Jason Roberts is an American author acclaimed for his work in fiction and narrative nonfiction. He is a former journalist and technologist. The son of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Anthony Kalani Roberts and the actress Gloria Neil, Roberts grew up in Southern California and Hawaii. A graduate of the

University of California at Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

, he worked as a software engineer at

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

before leaving to write a series of books on both hardware and software topics, then to serve as a technology reporter for the

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...

. An early proponent of the Internet, in 1996 Roberts launched the Learn2 Corporation, one of the first sources for non-academic instruction on the Internet. In 1999, the company began publicly trading on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

exchange; it has since been acquired by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

. In 2000, shortly after

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

ranked Learn2 as “One of the Ten Most Important Websites of the 20th Century”, Roberts retired from management and returned to writing. In 2004, Roberts was the inaugural winner of the Van Zorn Prize, awarded by

Michael Chabon Michael Chabon ( ; born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, DC, he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, gr ...

for the best short fiction exemplifying the tradition of

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

. In 2006 Roberts’

A Sense of the World ''A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man became History's Greatest Traveler'' is a bestselling biography of James Holman (1786–1857), the blind Englishman who overcame the adversity of sightlessness to become a world traveler and cultural commen ...

, the first biography of the blind traveller

James Holman James Holman FRS (15 October 1786 – 29 July 1857), known as the "Blind Traveller," was a British adventurer, author and social observer, best known for his writings on his extensive travels. Completely blind and experiencing pain and limi ...

(1786-1857), was a national bestseller, a finalist for the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Guardian First Book Award The Guardian First Book Award was a literary award presented by ''The Guardian'' newspaper. It annually recognised one book by a new writer. It was established in 1999, replacing the Guardian Fiction Award or Guardian Fiction Prize that the newspap ...

. The book was also named a "Best Book of the Year" by the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Rocky Mountain News. In 2018, Roberts announced his next book, ''Every Living Thing'', had been acquired by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Ger ...

. Roberts’ first five books were on technical topics, such as

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

. He is the editor of ''The Learn2 Guide'', as well as four titles in the bestselling ''642 Books'' series, each collections of creative materials for writers. Roberts lives in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, California. He is a board member of the

Community of Writers The Community of Writers is a writers' conference held each summer in Olympic Valley, California. Founded in 1969, it is the oldest annual writers' conference on the West Coast of the United States. The Community of Writers is a nonprofit 501(c) ...

, and a frequent member of the teaching faculty there.

References

External links

Official websiteBio from US publisher HarperCollins
at ''McSweeney's Internet Tendency'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Jason Living people 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Writers from San Francisco University of California, Santa Cruz alumni American male journalists Journalists from California American male short story writers 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American short story writers 21st-century American male writers American male biographers