I’ve owned my own bookstore, which was located inside an independent coffee shop. I was an adjunct professor, and despite the limitations due to that status once taught an honors course in role-playing games and identity formation. I’ve worked as a soccer referee, a telemarketer, and as quality control on cell phone tower power amplifiers. I have a PhD in English and was referred to as “Puckish” by an anonymous faculty member in my first-year review. I started the literary journal at Illinois Wesleyan University, Tributaries, and I’m pretty sure I started the tradition of putting books in the upheld hand of the statue outside the library. I’ve been the featured poet at some of the oldest slam venues in the US, and I founded a slam in Central Texas and hosted it for five years. I wrote a book-length poetry manuscript each year in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. I once got 50,000 words into a fantasy novel and then scrapped it (and if I ever go back, I’ll be starting nearly from square one). I design and maintain a Magic: the Gathering cube and designed an 18-card card game in the style of Button Shy’s wallet games. Every once in a while I quietly contribute dialogue and ideas to a bestselling book series that belongs to another author. I have built raised beds in which we gardened in four states. Dogs are family. Logic and empathy are both virtues. Queer rights are human rights. Black Lives Matter. I am the sidekick to my wife, the smart one. I am the prologue to my son, the real novel.
JeFF Stumpo, Author 