John has read at Maitland if (Independent writers) festival and various poetry salons in the Hunter.
His pathway to slam was the slippery slope of coffee shops and performance anxiety. He joined the Maitland Verses group in early 2018, as one of the poets in residence in local cafes, consequently writing with more focus and purpose than in previous decades of sporadic scribbling. He currently writes at The Cabin Collective in Maitland. He is a regular participant at Poetry at the Pub Newcastle, and feature poet for January, 2022.