John Schwartz

After completing a fifty-year international career in 2013, taking him around the world, John Schwartz has been publishing several books, including a memoir coming--of--age story, a romantic suspense novel, and a corporate novel with a romantic edge.

In addition, he wrote two non-fiction works about the 13 novels and 4 published short-story volumes by his great uncle, Josua van der Poorten Schwartz, who wrote in English and became world-famous around the 19th/20th century under the pen name of Maarten Maartens. Uncle Joost (his Dutch nickname) was even received by President Ted Roosevelt at the White House in 1907 to talk about his books.

John also published, in 2017, a booklet entitled 'Audrey - A cherished Memory'. The author played with Audrey, a distant cousin, in Holland during World War II when she was still a child (she 13 and he 7), and met her again in Geneva much later in life.

End 2019 John published a volume of 12 short stories, entitled "Shiver, Snicker, Schmooze." which got a resounding critique by Kirkus Reviews.

"Some Women I Have Known" (published in May 2015), his first book, was inspired by a bet with a cousin, Anne van der Laan, that they could write as well as their great-uncle. One of his volumes of short stories was titled "Some Women I have Known." The cousins "stole" their uncle's title to write stories about exceptional and not so exceptional women they had met while growing up. When Anne prematurely died, John wrote it by himself. The bet is still on.

The title of his second novel "Enchanting The Swan" (also published in 2015) was born at a writing retreat with Michael Neff. It tells the troubled and suspenseful love story of the two main characters, a handsome French-American pianist and a beautiful Belgian cellist, both graduate students in banking and law at William & Mary. The story grew from the author's passion for playing classical piano and jazz, his knowledge of the crooked banking world, and his aversion to conformism and greed in European nobility.

"Enchanting The Swan" was reissued by Sun Hill Books as a paperback and Kindle reprint with a new cover on December 8, 2018.

His third novel, "Francine - The Coalminers' Dragon," (published by Sun Hill Books in December 2017, republished in 2019, both in paperback and KDP Kindle), heralds Francine Boyer's climb of the corporate ladder in a New York-based international mining conglomerate. Born and grown-up in West Virginia, she is the patron of the coal miners and beats the EPA and environmental overachievers in their own game. Why coal and not jewelry? Why "anti-liberal"? Because Francine's story needed to be told! Kirkus called it "A dramatically taut tale propelled by artful characterization and political relevance."

Turning to non-fiction, John abridged his great-uncle's thirteen novels and four volumes of short stories, using the author's own writing. Part I (The Novels) was published in August 2015 under the title "Maarten Maartens Rediscovered - The most Popular Dutch Author Abroad," and Part II (His Best Short Stories) in May 2016. Both books have been republished by Sun Hill Books in 2018 and 2019, respectively, and are available on IngramSpark.

A memoir about his career and a fourth novel telling the fate of three wealthy brothers of a famed family who self-destruct, are in the pipeline.