From the Bering Sea to the bookshelf: Cinnaminson author publishes debut novel

For Cinnaminson resident John Valadez, the journey to publishing his first novel began long before he ever imagined becoming an author.

From traveling across the country in his early 20s to working aboard a commercial fishing vessel in Alaska, Valadez has experienced his fair share of adventures. Now, decades later, those experiences have found their way onto the pages of his debut novel, The Plentiful, independently published in September.

Set in 1995, the coming-of-age story follows a restless young man named Joe on a journey through Nashville, Atlantic City, Sedona and Seattle before eventually bringing him aboard a commercial fishing vessel in the Bering Sea. Along the way, the novel explores identity, relationships and the lasting consequences of life’s choices.

For Valadez, the story is deeply personal, though not autobiographical.

When he was in his early 20s, Valadez found himself searching for direction. Rather than following a traditional path, he got behind the wheel of his car and traveled across the country approximately five times, eventually making his way to Seattle and then Alaska, where he worked aboard a commercial fishing boat.

“I was kind of lost,” he recalled. “I got in my car, and I drove cross country.”

Those experiences became the foundation for the stories he would eventually turn into his first novel.

But Valadez’s love for storytelling began much earlier, during an unlikely chapter of his childhood.

Growing up, Valadez struggled with reading and didn’t learn to read until the third grade. After moving from Texas to Hammonton with his mother, he faced the possibility of being held back in school. His mother arranged for a tutor, helping him catch up academically.

It wasn’t until fifth grade, however, that he discovered his passion for writing. His teacher assigned creative writing exercises every Friday, giving students the opportunity to share their stories with the class.

“That’s when I first really started falling in love with writing,” Valadez said. “I fell in love with it before I fell in love with reading actually.”

Although writing remained an interest throughout his life, Valadez initially pursued a career in the hospitality industry, specializing in revenue management, sales and marketing.

When the 2008 financial crisis led to his position being eliminated, he saw an opportunity to pursue something he had long wanted to do.

He enrolled at Atlantic Cape Community College, where he completed two semesters before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania to study English and creative writing.

“I transferred to Penn because I wanted to learn how to write,” he said.

At Penn, Valadez completed an honors thesis under poet Ron Silliman and published poetry in Peregrine. During his studies, he also wrote several short stories inspired by his experiences traveling across the country.

Those stories would eventually become the foundation for The Plentiful, although it would take years for him to recognize their potential.

After college, Valadez tucked his writing away, keeping the stories in a drawer while continuing with other aspects of his life. A few years ago, he decided it was time to revisit his passion.

“I really want to get back to writing, something I’ve always wanted to do with my life,” he recalled thinking.

As he reread the stories he had written at Penn, he began to recognize a connection between them.

“I realized that these short stories were really part of a larger story, and that’s when I started writing it.”

Once he began putting the pieces together, the creative process took off. Valadez said it took approximately four months to complete the novel.

Although much of the book’s inspiration comes from his own experiences, Valadez emphasized that The Plentiful is a work of fiction. He incorporated new characters, relationships and plot points to transform his personal memories into a broader story.

One of his favorite parts of the writing process was developing the female characters and finding their individual voices.

He also wanted to capture the unique experience of traveling during the 1990s, before smartphones, GPS navigation and the widespread availability of the internet.

For someone traveling alone, the freedom of the open road could be both exciting and isolating.

“It was a very exciting time, but it could be a very lonely time, too,” he said.

Those feelings helped shape the novel’s central themes of connection, identity and the decisions people make throughout their lives.

Valadez hopes readers will connect with Joe, even when they don’t agree with his actions.

“We all make choices in life,” he said. “Some we enjoy and some not so much.”

Rather than presenting a protagonist who always makes the right decisions, Valadez wanted to create a character who reflects the complexity of real life.

He described Joe as highly flawed but vulnerable, someone capable of making good and bad choices just like anyone else.

“I believe we all end up telling a story that we can live within our own lives,” Valadez said.

His writing style has also been influenced by the authors he admired growing up, particularly Ernest Hemingway. After reading The Sun Also Rises in middle school, Valadez realized that compelling storytelling didn’t necessarily require elaborate language.

He was drawn to Hemingway’s direct, concrete style of writing, something he strives to incorporate into his own work while maintaining elements of the poetry he studied at Penn.

With his first novel now published, Valadez is working to introduce The Plentiful to readers. The book is available through Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats, and he hopes to continue building an audience.

He has already begun writing his second novel, tentatively titled Odiseo, which will draw on another chapter of his life: his years working in Atlantic City’s nightclub industry, before casino-operated venues became dominant.

While he hopes to publish the book in 2027, the project remains in its early stages.

For aspiring authors in Cinnaminson and the surrounding communities, Valadez believes the most important part of writing is simply getting started.

“The art of writing is really the art of applying the seat of the pants to the chair,” he said.

He encourages writers not to become overly critical of their work in its earliest stages, but instead to keep putting words on the page.

“Don’t be so critical of yourself,” he said. “Just keep writing and writing and writing, and eventually you’ll get to a point where you can go back and say, ‘Oh, I have something here or I don’t have something there.'”

Above all, he believes writing should be something that brings joy.

“You have to enjoy it,” Valadez emphasized.

For a writer whose first stories spent years tucked away in a drawer, the publication of The Plentiful represents a return to a passion that began in a fifth-grade classroom and continued through a lifetime of unexpected experiences.

Readers can learn more about The Plentiful and read the novel’s complete prologue at johnvaladezwriter.wordpress.com/read.