Join us for a reading and signing with John Milas, author of The Militia House, a gothic, military haunted house novel.

About the book: It's 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward--loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters--and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they're replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don't need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it. It's a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house.
John Milas is the author of THE MILITIA HOUSE (Henry Holt, 2023). He enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age nineteen and subsequently deployed to the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in support of OEF 10.1. He was honorably discharged from active service in 2012.
After his discharge, he earned both his BA and MFA in creative writing. As a student, he studied with writers such as Marianne Boruch, Roxane Gay, Brian Leung, Robert Lopez, Terese Marie Mailhot, Julie Price Pinkerton, Donald Platt, Sharon Solwitz, and others. He is represented by Julia Kardon of HG Literary and Dana Spector of CAA.
He enjoys engaging with his local literary community by attending readings, hosting workshops at his hometown library, and judging creative writing contests, which he has done since 2015. He has also read submissions for literary magazines such as Sycamore Review and Ninth Letter and has completed various freelance assignments as a journalist and editor. He grew up in Illinois, where he currently reads, writes, and watches baseball.