John Arends is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright, poet and journalist. In 2018, he was part of the inaugural class of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s content accelerator Imagine Impact. He was one of six writers selected for the second annual Black List Screenwriting Lab in Las Vegas. Arends’ screenplay TRICE was a top 30, 2-time semifinalist in the Academy Nicholl Fellowships. It’s inspired by the true story of Iowa State football player Jack Trice–the first and still only African-American to have a major collegiate football stadium named in his honor.

John and his wife Anne, live in the Fox River valley west of Chicago. “Sinew” is his first published collection of poetry.