Jason Davidson writes poetry that performs and fiction that bends reality.
I've spent years crafting words that live as much in the silence between lines as in the lines themselves. My poetry is modern, maximalist, and unflinching—work that finds its full voice in performance but holds its own on the page.
Living on California's central coast with my husband and our four-legged crew, I write stories that reflect and sometimes distort the world we think we know, creating space for wonder and curiosity about who we really are.
Currently working on my first novel: a speculative fiction piece born from an immersive theater show that managed to keep audiences returning throughout a six month experience.
About
I've been writing my whole life, which sounds more impressive than it probably is since most writers say that. The difference might be that I've also been performing it, producing it, and occasionally getting other people to perform it too.
For seven years, I ran Southern California's most successful immersive theater company, writing and producing over 200 distinct works. Before that, I spent time in public health and coaching high school students in public speaking, This work taught me how powerful the right words can be when they're delivered with intention.
My poetry has appeared in journals including Unbroken, Quibble, Stanza Cannon, and Cathexis Northwest Press. The poems themselves are complex, sometimes obtuse, and according to several people, "better when Jason reads them." I take this as both criticism and compliment.
These days, I'm focused on writing full-time, working on a novel that began life as one of those immersive theater pieces. Turns out translating a six-month interactive experience into prose is harder than you'd think, but that's the kind of challenge that has me working into wee hours.
I'm drawn to what we bury and believe—complexity over certainty, questions over answers. My work blends modern maximalist poetry with surreal, speculative fiction, always searching for the stories that live just outside our peripheral vision.
When I'm not writing or performing, I'm probably cooking (my curry and sushi have built serious reputations among friends) or traveling with Kevin to places where we can eat our way through cultures we're still learning to understand.
