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 from Seven Stories Press and the memoir Below the Line on the film business. 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.