John Doble

The man behind the words

John Doble is a fiction writer and political scientist born in Atlantic City and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. He graduated with Distinction from the University of Delaware where he later earned an MA in Political Science. While a student, he was a janitor, waiter, butcher’s assistant, cab driver, and public-school teacher. He also worked in the 1972 New Hampshire Presidential Primary for Pete McCloskey and in Al Lowenstein’s campaign for Congress. Upon graduation, John worked for Wilmington’s reform mayor Tom Maloney.

In 1977 John and his wife Elizabeth moved to New York City where he became research director at Public Agenda, a not-for-profit organization co-founded by Dan Yankelovich and Cyrus Vance. Later he founded Doble Research Associates where his clients included the Kettering Foundation, the Clark Foundation, and the State of Vermont, among many other nonprofit and governmental organizations. He served as a Senior Research Associate at the Kettering Foundation, whose president was former HEW Secretary, Dr. David Mathews.

John’s articles about public opinion have appeared in Foreign Affairs (coauthored with Dan Yankelovich), Technology Review, Judicature, The Public Understanding of Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, and The Kettering Review, among other publications.

Over the years, John increasingly turned his attention to writing fiction.

Fiction Writer

Elizabeth and John at the Big Apple Film Festival.

A Creative Pivot

Screenplays

John’s first screenplay, THE AMEN SISTERHOOD, the story of five courageous inner-city women determined to chase drug dealers out of the courtyard of their housing project, won the Humanitas New Voices Award and reached Finalist in three other national competitions.

His second, THE ROMMEL GAMBIT, about an American spy planting false information to convince Hitler that his best general, Erwin Rommel, is a traitor, won the Big Apple Film Festival Screenplay Contest, is on the Coverfly Red List and was in the top 6% with the Nicholl Fellowship. Both are in the top 1% on Coverfly and Stage 32.

BY ANY OTHER NAME, his third screenplay, the story of a cripplingly shy lawyer who falls in love with a Korean prostitute whose mother sees a match, reached the top 3% in Blue Cat and has been named a Semi-Finalist in three competitions.

Stage Plays

John’s plays have been produced across the US and in the UK and include The Mayor who Would be Sondheim, Reunion Run, and To Protect the Poets (all in the NYC Fringe Festival); ESP (Winner, The Acronym Plays, Urban Stages, NYC); A Serious Person (Best Play/Belper Prize, Belper, UK; Best Playwright, Hollywood Fringe; and the Georgia College Drama Prize); Tatyana and the Cable Man (Best Play, Midtown International Theatre Festival); Coffee House, Greenwich Village (59E59 Off Broadway and the LaBute Festival, St. Louis); Twilight Time (LaBute Festival, St. Louis, and Valdez, Alaska); and Nothing New Under the Sun (Winner, William Faulkner Literary Competition).

Short Stories

John’s short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines and a well-received collection, “Lefty” and Other Stories, was published by Clemson University and nominated for the Southern Book Award.