John Belluso

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John Belluso (13 November 1969 – 10 February 2006) was an American playwright best known for his works focussing on the lives of disabled people. He also directed a writing program for disabled people.

Belluso was born in Warwick, Rhode Island. He was in a wheelchair at the age of 13 due to a bone disease called Engleman-Camurdrie syndrome. He completed a bachelor's and master's degree at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing program.

In 2001, he wrote The Body of Bourne, based on the life of Randolph Bourne, a World War I pacifist and author. It was produced in Los Angeles by the Mark Taper Forum. He also directed the Forum's Other Voices program for writers with a disability.

He followed that play in 2002 with Pyretown, which criticises America's managed care health system through a romance between a divorced mother and a young man in a wheelchair.

His other works include:

Gretty Good Time, about a 32-year-old disabled woman living in a nursing home;
Travelling Skin, about a waitress with cerebral palsy; and
Henry Flamethrowa, about a comatose woman who is believed to cause miracles.

He died in February 2006 in New York City, where he was writing a play for New York's Public Theater about a disabled veteran returning from Iraq.

Series 1, episode 17, of Ghost Whisperer is dedicated to his memory.