Jonathan writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and lives in Vancouver.
I grew up in Vancouver—the unceded and traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, səl̓ilwətaɁɬ, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh peoples, and recently returned from completing an MFA program in creative writing at the University of Guelph.
Poetry
Check out some published poems
Poetry was the first thing I ever started taking seriously.
It was the first writing I submitted to a literary journal.
The first to receive an official rejection.
And the first I finally published.
Fiction
Explore my short fiction.
Fiction started with fantasy and surreal styles of fiction—inspired by Lord of the Rings, Candide, and Gulliver’s Travels. Later, Moby Dick and 100 Years of Solitude increased the scope of what I saw could exist inside a story. Then I found my way back into the magical, through the science fiction work of Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler. Lately, it’s been Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend series and the prose style of Louise Erdrich that has been inspiring my fiction.
Nonfiction
Or maybe you prefer this?
Nonfiction is such a broad category, and it eventually bumps up against fiction and poetry in techniques and styles and it explores that liminal space between how the human experience wanders in and out of the factual. Whether personal essay, memoir, or something more philosophical, writing nonfiction always feels to me like participating in a tradition of contemplation.