This conversation originally occurred on my old podcast The Ben LeRoy Show.
John Vercher is the author of Three Fifths and After the Lights Go Out.
More context:
John Vercher lives in the Philadelphia area with his wife and two sons. He holds a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program and served as an adjunct faculty member at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. He currently serves as visiting faculty at Randolph College’s low-residency MFA program in Lynchburg, Virginia, Chatham University’s low-residency MFA program in Pittsburgh, PA, and Drexel University’s low-residency MFA program in Philadelphia, PA.
John has written for Cognoscenti, the thoughts and opinions page of WBUR Boston. Two of his essays published on race, identity, and parenting were featured by NPR, and he has appeared on WBUR’s Weekend Edition. His non-fiction work has also appeared in Entropy Magazine, CrimeReads, Booklist, and LitHub. Additionally, he has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air with Dave Davies.
John’s debut novel, Three-Fifths, was named one of the best books of 2019 by the Chicago Tribune. In the U.K., Three-Fifths was named a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, and The Guardian.
Rights to Three-Fifths have been sold in France, Japan, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Mainland China, and the U.K.
His second novel,After the Lights Go Out, was published by Soho Press on June 7, 2022. French, Swedish, and U.K. rights have also been sold. It’s been called “simply brilliant” by Publishers Weekly in a starred review and “shrewd and explosive” by The New York Times. BookRiot selected the novel as a 2022 Best Book of the Summer, Publishers Weekly included it in their Summer Reads 2022 list, and Booklist named it an Editors’ Choice in Adult Fiction for 2022.