Poe Ballantine

Who is Poe Ballantine?

Poe Ballantine is a fiction and nonfiction writer known for his novels and especially his essays, many of which appear in The Sun. His second novel, Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire, won Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year. The odd jobs, eccentric characters, boarding houses, buses, and beer that populate Ballantine’s work often draw comparisons to the life and work of Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac.

One of Ballantine’s short stories, The Blue Devils of Blue River Avenue, was included in Best American Short Stories 1998 and one of his essays, 501 Minutes to Christ, appeared in Best American Essays 2006.

He lives in Chadron, Nebraska with his wife Christina and their son Thomas Francisco.