Jason Anthony
Hoosh by Maine writer Jason Anthony

Jason Anthony

Jason C. Anthony was born in Maine in 1967, attended school and Clark University in Massachusetts, and earned his MA in poetry from the University of New Hampshire. Soon thereafter, he fled the warm world for Antarctica, where he worked in the United States Antarctic Program for eight austral summers as a Waste Management Specialist, Fuels Operator, Cargo Handler, Skiway Groomer, and Camp Supervisor. Anthony filled his Antarctic notebooks with the raw material for lyric essays, essays, and articles, some twenty three of which have been published since he last left the ice in 2004. His work has been featured in several publications, including Orion, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Missouri Review, and The Smart Set. One Antarctic essay was selected for The Best American Travel Writing 2007, and another was a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2006.

Anthony's essay "Hoosh," published in the literary food journal Alimentum, inspired his first book, Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day, and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine (University of Nebraska Press). Hoosh, a narrative and culinary history of Antarctica, won a 2012 Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Award, a 2012 ForeWord Book of the Year Award (Travel), a Silver Medal in the 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards (Creative Nonfiction), and was a finalist for a 2013 Maine Literary Award (Nonfiction). The New York Times Book Review called Anthony “a fine, visceral writer and a witty observer," and The Independent (UK) described Hoosh as "one of the most enthralling studies of gastronomy ever published."

Anthony is the 2014 Literary Fellow for Maine, thanks to a fellowship from the Maine Arts Commission. He lives in midcoast Maine with his wife, the singer-songwriter Heather Hardy.