Episode 503: An Atmospheric River of Rejection with Jason Brown

2025-12-12

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"I will always go back to the well, and I will write until I die," says Jason Brown, author of Character Witness.Jason Brown is here. He is a brilliant short story writer and the author of the memoir Character Witness (University of Nebraska Press). It’s an incredible book and we recorded this conversation at the end of October as the fourth and final LIVE podcast of the year at Gratitude Brewing here in Eugene. Jason, as luck would have it, teaches at the University of Oregon in its writing department, forging the young minds who will p...

"I will always go back to the well, and I will write until I die," says Jason Brown, author of Character Witness.

Jason Brown is here. He is a brilliant short story writer and the author of the memoir Character Witness (University of Nebraska Press). It’s an incredible book and we recorded this conversation at the end of October as the fourth and final LIVE podcast of the year at Gratitude Brewing here in Eugene.

Jason, as luck would have it, teaches at the University of Oregon in its writing department, forging the young minds who will publish in the most obscure lit journals, the future bitter podcasters of America, sorry, speaking from experience. I’m projecting, OK?

But thanks to Jason and his clout with the University, we had our biggest gathering of the year, live and in person. There’s something pretty rad about the in-person jam.

Jason can be found at writerjasonbrown.com. He writes fiction and nonfiction and was a Stegner Fellow and Truman Capote Fellow at Stanford University where he taught as a Jones Lecturer. He has received fellowships from Yaddo and Macdowell colonies. He taught for the MFA program at the University of Arizona and directs the MFA program at the U of O here in Eugene. He’s the author of the collection Driving the Heart and Other Stories, Why the Devil Chose New England For His work and his work as also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Best American Short Stories, The L.A. Times, and The Guardian, among many others. This is getting obnoxious.

In this conversation we talk about: