Jonathan Blum grew up in Miami and graduated from UCLA and The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is the author of two books of fiction: Last Word (Rescue Press, 2013), a novella, which was named one of the best books of the year by Iowa Public Radio and was featured on KCRW’s Bookworm, and The Usual Uncertainties (Rescue Press, 2019), a forthcoming story collection. His short stories have appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, Playboy, Sonora Review, as well as Shanxi Literature and others. He has taught fiction writing at Drew University and The University of Iowa. He received a Hawthornden fellowship in Scotland and was a guest writer at the Tianjin Binhai New Area International Writing Program in China. He is also the recipient of a Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award and a grant from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. This is his ninth year teaching at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. He lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches fiction writing workshops. He can be found online at jonathanblumwriter.com.