ABOUT ME
I was born and raised in the Kansas City area before moving to Lawrence in 2001 to attend the University of Kansas. After bouncing around New York, Indianapolis and Phoenix for internships, I moved back to Lawrence in 2006 for my first "real world" job as a copy editor at the Journal-World, where I worked until mid-2016. I've been a freelance copy editor since.
Currently I live in Westwood Hills, Kan. When I'm not working you can probably find me plugged in to the internet reading analyses of the day's sports/politics/entertainment news, powering up with a latte from The Roasterie or Hi Hat cafe, playing the latest narrative-driven action video game, watching the stats update on my fantasy sports teams or binging an anime while criticizing the poor grammar in the subtitles.
My favorite words include boondoggle and copacetic.
JON IS A...
NEWS JUNKIE
SPORTS NUT
I absorb as much news as I can every day, from politics to food trends to weird science. When I'm not scrolling through my Twitter feed, I feel like I'm missing out on big breaking news or interesting information. I believe that a day when I don't learn something new is a day wasted.
Growing up in the KC area and attending KU, I’m a Chiefs, Royals and KU fan, but I stay on top of news in the sports world as much as I can. Managing a half-dozen fantasy sports teams (baseball, football, basketball) at any given time is good incentive to watch a lot of games and dig into a team's depth chart.
POP CULTURE NERD
VIDEO GAME GEEK
I'm a news junkie, but I’m especially interested in pop culture and the arts. My brain is like a Katamari Damacy of pop culture knowledge, picking up and filing away all the bits of information I consume. I'm always looking for the interesting stories behind a film, album, artwork, show or video game. Plus, I'm really good at naming that random actor who was in that one thing, which is great for bar trivia.
I spend a lot of free time playing games, but I also follow industry news because I'm interested in the stories of how they get made. It's fascinating that a team of sometimes hundreds of artists can come together to put their heart and soul into a single vision, resulting in an experience that can be more affecting than anything in any other medium. My favorite games include Parasite Eve 2, Resident Evil 2, The Last of Us, Portal 2, Batman: Arkham City, What Remains of Edith Finch, Final Fantasy X, Bloodborne and Kentucky Route Zero.