Collage of three black-and-white photos featuring men in different settings. The left photo shows a man singing or performing on stage, wearing a beanie, with a microphone. The top right photo displays two men smiling at a bar, one holding a glass of beer, with bookshelves in the background. The bottom right photo features a man with a beard and long hair, partially submerged in water, looking into the camera.

Photo Credits: Jared McCall (left); Bruce Newman (top right)

Jonathan Miles is the author of the novels Dear American Airlines and Want Not, both New York Times Notable books, and the novel Anatomy of a Miracle: The True* Story of a Paralyzed Veteran, a Mississippi Convenience Store, a Vatican Investigation, and the Spectacular Perils of Grace, which was a featured selection for the American Library Association’s Book Club Central. His latest novel, Eradication: A Fable, was released in 2026 by Knopf Doubleday.

 

Dear American Airlines was named a Best Book of 2008 by the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Amazon.com, and others. It was also a finalist for the QPB New Voices Award, the Borders Original Voices Award, and the Great Lakes Book Award, and has been translated into six languages. Want Not was named a best book of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, bookish.com, bookriot.com, and litReactor.com, and was a finalist for the 2014 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award in Fiction.

 

Born in Cleveland and raised in Arizona, Miles left home at sixteen and eventually landed in Oxford, Mississippi, pursuing a life in music before being steered toward fiction by the late novelist Larry Brown. He spent a long apprenticeship there, living and writing in a 12-by-30-foot cabin in the north Mississippi woods while working as a bartender, landscaper, and small-town newspaper reporter.

 

He is a former columnist for the New York Times Sunday Styles section and has been a contributing editor to a wide range of national magazines including Garden & Gun, where he has served as Books columnist since 2012. His journalism has been included numerous times in the annual Best American Crime Writing and Best American Sports Writing anthologies, including his account of competing in the 2005 Dakar Rally, a 5,500-mile race through North Africa.

 

In 2024 he toured as a multi-instrumentalist in the band of the Grammy-winning artist Jon Batiste. He currently serves as Writer-in-Residence at the Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania.