John Glynn

John Glynn is the author of five novels that explore human resilience, belonging, and the search for meaning against landscapes both harsh and beautiful. His work is marked by an abiding fascination with place—whether the sapphire waters of Australia’s coastline, the raw wilderness of Southern Africa, or the icy solitude of a Nordic winter—and how those environments shape the choices and inner lives of his characters.

His debut, Twofold, is set along the dramatic Sapphire Coast of New South Wales, where two men on the brink of collapse are drawn together in friendship and renewal. Transfrontier traverses three continents, following a photographer obsessed with the dream of linking national parks into a vast wildlife corridor, forcing him to examine truth, memory, and the images he creates. Refolding the Calyx moves into the near future, where climate upheaval and social fracture force a disparate cast of characters to confront their stories, their walls, and their fragile hopes for connection. Separate Journeys unfolds aboard a ferry bound for the Arctic Circle, testing one man’s endurance as the storms of the Norwegian Sea collide with the turbulence of his inner life. In Borrowed Times, John Glynn delves into history, tracing a young Englishman from a war-shaken boarding school into the ambiguous moral landscapes of colonial Southern Rhodesia, where questions of loyalty, complicity, and belonging come sharply into focus.

Recurring throughout his work are themes of exile and return, landscapes as mirrors of the spirit, and the tension between holding on and letting go. His writing is deeply attentive to the natural world, balancing intensity of place with intimacy of character.

John Glynn lives in Sydney, Australia, where he is at work on his sixth novel. When not writing, he pursues his love of travel and the outdoors, often drawing inspiration from the environments and cultures he encounters.