Jason Trask

Mid-way through his sophomore year of college, Jason Trask joined the army and spent most of the next two years in Giessen, Germany, typing letters for Major Morgan and washing his coffee cup. Following his discharge, Jason remained in Giessen working as a Garbelstaplerfahrer, a forklift driver. He studied philosophy in Giessen for a year at Justus Liebig Universitaet.

Upon his return to the US, Jason earned a BA in philosophy from the Columbia University School of General Studies. With his philosophy degree in hand, he was able to secure a position as a foot messenger in Midtown Manhattan. Later he became a proof reader. He rose rapidly up the corporate ladder, peaking, after several years, as a word processor.

He then got practical and studied creative writing at the City College of New York graduate writing program. Upon completing his MA, he taught freshman composition as an adjunct at CCNY, FIT, and NJIT. He later taught English to incarcerated high school students on Rikers Island.

Sixteen years ago, he traded the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn for the foothills of western Maine where he now lives and writes. He teaches in an off-site, alternative education program, working with kids who have been traumatized by seeing through the system. He’s married and has three sons. I’M NOT MUHAMMAD is his first published novel.