Jason Brown (writer)
Jason Brown [1] is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction and screenplays who writes primarily about Maine and New England. His work has appeared in magazines and anthologies including The New Yorker , Harper's , The Atlantic ,The Best American Short Stories , The Best American Essays , and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. Early life and educationBrown grew up in Maine.[1][2][3] He earned an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University[4] and received a Stegner Fellowship to study creative writing at Stanford University.[1][4] CareerDriving the HeartAfter its initial publication in the Mississippi Review, the title story for his first collection, "Driving the Heart," was selected for The Best American Short Stories 1996.[5] The story later appeared in the 2012 collection Boston Noir 2: The Classics.[6] In 1999, Brown's debut collection was published. The New York Times described Driving the Heart and Other Stories as "bleak yet penetrating," adding that "each of Brown's elegant stories echoes with the same quiet despair."[7] The 13 stories are mostly set in and around Portland, Maine, involving characters affected by tragic experiences past and present.[7][8] Driving the Heart was a starred review in Publishers Weekly, where it was called an "extraordinary debut collection."[8] Why the Devil Chose New England for His WorkBrown's second collection of 11 loosely linked short stories, Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work: Stories, came out in 2007.[9][10] The 11 stories set in the fictional town of Vaughn in central Maine are linked by geography and tone,[5][11][12] with "weary, complicated souls" of all ages.[13] With the changes in narrative point of view within some of the stories, Brown has said he was influenced by the narration in the films of Terrence Malick – Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line in particular.[1] Some of the stories were originally published in magazines including Harper's, Epoch, Open City and The Atlantic.[14] The book was given an A− by Entertainment Weekly,[15] and was a starred review in Publishers Weekly.[16] The Los Angeles Times called it "an exceptionally beautiful and devastating book."[11] It was a suggested summer reading by NPR in 2009.[17] The New Yorker said, "The narrators of Brown’s second book of stories are mostly watchers—witnesses to sordid events in the fictional town of Vaughn, Maine. Through their eyes, the familiar routines of small-town life are transmogrified into emblematic ugliness. Some of the stories deal with Maine’s twin preoccupations with boats and lumber, but the strongest anatomize the town with stunning emotional precision." Three of Brown's stories were named among the Best American Short Stories series "100 Other Distinguished Stories" in 1997, 2005 and 2010.[18] His story "Wintering Over" was published in The Southern Review in 2012. A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately CommittedBrown's third collection of stories, a novel in stories, chronicles the comic misfortunes of the Howland family of Maine published in October 2019 in a short fiction series created by Missouri Review Books. Stories from the book appeared in Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. The book won the Maine Book Award for fiction. The book received favorable reviews in The Boston Globe and other venues. OutermarkOutermark, a novel in stories, chronicles the history of a fictional island thirty miles off the Maine coast and was published by Paul Dry Books/Ingram in 2024. The book received favorable reviews in the Wall Street Journal and other venues. Character WitnessCharacter Witness, a memoir, will be published in September of 2025 as part of the American Lives Series, edited by Tobias Wolff, at the University of Nebraska Press. The first part of the book, "The Wrong Jason Brown," appeared in The New Yorker and Best American Essays. The book was short-listed for the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize. The Wrong Jason Brown The New Yorker [1] FilmRule Breakers, a film that fictionalizes the journey of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team, is a feature-length film co-written with Bill Guttentag and Elaha Mahboob and was produced by Parallax Films, Slingshot Productions, and Shape Pictures and was distributed to over 2100 theaters across the United States by Angel Studies in March of 2025. The film appeared on Amazon Prime in the spring of 2025 and was distributed in over 25 countries worldwide. Jason was also an executive producer on the film along with Roya Mahboob, the subject of the bio picture, Elizabeth Brown, and others. The film was reviewed favorably in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, the New York Times and many other venues. It was also screened at the United Nations, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, the Doha Forum, and many other places. TeachingBrown previously taught creative writing at Stanford University as a Jones lecturer,[4] and at the University of Arizona's creative writing MFA program.[1] He is currently a professor at the University of Oregon where he serves as director of the creative writing MFA program.[19] Honors and awards (selected)
BibliographyBooks
Stories (selected)
Articles and Essays (selected)
References
External links
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