Holman’s travels and even specific conversations were documented well enough for Roberts to reconstruct his life travels and bring him out of obscurity. This book is a biography of James Holman (1786-1857), a blind man who garnered some international acclaim for traveling around the world on his own. In 2004, he was awarded the Van Zorn Prize, an award established and bestowed by author Michael Chabon, for fiction by an emerging writer “in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe.”Īlthough Roberts had several books already published, his first publication to receive wide critical success was A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler in 2006. It is around this time that Roberts decided to leave the company to continue writing. Five years after its start, Web site named the site “one of the twelve most important Web sites of the 20th century,” according to the profile on the Jason Roberts Home Page. The company grew and ultimately was listed on the NASDAQ. In 1994 Roberts founded the Web site, considered among the first uses of the Internet as an education outlet to the general public. SIDELIGHTS: Jason Roberts is a freelance writer who has written for numerous periodicals, including Mc-Sweeney’s, The Believer, San Francisco Chronicle, and Village Voice. (With Phil Gross) Director 8 Demystified: The Official Guide to Macromedia Director, Lingo, and Shockwave, Peachpit Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.Ī Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler, HarperCollins ( New York, NY), 2006.Ĭontributor to Village Voice, McSweeney’s, The Believer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post. (Editor) The Learn2 Guide: Burp a Baby, Carve a Turkey, and 108 Other Things You Should Know How to Do, illustrated by Scott Hartley and Ethan Hay, Villard ( New York, NY), 1999. (With Phil Gross) Director 7 Demystified: The Official Guide to Macromedia Director, Lingo, and Shockwave, Peachpit Press (Berkeley, CA), 1999. WRITINGSĭirector Demystified: Creating Interactive Multimedia with Macromedia Director, Peachpit Press (Berkeley, CA), 1995.ĭirector 5 Demystified: Creating Interactive Multimedia with Macromedia Director, Peachpit Press (Berkeley, CA), 1996.ĭirector 6 Demystified: The Official Guide to Macromedia Director, Lingo, and Shockwave, Peachpit Press (Berkeley, CA), 1998.

Guest lecturer at Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and California College of the Arts.ĪWARDS, HONORS: Van Zorn Prize for fiction, 2004 finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, 2006. Office- The Writers’ Grotto, 490 2nd St., Ste.

Education: University of California, Santa Cruz, B.A.ĪDDRESSES: Home- Marin County, CA. Roberts (a photojournalist) and Gloria Jean Neil (an actress) married Patricia Mixon children: two. PERSONAL: Born in Arcadia, CA son of Anthony K.

A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts