Jonathan is a former bodybuilder and boxer. He's harvested seaweed in Ireland, given free hugs in Spain, and flipped pancakes in Denmark. He loves riding trains and wondering about the lives unfolding outside the window. His biggest passions are learning and travel, and he's ventured to sixty countries via hitching, couch surfing, and working exchanges. He plays piano, makes handcrafted soap, and thrives on diverse workouts, organic food, thrifting, and anything related to helping others, especially in the arts. He's the founding editor of Palooka, an international literary magazine of the arts.

His novel, You've Got Something Coming, received the Black Heron Press Award for Social Fiction and was an Eric Hoffer Book Award finalist. Jonathan's writing has appeared in The Sun, Missouri Review, Threepenny Review, North American Review, Greensboro Review, Shenandoah, Brevity, Michigan Quarterly Review, Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, River Teeth, Passages North, Southeast Review, and Fourth Genre, among others.