"Jason Allen writes fiction, poetry, and memoir, and is the author of the forthcoming novel The East End (Park Row Books/HarperCollins) and the poetry collection A Meditation on Fire (Southeast Missouri State University Press). He has an MFA from Pacific University and a PhD in literature and creative writing from Binghamton University. His work has been published in: Passages North, Paterson Literary Review, Contemporary American Voices, Cream City Review, Ragazine, The Molotov Cocktail, and many other venues. He’s taught in China, and done at least a dozen coast-to-coast drives across the U.S. He’d like to meet Tom Waits someday and buy him a cup of coffee. He was born in the Green Mountains of Vermont and spent the first year of his life in a log cabin, and then grew up working-class-poor in the Hamptons. He will forever think of Powell’s Books in downtown Portland as a sacred space. He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he teaches writing."