John P McAfee

Born in Clovis, New Mexico, a town near Roswell, (in 1947 where the UFO crashed--many say that explains so much about his writing.) Attending grade school in Floyd, New Mexico, he has the distinction of being put on probation twice while there. Moving with his mother and brother to Santa Fe, New Mexico, he attended Acequia Madre and lived on Canyon Road where he was first exposed to the writings of W. T. Scott, Poet Laureate of New Mexico, who was the father of his best friend, Joel Scott. After wearing out his welcome with Santa Fe and his mother, who had risen in politics as Grace Evans (and didn't need a wild kid keeping her from climbing the political mountains.) and he was sent with his brother to live on several ranches in West Texas (Alpine, Ft. Davis, and Van Horn)where his father was the foreman and a premier domino player. There the author lived a Huck Finn existence with a baby antelope for a pet who slept in bed with him until it grew too large and it was shipped to Yellowstone National Park as breeding stock. That sale broke the author's heart so he immediately found and raised two baby horned owls, killing jackrabbits daily to feed them.They quickly grew in size and weight and one day while being fed by the ranch owner, they clamored up her arm for balance and got caught in her hair which wasn't pretty. Shipped off to a military school, New Mexico Military Institute, the author spent the next 5 years learning discipline and football and graduated from high school and junior college there. With an ROTC commission, he entered the army as a 2nd Lt. and attended Infantry Officer Basic Course, Airborne School, Special Forces Officer Course, Jungle Warfare school and served with the Green Berets in Panama (8th Special Forces Group) and Vietnam (5th Special Forces Group). Returning from Vietnam, he completed his degree in English and a minor in Spanish at University of Texas at El Paso, he moved to Asheville with his wife, the artist Elizabeth McAfee, (who gave him a wonderful child named Lewis and was a delight and a surprise to all, considering his father) and began teaching English, Drama, and wrestling in various schools in Buncombe County. He retired from teaching and coaching when a building was named the Bryant-McAfee Fine Arts Center which made him realize that when buildings are named for you, you have been there long enough. He currently tries to live and write in Hendersonville, North Carolina and doing poorly as he ages at both.