Lowe, Jack Phillips 1969- (J.P. Lowe)

PERSONAL:

Born August 7, 1969, in Elmhurst, IL; son of Harry (a warehouseman) and Patricia (a bookkeeper) Lowe. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Attended College of DuPage, 1987-90; Elmhurst College, B.A., 1993; Roosevelt University, M.A., 2000. Politics: Independent. Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Films, history, classical/jazz/rock music, comics, martial arts.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—Addison, IL. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Poet. Worked as a clerk in various businesses, Chicago, IL, 1986-93; worked as a salesman in various businesses, Chicago, 1993—; worked as a freelance copyeditor/proofreader, 1998-2003, 2006—. Also worked as a teacher's assistant at Roosevelt University, 1996.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Karl H. Carlson Writing Award, Elmhurst College, 1992, for short stories and poetry.

WRITINGS:

So Much for Paradise (poems), MuscleHead Press, 2000.

Long Form (poems), Free Thought, 2004.

Pariah Tales (short stories), Onzo Imprints, 2007.

Contributor of short stories and poems to various journals and Web sites.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jack Phillips Lowe is an American poet. Lowe has worked a number of clerical and sales jobs while writing his poetry and short stories on the side. The first book of poetry he published was So Much for Paradise in 2000.

In 2004 he published a second book of poetry called Long Form. Laura Stamps, reviewing the collection on the Lucid Moon Poetry Web site, remarked that "if you're in the mood to tackle a collection of poetry from the wild side, poems fertile with some of the most imaginative story lines in the small press today, Long Form is the chapbook you've been searching for." Stamps added that "it is easy to see Lowe has an unmistakable talent for fiction."

In 2007 Lowe published a short-story collection. Pariah Tales is a collection of ten stories with a centralized theme of loneliness or being a loner. Mark Spitzer, writing on the Midwest Book Review Web site, recognized that "Lowe is an innovator and he isn't afraid to experiment with new forms of fiction." Spitzer concluded by saying that "the stories are colorful and imaginative, sometimes realistic but sometimes more along the lines of psilocybin. As a narrator, Lowe still has a lot of energy and he engages his audience, sometimes even slaps us up. And we like it."

Lowe told CA: "My primary motivations for writing are anger, puzzlement, intriguing personalities—or sometimes, just a damn good tale. Call it social psychology on paper. The follies and predicaments human beings keep making for themselves, over and over again, are what particularly influences my work. I am intrigued by the ways in which humanity devolves socially and spiritually, as it evolves technologically, as well as the human being's contradictory cravings for solitude and companionship and his knack for hatred and compassion.

"As for my writing process, sometimes it's like drilling for oil and hitting a gusher; other times, it's like that guy in South Dakota who's been carving a statue of Crazy Horse for the last fifty years, with fifty more years to go. It's a real roller-coaster ride. I once wrote a piece of flash fiction in twenty minutes and e-mailed the one-and-only draft to a literary Web site, which published the piece within a week. Then again, I recently published a short story which I'd been submitting and revising and re-submitting since 1990. The extremes of the process are what keep it interesting.

"If I wanted to be profound, I'd say the place in which God put me in life and the people He connected me to are what inspire me to write on the subjects I've chosen. If I wanted to be honest, I'd mention how my late grandmother often said that, as a young child, I had a penchant for banging my head against walls. It has taken me twenty-five years of scribbling to discover one fundamental truth: the best weapon in a writer's arsenal is the comic's needle. In terms of power, the dramatist's hammer pales in comparison."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

ONLINE

AuthorsDen,http://www.authorsden.com/ (September 26, 2007), Laura Stamps, review of Pariah Tales.

BookIdeas.com,http://www.bookideas.com/ (January 11, 2008), Maurice Williams, review of Pariah Tales.

Free Stories Center,http://www.freestoriescenter.com/ (January 11, 2008), author interview.

Gotta Write Network,http://www.gottawritenetwork.com/ (July 16, 2003), Alicia Karen Elkins, review of Long Form.

Independent Reviews,http://www.theindependentreviewssite.org/ (January 11, 2008), Ralph Haselmann, Jr., review of Long Form.

Lucid Moon Review Poetry Newsletter Online,http://www.lucidmoonpoetry.com/ (February 15, 2005), John Berbrich, interview with the author; (January 11, 2008), Laura Stamps, review of Long Form.

Midwest Book Review,http://www.midwestbookreview.com/ (February 14, 2008), Mark Spitzer, review of Pariah Tales.

Pariah Tales,http://pariahtales.blogspot.com/ (January 11, 2008), author story collection.