Hey y'all! John has a blog now, and it's very cool and informative and fun. Check it out:

johntheplantman.wordpress.com

John Schulz spent his formative years growing up in the southeastern United States. He received a BSED in English from the University of Georgia. With the exception of a short time teaching, John has held many important positions that range from garbage truck driver to ornamental plant grower to hardware salesman in rural Alabama. He has been a landscape designer and installer for thirty years. John currently refers to himself as a "landscape artist" and writer.

John possesses a good ear for dialect, a good eye for local color, an ability to remember countless details of his experiences, and complex sense of humor and sensitivity. He has paid attention to southern working men and appreciates their varied and unique lifestyles.

Requiem for a Redneck is a fictional novel created from a compilation of stories, experiences, and observations that John has held on to for many years. He feels that the Redneck culture presents us with a multitude of interesting stories that can only be gathered from the inside.

John's observations on the Southern Redneck: "Rednecks are more than a series of jokes. They are more than a lifestyle; they are a genre. The true redneck knows how to do things. He knows how to work, and he holds a sense of values from generations past. I have always admired people who have the ability to get by when faced with demanding circumstances.

"Hank Williams Jr. wrote a song a while back titled A Country Boy Can Survive. I agree with that. However, there's a bigger world outside of the redneck culture and when the average redneck discovers this, it's usually through some quirk of the rules.

"I am trying to present the redneck as a multi-level survivalist who creatively handles these situations as they are handed to him. That's what makes my story."