User:JasonMashak

About

B.A. in English, M.Ed. in secondary-level language arts. Editor and copywriter. Singer-songwriter and guitarist. Daddy to two amazing multilingual girls.

I grew up in Michigan and lived in Georgia, Tennessee, and Oregon before following family roots to Prague, Czech Republic, in 2006, where I lived almost 8 years before moving my family to Munich in summer of 2014.

My first poetry book, Salty as a Lip, was listed among Black Heart Magazine's six "Most Kick-Ass Books of 2010," and I've been a featured writer in many publications online and in print, and as well at several international poetry festivals:

2006 – Wordstock/Poetland Festival (Portland, Oregon, USA); 2010 – Prague Microfestival (Prague, Czech Republic); 2011 – Ostrovy bez Hranic (Olomouc, Czech Republic); 2012 – Protimluv Fest (Ostrava, Czech Republic); 2013 – Ars Poetica (Bratislava, Slovakia)

I'm a descriptivist rather than prescriptivist grammarian, except that I do maintain high standards when it comes to clarity of communications (e.g. active rather than passive sentence structures, which should be reserved only for lawyers, who often intentionally try to make the subject vague in order to provide ample legal loopholes).