John N Powers

John N. Powers enlisted at age 17 and served as an intelligence operations specialist in Vietnam and Europe. Using the GI Bill, he earned a Bachelor's degree in American history and secondary education and a Master of Science in Teaching degree in elementary education from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. After teaching for thirty-one years, he spent ten more as an emergency room coordinator. In 2002 he began researching the prisoner-of-war history of 203 US Marines captured in north China in December 1941. His wife's father, Platoon Sergeant Harold A. Hoffman, was one of those men. That led to the establishment of the web site northchinamarines. Work on articles about POWs in Korea and Vietnam led to the realization there was no single source for family members of POWs from those wars to find information on camps and conditions in those camps. The book Bean Camp to Briar Patch-Life in the POW Camps of Korea and Vietnam is now that source. The book was named Grand Prize winner in the 2013 Great Midwest Book Festival and winner in non-fiction in the 2014 Best Indie Book Awards.

Powers just completed his second book. The historical fiction novel, Finnegan Found-Survival in the POW Camps on the Yalu, tells the story of prisoners-of-war in Korea through the eyes of Swede, a young farm boy from Minnesota. Recognition for those men is long overdue.

Finnegan Found was selected as a 2020 Finalist in historical fiction by the Independent Author Network. It has also been selected for a Gold Award by Literary Titan. More to come?

John and his wife have three sons and eight grandchildren. They enjoy traveling and playing with the grandkids, activities on hold until the current pandemic is under control. They have been spending time remodeling various rooms in the house, learning along the way it is a good thing they don't do that for a living.