John Wall Biography

John Wall, a former journalist and higher education media relations professional, is the author of Streamliner: Raymond Loewy and Imagemaking in the Age of American Industrial Design. Streamliner was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in fall 2018. For more than two decades he worked as a media relations specialist at Penn State University's College of Agricultural Sciences and at Juniata College. He started his career as a journalist and worked as a general assignment reporter at the Toledo Blade and a business reporter at Insight magazine in Washington, D.C. At Insight he wrote business stories focusing on the advertising and design industries. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Altoona Mirror, where he worked as the paper's assistant lifestyle editor. He wrote features, entertainment and arts stories and served as the paper's movie critic. He also was the main movie critic for Thomson News Service, which distributed his work to more than 140 newspapers nationwide. His work has also appeared in the Washington Times, Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine and Pacific Stars and Stripes. He served as a security policeman in the U.S. Air Force from 1976 to 1980 and was stationed in San Antonio, Texas, Grand Forks, N.D., and RAF Upper Heyford, near Oxford, UK. He is currently retired in Altoona, Pa., where he lives with his wife, Sharon.