Profile
B.A., Bowdoin College, Maine; M.F.A., Cornell University, New York.

Publications

• A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed (Missouri Review Books, 2019)
• Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work (Open City Books/Grove Atlantic, 2007)
• Driving the Heart and Other Stories (W.W. Norton, 1999)

His stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Best American Short Stories, The L.A. Times, The Guardian, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Missouri Review, and other venues.

Honors & Awards

2020

• Essay “The Legacy of the Mayflower Landing” chosen as a “Story of the Week by Narrative Magazine
• Maine Literary Award/Maine Book Award for Fiction for A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed
• Independent Publisher Book Award for A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed
• Best American Short Stories 2020 for “A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed”
• Notable book of 2019 by Shelf Magazine for A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed

2019

• Pushcart Prize for “The Last Voyage of the Alice B Toklas”
• Hackney Literary Award
• Distinguished Stories, Best American Short Stories 2018: “The Last Voyage of the Alice B Toklas”

2017

• Distinguished Stories, Best American Short Stories 2017: “Instructions to the Living from the Condition of the Dead”
• Jeffrey E Smith Editor’s Prize from The Missouri Review, 2017

2015

• Foreign Policy Association “Must Read” list for March, 2015: “If I Teach Them, No One Can Stop Them,” Salon

2010

• 100 Other Distinguished Stories, Best American Short Stories 2010: “Flood”

2009

• NPR Summer Reading Suggestion for Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work
• Special Mention Puhscart Prize Anthology: “Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work”

2008

• Special Mention Pushcart Prize Anthology: “Life During Peacetime”

2005

• 100 Other Distinguished Stories, Best American Short Stories 2005: “The Lake”

2002

• Corporation of Yaddo Fellowship
• MacDowell Colony Fellowship

1997

• 100 Other Distinguished Stories, Best American Short Stories 1997:”Sadness of the Body”
• Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Fiction at Stanford University (1996-1998)

1996

• Best American Short Stores 1996: “Driving the Heart”

1995

• Arthur E. Andrews Short Fiction Prize for “Sadness of the Body,” Cornell University

News

“The Wrong Jason Brown” appears in the New Yorker, April 2021

The linked collection of short stories A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed wins the Maine book award.

A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed appears in Best American Short Stories 2020

Essay “The Legacy of the Mayflower Landing” chosen as a “story of the Week” by Narrative Magazine

“The Last Voyage of the Alice B Toklas” appears in the 2019 Puschart Prize Anthology

“Instructions to the Living from the Conditions of the Dead” wins the Jeffrey E Smith Editor’s Award from the Missouri Review

Foreign Policy Association “Must Read” list for March 2015: “If I Teach Them, No One Can Stop Them,” Salon, August 2015

Mission Impossible: The Quest to Prosecute ISIS for the Yazidi Genocide, Construction Literary Magazine, August 2015

Interview with Robin Tung (Affording the MFA), June 2015

Direct Impact, by Jason Brooks Brown and Elizabeth Schaeffer Brown, CASCade Magazine (University of Oregon), Spring 2015

“Only when a woman makes her own money does she have her rights”: The importance of digital literacy in Afghanistan by Jason Brooks Brown and Elizabeth Schaeffer Brown, Salon (online magazine of Salon Media Group), May 2015

Interview with Roya Mahboob, by Jason Brooks Brown and Elizabeth Schaeffer Brown, Salon (online magazine of Salon Media Group), March 2015