John J. Lennon on Muck Rack

John J. Lennon

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Incarcerated journalist writing from Sing Sing. 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. Author of THE TRAGEDY OF TRUE CRIME.

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John J. Lennon’s Biography

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Born in 1977, John was raised in a Brooklyn housing project by a single mother who made money with hot dog stands to send him to private prep schools. He attended the Malcolm Gordon School for boys, a presitigous boarding school near Bear Mountain, where he lived in a mansion on the Hudson River with about 25 other privileged boys. In seventh grade he place second in a writing contest (his only accomplishment until 20 years later in prison, where he'd rediscover his passion). As John was about …

Articles

Happy Mother’s Day, from Prison

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By John J. Lennon Verified
| Esquire Singapore Verified
The author with his mother in the late 80s. When I called my mother one afternoon from Sing Sing, she told me that her aide, a woman I’ll call Rosa, had pulled a mortgage scam and put her name on the deed to Mom’s Fort Lauderdale condo. Mom also claimed that Rosa was poisoning her. If she died, Mom made me promise, I must demand an autopsy. “Ma, please, stop,” I said. “Listen to me, I’m not crazy,” she said. “Don’t you betray me and take her side, John . .
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Happy Mother’s Day, from Prison

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By John J. Lennon Verified
| Esquire Verified
29 min read When I called my mother one afternoon from Sing Sing, she told me that her aide, a woman I’ll call Rosa, had pulled a mortgage scam and put her name on the deed to Mom’s Fort Lauderdale condo. Mom also claimed that Rosa was poisoning her. If she died, Mom made me promise, I must demand an autopsy. “Ma, please, stop,” I said. “Listen to me, I’m not crazy,” she said. “Don’t you betray me and take her side, John . .
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Want Safer NY Prisons? Here’s What Hochul and Legislature Should Do

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By John J. Lennon Verified
| The Marshall Project Verified
My neighbor, Jean Frantz, 52, has been in prison since he was 20 years old. Several of his teenage years were spent locked up, too. He sports a baldie with a razor scar that stretches from the top of his head to the back of his neck, a reminder of darker times earlier in his bid; he’s now served 32 years of the 47-and-a-half-years-to-life sentence he received after a robbery went sideways in Queens. It was 1994, around the time Sen.
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From afar I see how social media is changing news in society. It's enabled people to sort of find their tribe with news.

Who's your favorite fictional journalist?

I don't know if I understand this one. But I love how Hemingway used his worldly real life experiences in his fiction.

What does it mean to be a journalist?

Writing is hard because thinking is hard, and it's emotional and it hurts. But when stories come together it feels so good.
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