J.A. Moad II is a writer,  performer,  speaker, veteran and  pilot.  Advocate for the stories that cut deep—writing that makes us bleed. Crafting words to remind us that we are all human, struggling to find meaning and acceptance, strength and resilience as we break ourselves against the world, each of us with a hungered yearning for expression and a shared desire for those elusive, indefinable truths conveyed through the art of story. A former Air Force C-130 pilot with over a hundred combat sorties. He wrote and performed his award-winning play, Outside Paducah - the Wars at Home in which he was nominated for Outstanding Solo Performance by the New York Innovative Theater Awards (NYIT).  He was a finalist for the McKnight Fellowship in playwriting and is the recipient of the Consequence Magazine Fiction Award. He has performed at The Library of Congress and The Guthrie Theater in The Telling Project - Giving Voice to the Veteran Experience. He served as an English Professor at the United States Air Force Academy and continues to serve as an editor for their international journal, War, Literature & the Arts (WLA). His short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. He currently resides in Northfield, MN where he writes, lectures, and performs throughout the country while continuing to fly for a major airline.