John Helton
Associate Professor of Practice, The Writing Program
Contact
- GSR 1.112J
- john.helton@utsa.edu
- Personal Website
Bio
John "J.R." Helton has published books on movies, drugs, people, and dogs. He's the author of Bad Jobs and Poor Decisions: Dispatches from the Working Class from Liveright/W.W. Norton in 2018, a memoir based on his 20’s as a young writer and blue-collar worker in the 1980’s in Austin, Texas. He’s published the autobiographical novels Drugs and The Jugheads and the memoir Below the Line on the film business where he worked as a scenic artist on such films as Lonesome Dove and Dazed and Confused. The artist Robert Crumb has painted original covers for three of his books and has stated that “J.R. Helton is my favorite contemporary American writer.” Helton has also published two books in French with 13th Note Editions in Paris, Au Texas Tu Serais Deja Mort and Voyage Au Bout De La Blanche as well as short stories and poetry in Mineshaft Magazine, The Sun, and The Missouri Review and has won a Pushcart Prize. J.R. Helton is a Senior Lecturer in The Writing Program at UTSA where he has been teaching Composition with a focus on visual arguments for 18 years. He has also taught Creative Writing and courses on film for the Honors College at UTSA. His website is www.jrhelton.com.
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