Jason M. Thornberry

Jason M. Thornberry’s writing appears in World Literature Today, JMWW, Letters Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, FOLIO Literary Journal, Harbor Review, Apricity, Maryland Literary Review, Grub Street, TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Bicoastal Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Coachella Review, and many others. He's currently seeking a home for a memoir and his first novel. Jason was nominated in 2023 and 2024 for Best of the Net.

Jason survived a traumatic brain injury—a largely invisible disability that derailed his musical career. He played the drums for a dozen years, and his band, The Pressure, awaited the release of their debut album, Things Move Fast, so they could begin touring. One evening, a pair of strangers curb-stomped Jason into a coma, leaving him for dead. Things Move Fast was released the following day.

When Jason awoke, he could neither walk nor speak. He spent four months in hospital and a year in a wheelchair, developing post-traumatic epilepsy. Jason made sense of his injury and the sudden change in his life by writing about it: he documented a dozen years spent playing hundreds of concerts, performing alongside everyone from No Doubt to Eminem. His memoir and a novel are both under consideration. He’s hard at work on a new novel.

Jason earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University. Born and raised in San Bernardino, California, Jason lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and dog.