Poe Ballantine currently lives in Chadron, Nebraska. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Sun, Kenyon Review, and The Coal City Review. In addition to garnering numerous Pushcart and O. Henry nominations, Mr. Ballantine’s work has been included in the anthologies The Best American Short Stories 1998 and The Best American Essays 2006.
Biography
Titles
For readers who prefer madcap to claptrap, quixotic pranks to neurotic angst, Poe Ballantine is a literary tonic: Bittersweet, potent, and peculiarly entertaining.
- Tom Robbins
Eddie Plum, who insists he’s been unjustifiably committed to a California psychiatric hospital, manages to finally escape after fourteen years of incarceration to start his life anew. On the run, he holes up in a sheltered barrio on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean owned by his wealthy but...Forward
Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere:
A Memoir
- Introduction by Cheryl Strayed
- nonfiction / memoir
This is his best book ever.
- Cheryl Strayed
- Author of Wild
For well over 20 years, Poe Ballantine traveled America, taking odd jobs, living in small rooms, and trying to make a living as a writer. At age 46, he finally settled with his Mexican immigrant wife in Chadron, Nebraska, where they had a son who was red-flagged as autistic. Poe published four...Forward
Things I Like About America
- nonfiction / essays
A modern-day Kerouac.
- Mark Jude Poirier
- Author of Goats
Poe Ballantine’s risky personal essays are populated with odd jobs, eccentric characters, boarding houses, buses, and beer. He takes us along on his Greyhound bus journey through small town America (including a detour to Mexico), exploring what it means to be human. Written with piercing...Forward
God Clobbers Us All
- fiction
A wry and ergoty experience.
- Gobshite Quarterly
Set against the decaying halls of a San Diego rest home in the 1970s, God Clobbers Us All is the shimmering, hysterical, and melancholy account of eighteen-year-old surfer-boy orderly Edgar Donahoe and his struggles with romance, death, friendship, and an ill-advised affair with the wife of a...Forward
Poe Ballantine is a writer with a keen ear and a blistering wit.
- The Austin Chronicle
“It’s impossible not to be charmed by Edgar Donahoe” (Publishers Weekly), and he’s back for another misguided adventure. When Edgar is expelled from college for drunkenly bellowing expletives from a dorm window at 3:00 a.m., he hitchhikes to Colorado and trains as a cook. A postcard arrives...Forward
501 Minutes to Christ
- nonfiction / essays
Name five books and/or authors we all need to read? Poe Ballantine’s exquisitely funky 501 Minutes to Christ.
- Tom Robbins
- Author of Jitterbug Perfume
Poe Ballantine’s second collection of personal essays follows in the tradition of Things I Like About America. Stories range from “The Irving,” which details Mr. Ballantine’s diabolical plan to punch John Irving in the nose after opening for him before an audience of 2,000 that launched the...Forward
Readings and events
There are currently no events featuring Mr. Ballantine on the calendar.
News
Poe Ballantine interviewed by Ken Jones, Host of Between the Covers, KBOO
Host Ken Jones talks with Poe Ballantine, author of the new book Whirlaway: The Great American Loony Bin, Horseplaying & Record-Collecting Novel, published by Portland’s Hawthorne Books.
Poe has...Forward
OTHERPPL with Brad Listi interviews Poe Ballantine
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers. All episodes—hundreds of them—are available for free. Listen via iTunes, Stitcher, iHeart...Forward
Mud, Formula and Effervescence: 10 Rules for Good Writing from Poe Ballantine in Writer’s Digest
Poet, novelist and short story writer W. Somerset Maugham said there are three rules to writing, but no one knows what they are. Funny, but not true. I’ve published seven books and hundreds of...Forward
Poe Ballantine’s novel Whirlaway included in Bend Magazine‘s 4 Books to Read This Spring
4 BOOKS TO READ THIS SPRING
Written by Jennifer Forbess
New reads for spring suggested by COCC writing instructor Jennifer Forbess.
Whirlaway
by Poe Ballantine
People can often seem on the surface...Forward
The Nervous Break down runs an excerpt from Poe Ballantine’s novel, Whirlaway
“At twenty-seven years old I was not emotionally equipped for living under lock and key behind sixteen-foot cyclone fences and having my ass stabbed every three days with drugs that turned my brains...Forward
On the Hawthorne Books Blog
There are currently no posts concerning Mr. Ballantine on the blog.
Elsewhere