Writing the next chapter: John Kuhn tells it like it is

By Hudson Zadig

Author John Kuhn.

Former attorney and South Carolina State Senator John Kuhn has spent decades building up his career in law and politics, but now he is turning the page to focus on his true calling: writing. This past year, Kuhn released I Tell It Like It Is, the first book in his planned autobiographical trilogy. This first memoir blends stories from his childhood, living on his farm in California and lessons on faith, perseverance and confidence. This book is the culmination of a 50-year-old dream that began at his freshman creative writing class at Vanderbilt University.

“I think you’re meant to be a writer,” Kuhn recalled his English professor saying after reading a couple of his assignments. This comment stayed with him through the decades of his law and political career and is finally coming out of the woodwork. For years, this yearning to be a writer was just a dream that took a backseat to his career as an attorney.

This all changed four years ago when he stepped away from decades of work as an attorney and gave his wife his keys to their law practice. This gave Kuhn an opportunity to devote all his time to writing his book and space to hone his craft. Even after decades of stringent law writing, the switch to creative writing was natural, and he knew that being an author was what he was meant to do. “I knew I had enough life experience,” Kuhn said, “I wanted every chapter to be funny, but I also wanted every chapter to leave readers with confidence.”

Rather than creating a traditional autobiography, Kuhn focuses as much on his life as on the humor and life lessons that came out of his experiences. He moves from roadblocks that he didn’t view with anger or sadness, but viewed through the lens of humor, to reflections of faith and family. In each chapter, Kuhn explores a different theme and life lesson that he learned in different stages of his life. Kuhn wants the book not only to entertain readers, but to inspire confidence and encourage them at the same time.

Instead of writing one all-encompassing book on his life, Kuhn thought there was too much to cover, and a more thorough book series would be better than a one-off book. His first book focuses on his childhood in California and up until his time at Culver Military School. Along the way, he not only focuses on faith and life lessons, but he dives deep into the pop culture of the day and explores the music that made him who he is, like the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” His next book will focus on his time in the Japanese export business and the life lessons that he learned from Japanese culture. The final book will be about his years in Charleston and how he fell in love with the city.

Kuhn doesn’t plan to stop his writing career anytime soon; even after completing his autobiographical trilogy, he wants to delve into other genres. Kuhn has always been a lover of literature, but his biggest inspiration for becoming a writer was The Grapes of Wrath. Fiction writing is one genre in which he plans to dive, and notably a story with the same feel and flavor as Steinbeck’s 1939 classic.

To promote his new book, Kuhn will be going on a bookstore tour that will go through all 50 states. Starting in October, he will begin at the famous Beacon Hill Books in Boston and work his way through the United States and end in California. As Kuhn writes his final books in his autobiography and looks to his future fiction novels, he is focused on the next chapter in his life. After decades of telling formal stories in courtrooms to judges, he hopes to reach the readers at home with his faith, humor and storytelling.