks for basic writing and college composition. In addition to his literary interests, John has maintained an interest in foreign languages. During his university years he studied Spanish and French, and in 1988 he took a semester’s leave to study Spanish at the University of Wyoming. Since then he has taught Spanish at Eastern Wyoming College. In 1994 he went to Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, where he earned a diploma in Spanish philology. In that same year, he won an award for teaching excellence at Eastern Wyoming College.
COURSE MANUALS AND TEXTBOOKS
Blue Book of Basic Writing. This is a course manual/textbook for basic writing courses. It discusses how sentences work, and it covers many of the most common sentence problems. This book is now in its sixth edition, and it has proved very useful for several years in the classroom and also with people who write in everyday writing situations.
Writing for Real. This is a course manual/textbook for college composition. It discusses many of the most common kinds of college writing tasks, such as outlining, summary, paraphrase, definition, classification, narration, description, process analysis, argumentation, and comparison and contrast. This book is now in its second edition.
Understanding Fiction. This is a course manual/textbook for studies in fiction. It covers the elements of fiction (setting, narrative design, characterization, point of view, theme, imagery, genre fiction, relative value) and illustrates the explanations with a collection of stories that have stood the test of time. The volume also has a section on writing about fiction.
Academic Publications
Robert Roripaugh. This is a booklet in the Boise State University Western Writers Series. Its subject is Robert Roripaugh, a noted Wyoming writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry who served as Wyoming’s poet laureate after a distinguished career as professor at the University of Wyominig.
Literary Articles
John has written the following articles and essays for academic journals and reference volumes. If you are interested in any of these and cannot find a copy in your nearest library, please feel free to write.
“Change of Purpose in the Novels of Louis L’Amour,” Western American Literature, Spring 1978, pp. 65-81. Reprinted in Critical Essays on the Western American Novel, (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980), pp. 150-63.
“A New Look at Two Popular Western Classics,” South Dakota Review, Spring 1980, pp. 30-42.
“Louis L’Amour’s Pseudonymous Works,” Paperback Quarterly, Fall 1980, pp. 3-6.
“Louis L’Amour—Papier Mâché Homer?” South Dakota Review, Autumn 1981, pp. 37-48.
Critical Introductions to Zane Grey, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., and Gary McCarthy, in Twentieth-Century Western Writers, ed. James Vinson (Detroit: Gale Research Company,
1982).
“Owen Wister’s Achievement in Literary Tradition,” Western American Literature, Fall 1983, pp. 199-208.
“Cain Hammett’s Bighorn Sheep and Lije Evans’ Dog,” North Dakota Quarterly, Winter 1985, pp. 114-19.
“Uncertain Sex in the Sagebrush,” South Dakota Review, Autumn 1985, pp. 15-27.
“Riding the Grub Line,” Western American Literature, Winter 1987, pp. 349-51.
“Rustling on the Double L,” Western American Literature, Winter 1991, pp. 356-57.
Critical Introductions to Dee Linford, Caroline Lockhart, and Robert Roripaugh; revised and updated entries on A.B. Guthrie, Jr., and Gary McCarthy; reprinted entry on Zane Grey; in Twentieth-Century Western Writers, second edition, ed. Geoff Sadler (Chicago and London: St. James Press, 1991).
“Thomas J. Dimsdale,” Dictionary of Literary Biography 186: Nineteenth-Century American Western Writers, ed. Robert L. Gale (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1997), pp. 87-92.
Reviews
John has written reviews of works on and by Luke Short, Louis L’Amour, Max Brand, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Charles Marion Russell, Will Henry, Elmer Kelton, Will Baker, Gary McCarthy, Peggy Simson Curry, and Gretel Ehrlich. If you are interested in any of these topics or would like a fuller list of reviews, please feel free to write.