JOHN RUANE is an author, journalist, playwright, actor and filmmaker. He began his career writing sports and entertainment feature stories for the Chicago Sun-Times for a decade. He has also written for the Chicago Tribune and been published in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. John trained for two years at The Second City in the mid-1980s and went on to write and perform in four sketch comedy revues with The Chi-Town Players, before writing, directing and producing the critically-acclaimed rock musical, Southbound,  in 1991. In film, John wrote and starred in a short film, Comedy On Rye and sitcom pilot, Deckinger’s Place, each of which won the Illinois FilmCam Award for creativity. As an actor, John most recently appeared with legendary actress, Karen Carlson, in James Faucett's beautiful film, In A Quiet Room and Kristina Leferne Roberts dramatic feature film, A Toxic Relationship. In addition, John is a crit­ically-acclaimed author of six books, including best-sellers, Parish the Thought and Parish the Thought Too. On the personal side, in 1982, John married his high school sweetheart, Charlotte, and they have four wonderful children and four beautiful grandchildren.