Bio: John De Salvio is a retired journalist, award-winning political cartoonist, and graphic designer. From 1983 to 2000 more than 500 of his political cartoons were published in Northern California newspapers and magazines covering a wide variety of subjects. Publications included the Russian River News, The Paper, Sonoma County Independent, We The People gay monthly newspaper, OutNow Magazine, and Russian River Monthly.

De Salvio was co-founder of the Russian River Monthly, was managing editor, and did the layouts production. Unfortunately, the Russian River Monthly in 2009 "entered the Museum of 10,000 Dead Newspapers," according to De Salvio.

God Told Me to Draw These, De Salvio's first book, chronicles the cartoons, columns, interviews and news stories about politics, religion, and the military as they impacted gays and lesbians.

Although most of the issues presented in the book spanned the 1990s, so many are still relevant today.

John was a Benedictine monk through most of the 1970s. As he acknowledges in this book, “I think I left the monastery because I learned more about God than he wanted me to know.”