Jon Petruschke

Jon Petruschke was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in psychology from the Pennsylvania State University and an MSS from Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Upon the completion of his graduate studies, Petruschke relocated to Portland, Maine, with his wife and two cats. Since 2002, the four of them have lived happily in the cozy, vibrant neighborhood of Munjoy Hill. Shortly after the move, Petruschke founded a Portland-based writing group that is now in its twelfth year. His short fiction has been published in the anthologies Philly Fiction and Philly Fiction 2. In her Philadelphia Inquirer review, Susan Balee called Petruschke’s story "Bragging About Annie," which appeared in Philly Fiction, a “sweet and funny tale…a wonderful story—my favorite of the lot.” Petruschke’s poetry has been published in such journals as Poetic Hours; Paper Wasp; Children, Churches and Daddies; 3 Cup Morning; Open Minds Quarterly; Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream; and the anthology In Our Own Words: Generation X Poetry. While at work on his first novel, Petruschke began a blog, Basho and Jung. The blog’s subject is dream haiku: short poetry inspired by and based on the content of his nightly dreams. Initially, it was a practice to cleanse his writing mind of the long stretches of prose in his novel; however, playing with his dreams inside of a tiny poetic form lead to the development of Petruschke’s first book: a collection of poetry entitled Dream Haiku: Poems from Nights and Naps. Dream Haiku was recently self-published and is available on Amazon. When not writing, Petruschke is a clinical social worker who supervises a team that assists and supports adults with severe mental illness in the Portland community.