Jon Obermeyer

A native of Santa Barbara, CA, JON OBERMEYER is a graduate of Westmont College. He holds the Master of Fine Arts in 
Creative Writing degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he served as Associate Poetry Editor of The Greensboro Review, and his poetry was recognized for excellence by the Academy of American Poets.

Jon is the author of ten books, including The Reassurance of Ghosts and Salsipuedes (poems), The Winter Practice and Centripetal Force (short stories), The Low Wire: Meditations on Loss and Creative Restoration (essays), It Happens That Fast,  Briarcliff 1985-1993 and The Harbor (memoir),Myriad: A Poet’s Guide to the Writing Life and Siren Call SF, a poetry-photography collaboration with San Francisco photographer Dwayne Newton (2019).

Jon is a finalist for the 2017 and 2018 James Applewhite Poetry Prize, sponsored by North Carolina Literary Review. He will be a Writer in Residence at the Weymouth Center for the Arts in Southern Pines, NC, and a featured poet at the West End Poetry Festival in Carrboro, NC.

His poems have appeared in North Carolina Literary Review, Northern Virginia Review, The Greensboro Review, Blue Pitcher, Tar River Poetry, the International Poetry Review, Edge of our World, Stroke Connections, Santa Barbara Magazine and Spectrum.

Jon’s short stories have appeared in Equator, Cities & Roads, and O.Henry Festival Stories. His story “Not Really Mine to Give” was runner-up in the 1982 Santa Barbara News & Review fiction contest. Clyde Edgerton selected Jon’s short story “Confessions of a Pacifist” for publication in the 1987 North Carolina Writers Network Fiction Syndication Competition. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the News & Review and The New York Times.

Jon has led writing workshops for Central Carolina Community College, the N.C. Writers Network, Westmont College and area high schools. He has taught entrepreneurship and marketing as a guest lecturer at Wake Forest University, the University of San Francisco, UNC Greensboro, Winston-Salem State University, Guilford Technical Community College and Alamance Community College.

In his career, he has been a commercial banker, business owner, marketing director and a business development executive in the fields of advertising and public relations, regenerative medicine, nanotechnology and digital media.

He is the father of two adult daughters and lives in Bethesda, NC near Durham.