John Barker is both a novelist and an author of non-fiction essays about political, social and cultural issues. Barker's essays, published in magazines such as Variant or Mute Magazine, bristle with historic depth and accuracy of information, woven into critical narrations written in a dense prose. This evident richness of background research is maybe a result of Barker being inspired by the research methodology of a great of the 20th century, C.W.Mills. In this guest contribution, written specifically for thenextlayer.org and the taxi-to-praxi workshop, John Barker introduces us to Mills' concept of intellectual craftsmanship.