John leggett biography

John Ward Leggett was an American writer who served as the third director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop from 1970 to 1987.
John Ward Leggett (November 11, 1917 – January 25, 2015) was an American writer who served as the third director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop from 1970 to.
Biography.

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The Writing University

John Leggett, the former director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and co-founder and director of the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, has died at age 97. He died Sunday at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa.

John (Jack) Leggett was born in 1917, in New York, NY. He attended Andover, and graduated from Yale University in 1942, after which he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve until 1945. He was married to Mary Lee Fahnestock from 1948 to 1986. They had three children. He most recently lived in Napa, California, where he long directed the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. He and his second wife, Edwina Bennington of San Francisco, lived in a house designed by one of his sons.

Jack was an editor and publicity director for Houghton Mifflin in Boston throughout the ‘50s, then an editor at Harper & Row Publishing in New York for seven years. In 1969 he became a professor of English and the director of the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, serving in those capacities for nearly twenty years

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Leggett has authored numerous short stories that have been published in periodicals, literary journals, and serialized in Maine newspapers. His short story, The Canfield, was selected for publication in the 2016 Goose River Anthology, a collection of poems and stories from writers across the United States. In addition, he received Maine's Verdi L. Tripp award for fiction in 2015, and Maine's Richard F. Snow award in 2017 for Non-fiction. He is a member of the Maine Writers and Publishers Association and a contributing author to Florida’s Space Coast Writers Guild’s anthology, Love And Rockets. Leggett published his first novel, The Five-Cent Gang, in 2014. Like the kids in this coming of age story, Leggett grew up in upstate New York. The book returns the reader to the 1950s when the normally mischievous deeds of five sixth-graders escalate to a crime of terrible errors. With no solution in sight, they are forced to remain guardians of the secret or face horrible consequences. A young adult version of The Five-Cent Gang (Auggie and the Fat Man) is an adaptation for young

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Leggett, John

Dates

Biography

John Leggett was born November 11, 1917, in New York, NY. He was the son of Bleecker Noel and Dorothy (Mahar) Leggett. Leggett attended Andover, received an A.B. at Yale University in 1942, and served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1942 -- 1945, becoming a lieutenant. He married Mary Lee Fahnestock in 1948, with whom he had three children. They divorced in 1986, and Leggett married Edwina Bennington of San Francisco.

Leggett was an editor and publicity director for Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts from 1950 -- 1960 and an editor at Harper & Row Publishing in New York from 1960 -- 1967. In 1969 Leggett became a professor of English and the director of the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, serving in those capacities until 1987.

Leggett's published writings include Wilder Stone, The Gloucester Branch, Who Took the Gold Away, Ross and Tom: Two American Tragedies, and Gulliver House. His most recent book is A Daring Young Man: A Biography of William Saroyan (New York: Knopf, 2002),