Education

M.F.A., Bowling Green State University, 2014

Ph.D., University of Washington, 2001

M.A., University of Washington, 1997

B.A., Literature, University of California, 1995

Research Interests

Dr. Harris’s Scholars@TAMU Profile

• Romantic and Victorian British fiction
• Theories of the literary fantastic
• Folklore
• Creative writing (especially prose)
• Popular culture
• Theories of the novel
• Contemporary literature

Honors and Awards

• Master of Rods and Strings, Novella received quarterfinalist status in 2018 at the Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Competition. 
• “To Watch the World Burn,” Abyss & Apex nominated for “Best of the Net” and Pushcart Prize, 2018.
• “What You Know and What You Don’t,” shortlisted for Into the Void Fiction Prize 2018 and short story semi-finalist for Gival Press Short Story Award 2018.
• Silver Remi, for Short Film Screenplay, World Fest: 50th Annual International Independent Film Festival, Houston, April 21-30, 2017.
• Best Feature Screenplay-Science Fiction. Los Angeles Film Awards, December 5, 2016.
• Best Feature Script for 2016 Independent Horror Movie Awards, October Edition, 2016.
• Runner Up Psychopomp Magazine Short Fiction Contest 2016
• Finalist for Dana Awards 2015
• Honorable Mention 40th New Millennium Writings Fiction Contest 2015 .
• Finalist Royal Nonesuch Humor writing Contest. Mark Twain House and Museum. 2015.
• Semi-Finalist for Pyschopomp Magazine Short Fiction Contest 2015
• Semi-Finalist for Indie Horror Screenplay Contest 2015
• Honorable Mention Glimmertrain Family Matters March 2014 contest.
• Finalist for Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies 2009
• Mini-grant awarded for software to enhance FIT Scriptwriting Course, Fall 2009
• Commended by Dept. of Residence Life at Michigan State University for teaching 2007-08.
• Finalist Glimmertrain Very Short Fiction Award 2003
• Third Prize for Screenplay, Script Category—Focus on Writers Contest, Sacramento, CA 2002.
• University of Washington Nominee, Humanities/Fine Arts Field of Competition, for 2001
• Council of Graduate Schools/University Microfilms International Distinguished Dissertation Award.
• Robert B. Heilman Dissertation Award Nominee 2001.
• Lucky Budd Waller Fellowship for English Department, University of Washington, Fall
• Quarter 1995 through Spring Quarter 1996
• Pillsbury Creative Writing Grant through Santa Barbara Foundation for Fall 1995—Spring 1996 awarded for studies at University of Washington

Publications

Harris, Jason Marc. Master of Rods and Strings.

Jealous of the attention lavished upon the puppetry talents of his dear sister—and tormented by visions of her torture at the hands of the mysterious Uncle Pavan who recruited her for his arcane school—Elias is determined to learn the true nature of occult puppetry, no matter the hideous costs, in order to exact vengeance.

“Jason Marc Harris’s Master of Rods and Strings is a masterful work the likes of which I have not read in many years. [. . .] In captivating and expert prose, Master of Rods and Strings brings to life a world where the enchantment of puppetry inexorably descends into a magical perdition.” -Thomas Ligotti

“A magically unnerving tale of loyalty, artistic passion, and revenge that digs into your skin and pulls you through the back alleys of period France. Harris assuredly directs his characters with the precision of a puppeteer through this fever dream of a novella.”  -Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone

“Strange and compelling, Master of Rods and Strings is a fantastic foray into the realm of occult puppetry. Like Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, this book is memorable for its vivid sensory detail and portrayal of an obsessive protagonist exploring an arcane world.” -Susan Hubbard, author of the Ethical Vampire Series

Harris, Jason Marc.  Folklore and the Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction.

Jason Marc Harris’s ambitious book argues that the tensions between folk metaphysics and Enlightenment values produce the literary fantastic. Demonstrating that a negotiation with folklore was central to the canon of British literature, he explicates the complicated rhetoric associated with folkloric fiction. His analysis includes a wide range of writers, including James Barrie, William Carleton, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Sheridan Le Fanu, Neil Gunn, George MacDonald, William Sharp, Robert Louis Stevenson, and James Hogg.

Harris, Jason Marc and Duncan, Birke.  Laugh without Guilt:  A Clean Joke Book.

All of these jokes have been performed in front of live audiences, to cheers, applause, and big laughs. The collection covers such subjects as Heaven, hell, lawyers, and blondes; plus genres like anti-tales (spooky stories that become jokes), joculates (funny history), puns, riddles, and urban legends. The book also emphasizes the educational value of jokes as a way to hone live performance skills.

Harris, Jason Marc and Duncan, Birke.  The Troll Tale and other Scary Stories.

A troll, a poltergeist, floating fairies, troops of little men, premonitions, ghosts, pranks, and a doomed schoolteacher. These are just some of the eerie tales gathered by folklorists Birke Duncan and Jason Marc Harris in “The Troll Tale and Other Scary Stories”, featuring the storytelling talents of: Garrett Vance, Robert McAllister, Holly Luidl Wyatt, Ralph Cheadle, Chris Aynesworth, Andrew Brinkman, and many more.

Other Publications

Articles and Chapters

• “We All Live in Fabletown: Bill Willingham’s Fables—A Fairy-Tale Epic for the 21st Century.” Humanities 5.2 (2016).  Web.
• “Shadows of the Past in the Sunshine State: St. Augustine Ghost Lore and Tourism.”  Western Folklore. 74.3/4 Summer/Fall 2015. Print.
• “Scottish 19th Century Highland and Island Folklore:  Collectors, Informants, and Materials” Scottish Traditional Literatures. Eds. Sarah Dunnigan and Suzanne Gilbert. Companions to Scottish Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2013. Print.
• “Smiles of Oblivion: Demonic Clowns and Doomed Puppets as Fantastic Figures of Absurdity, Chaos, and Misanthropy in the Writings of Thomas Ligotti,” Journal of Popular Culture 45.6 (2012). Print.
• “Absurdist Narratives in the Sunshine State: Comic, Criminal, Folkloric, and Fantastic Escapades in the Swamps and Suburbs of Florida.” New Directions in Folklore 10.1 (2012).Web.
• “­Perilous Shores: The Unfathomable Supernaturalism of Water in 19th-Century Scottish Folklore.” Mythlore 107/108 Fall/Winter (2009). 5-25. Print.
• Introduction,” “Note on the Text,” “Endnotes,” and “Suggested Reading” for Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae. Barnes and Nobles Library of Essential Reading Series (May 2006): vii-xx; 255-260. Print.
• “National Borders, Contiguous Cultures, and Fantastic Folklore in Hogg’s The Three Perils of Man,” Studies in Hogg and His World Vol. 14 (2003): 38-61. Print.
• “Robert Louis Stevenson: Folklore and Imperialism,” English Literature in Transition 1880-1920  46.3: 388-399. Print.
• “Shadows of Tradition: ‘We Never Really Believed It, But It Was Definitely There’—The Role of Belief and the Mechanics of Legend in Tales of the Spirit World.”  Northwest Folklore 14.1 (2000):15-55. Print.
• “Experiences With the Fairies: Tradition, Imagination, and the Media.” Northwest Folklore 13.7 (1999): 10-26. Print.

Fiction and Poetry

• Master of Rods and Strings. Novella forthcoming, 2021. Published by Vernacular Books.
• “Lilith Doesn’t Like Happy Endings.”  Short Story. Arlington Literary Journal. Issue 142. 2020.
• “What You Know and What You Don’t.” Best Short Stories from the Saturday Evening Post, Great American Fiction Contest 2020. Saturday Evening Post, 2019.
• “The Nowhere Place.” Short Story. Horror USA: California. Soteira Press, 2019.
• “Men of Integrity.” Short Story. Pennsylvania Literary Journal. vol. 11. issue 3. 2019.
• “Succulent Ribs.” Short Story. Writing Texas, vol. 6 2018-2019, pp. 156-162. Print.
• “Grandfather Rat.” Marvels and Tales, Trickster Issue, vol.32. no.1, Fall 2018, pp. 155-160. Print.
• “The Cant of Winds.” Writing Texas, vol. 5, 2017-2018, pp. 92-94. Print.
• “Fallen.” Flash! Writing the Very Short Story, edited by John Dufresne. Norton, 2018, pp. 108-113. Print.
• “To Watch the World Burn.” Abyss & Apex. Poem. Issue. 66. (2018) Web.
• “Fires in the Dark.” Bull: Men’s Fiction. Fiction. May 15th, 2017, Web.
• “Fallen.” Jellyfish Review. Fiction. Issue 13, May 5th 2017. Web.
• “The Fun that Clowns Can Be.” Fiction. Bodyparts Magazine. Issue 8, 2017. Print and Web.
• “Mouthful.” Fiction. The Offbeat. Vol 17. (Spring 2017). Print.
• “Strange Music.” Fiction. Gris-Gris. Issue 7. (Winter 2017). Web
• “Titans of North Texas.” Creative Non-Fiction. Texas Weather. Beaumont: Lamar UP, 2016. Print.
• “The Handle.” Fiction. Psychopomp Magazine 12 (Summer 2016). Web.
• “Echolocation.” Fiction. Arroyo Literary Review 8 (Spring 2016). Print.
• “What the Storm Brought.” Fiction. Midwestern Gothic 18 (Summer 2015). Print.
• “Ridden.” Fiction. Masque and Spectacle: An Arts and Literary Journal. 4 Vietnam Issue. (July 2015) Web.
•  “Slender and Gray.” Fiction. Riding Light Review. “Halloween” Issue 1 (Oct. 2014). Print.
• “To Crawl Through Stars.” Fiction. Cheap Pop. (July 29, 2014). Web.
• “Why We Eat the Dead.” Fiction. Everyday Fiction. (Fall 2013) Web.
• “Song of Frogs.” Fiction. Meat for Tea: The Valley Review. 4.3 (Fall 2013). Print.
• “Fridge Monitor.” Fiction. Midwestern Gothic. Issue 9 (Spring 2013). Print.
• “Traveling With Winter.” Poem. The Contributor. (2012). Print.
• “Unyielding Spring.” Poem. The Contributor. (2012). Print.
• “Union of the Snake.” Fiction. CC&D: The Unreligious, Non-Family-Oriented Literary and Art Magazine. 212 (Sept. 2010): 61-76. Web/Print.
• “El Camino Convalescent Hospital.” Poem. Bricolage.14  (1997). Print.
• “Breakdown.” Short story. Spectrum. 39 (1997): 152-164. Print.
• “Maplewood.” Poem. Spectrum 39 (1997): 165-166. Print.

Creative Collaborative projects: Radio and Film

• Creative Consultant for broadcast radio plays:
  • The Troll Tale (2006)
  •  A Long Vacation (2005)
  • Riders of the Three-Toed Horse (2009) 
  • The Adventures of Monty Moudlyn (2009).
• Co-wrote Radio Play: Union of the Snake  (with Birke Duncan—broadcast in 2010)—based on my short story of same title “Union of the Snake” CC&D Magazine 212 (2010).
• Co-wrote Screenplay: The Adventures of Monty Moudlyn (with Birke Duncan).  Produced by Eric Emerick, June 2011. Accepted into Melbourne, FL Independent Film Festival September 9-10, 2011. Lead actor received “Rising Star” award for his role as Monty.

Reviews

• Review of Laura Maylene Walter’s Body of Stars.  Vernacular Books. Spring 2021. Online.
• Review of “A Tour of Fabletown: Patterns and Plots in Bill Willingham’s Fables.”
  • Marvels and Tales. 33.1 Spring 2019. Print.
• Review of Oreads.  Appalachian Journal. 43.3-4, 2016, pp. 281-284. Print.
• Review of Dave Eggers’s The Circle. RainTaxi. Online Edition Spring 2014. Web.
• Review of Tampa by Alissa Nutting (Harper Collins 2013) Mid-American Review1. p. 164. Print.
• Review The Magical Imagination: Magic and Modernity in Urban England 1780-1914, by Karl Bell (Cambridge UP, 2012). Journal of British Studies. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 248-250. Print.
• Review Any Deadly Thing, by Roy Kesey (Dzanck, 2013). Mid-American Review 33.2,  162-163.Print.
• Review Volt, by Alan Heathcock (Greywolf, 2011). Rufous City Review (Jan. 2013) Web.
• Reviews of Oscar Wilde’s fairy Tales: Origins and Contexts by Anne Markey (Irish Academic
• Press, 2011); (2) The Christian Goddess: Archetype and Theology in the Fantasies of George 
• MacDonaldby Bonnie Gaarden (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2011). Victorian Studies4, pp. 736-738. Print.