About Jeffrey Dunn

Creativity, My Take

We are conceived in creativity. As children, we are wired to seek what’s on the other side of this door and over that mountain. If we can’t go physically through the looking glass, we can go imaginatively. In a nutshell, we are by nature curious about anything and everything. We take great pleasure in having our minds blown. We live to build castles only to remodel them or, better yet, completely demolish them and start afresh.

School has taught us to worship the god named Editing. We must tell the Censor in our brains and the Puritan in our souls to get lost. Begone the god of the red pen! Welcome the gods of Meditating, Brainstorming, Drafting, and Revising, gods who rightfully come before Editing.

Remember, creativity isn’t about following an outline or a model. It’s about the clash of ideas, voices, images, forms, even genres. It’s about getting out of our comfort zones. Seek what’s on the other side of that door!

Publications

• Whiskey Rebel (2025)
• Wildcat: An Appalachian Romance (2024)
• Radio Free Olympia (2023)
• Hubcap Collection Plate (2022)
• Dream Fishing the Little Spokane (2017)

Fun Facts

  • In a crowded hospital where cradles were scarce, newborn Jeffrey found his first bed in a Buster Brown shoe box.
  • He was baptized in water that his grandfather Dunn brought back from the Jordan River.
  • On the third day of kindergarten, he seized a fleeting moment—his teacher's distracted glance—and ran for freedom.
  • Richard Brautigan’s 'In Watermelon Sugar' saved his ninth-grade soul.
  • Raised Presbyterian, he has acquired a taste for Buddhism and Collectivism.
  • He is a certified Roman Catholic school teacher with fifteen years’ experience in parochial schools.
  • He has a Ph.D. in English Literature and Culture Studies, the later an experimental, non-departmental Ph. D. certificate program.
  • In the world of intellect, he proudly carries on the legacy of Britain’s Colin MacCabe and Raymond Williams.
  • Standing shoulder to shoulder with Allen Ginsberg, they daringly provoked Lyndon Larouche's supporters in a high-stakes game of snapshot duels.
  • He is dyslexic.
  • He has retired from 41 years of teaching high school English, especially supporting students who struggled with reading and writing and, in general, with graduating.
  • Born in the Midwest and raised in the East, he has become a dyed-in-the wool Westerner.
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