Across the Miles with Gordy Taylor Series:

012 John Hallwas- Degrees ((bachelors-(1965) masters-(1968) both from Western Illinois University))-

Professor Emeritus-English and Journalism

“A noted public scholar, Hallwas has been on Westerns faculty 34 years, teaching American literature and nonfiction creative writing courses and courses in intellectual history for the Centennial Honors College. He has also served as an archivist at the Malpass Library since 1979. Hallwas has brought historical and cultural insights to the people of Illinois and the Midwest through a wide range of publications, lectures, and workshops focused on literature, history, community life and creative nonfiction. During the 1980s he wrote columns of cultural commentary for several Illinois newspapers. His weekly radio program, Prairie State Journal, which focused on the history and literature of Illinois, was heard over many National Public Radio stations in 1992 and 1993.

The most widely published professor in Westerns history, Hallwas has written or edited more than 20 books and monographs, most of them focused on Midwestern literature or history. He has written introductions to several scholarly editions of Midwestern texts, and he has written dozens of literary and historical articles as well as plays based on Illinois history. Hallwas was also commissioned to write First Century: A Pictorial History of Western Illinois University, for Westerns Centennial celebration.

Hallwas has received a variety of awards and honors, including the Distinguished Professor Award (for excellence in teaching) and the Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award (for career achievement) from WIU, and the MidAmerica Award (for distinguished scholarship) from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. In 2003 he delivered the Inaugural Liberal Arts Lecture at WIU. In 1994, his Spoon River Anthology: An Annotated Edition was selected by Choice magazine as one of the Outstanding Academic Books in America, and in 1996 Cultures in Conflict, co-authored by Roger D. Launius, won the John Whitmer Historical Associations Best Book of the Year Award and the Mormon History Associations Best Documentary of the Year Award. In 1998 The Bootlegger was nominated for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction.”

Dr. Hallwas developed the 8-part documentary on the History of Western Illinois University, called “A History of Western Illinois University in 2007.

In 2008, Dr. Hallwas wrote Dime Novel Desperados.