John Jeter

Winner of Converse’s Above & Beyond Award in 2017, John Jeter is an adjunct professor in the Music Business & Technology Certificate program. He is a journalist, novelist, playwright, and entrepreneur. In the Upstate, Jeter is best known as co-founder of The Handlebar, a concert venue he owned and operated with his wife, Kathy Laughlin, for 20 years.

As a nationally published author, his books include Rockin’ A Hard Place, a Hub City Press memoir based on his experience as the Greenville club’s talent buyer; The Plunder Room, his debut novel from St. Martin’s Press; and The Lucifer Genome, a co-authored thriller from Brigid’s Fire Press. While working on another novel and a musical, Jeter is also a contract stringer for The New York Times. He spent a month in Italy for a writing residency to work on his stage play, The Last Lynching.

He has traveled to Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Central America, Mexico and Canada, the Caribbean, southern Africa, the Middle East and throughout the United States. Jeter has appeared on Oprah! and in newspapers and radio, as a contributor and a subject.