Jonathan Raymond

Jonathan Raymond is an American writer living in Portland, Oregon. He is best known for writing the novels The Half-Life and Rain Dragon, and for writing the short stories and screenplays for the films Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy (both directed by Kelly Reichardt). He also wrote the screenplays for Meek's Cutoff and Night Moves, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his teleplay writing on the HBO miniseries, Mildred Pierce.

Raymond grew up in Lake Grove, Oregon, attended Lake Oswego High School and also graduated from Swarthmore College. He received his MFA from New School University in New York City.

He published his first novel, The Half-Life in May 2004, which was released by Bloomsbury. The novel takes place in Oregon and revolves around two parallel storylines: the cook Cookie Figowitz meeting with the refugee Henry Brown in 1820s Oregon, and 160 years later (1980), Tina Plank befriending Trixie, a girl with a troubled past. The novel won a Publisher’s Weekly "Best Book of 2004" award.

In 2008, Raymond published his first collection of short stories, entitled Livability, which won the Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction in 2009. The collection was also a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writer’s" selection. Two stories from that collection (Old Joy and Train Choir) were adapted into feature films.

...
Wikipedia