Bio
 

Jason K. Friedman was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, and earned a B.A. from Yale and an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. His book of stories, Fire Year, won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and the Anne and Robert Cowan Writers Award. His work has also appeared in journals and periodicals including the New York Times, Moment, Tablet, The Gettysburg Review, Image, Fjords Review, Cimarron Review, and the Decadent Review, and has been anthologized in Best American Gay Fiction, The Queer South, and the cultural studies reader Goth. He’s also published two terrifying children’s books, Phantom Trucker and Haunted Houses. He lives in San Francisco with his husband, filmmaker Jeffrey Friedman.

 

TECHNICAL WRITING AND EDITING EXPERIENCE

Business Systems Consultant, WebATM Development, Wells Fargo, San Leandro, California (July 2005 – present)

  • Act as a liaison between the ATM software group and the ATM business group.
  • Represent developers in requirements, design, and data-mapping sessions for bankwide projects.
  • Write and edit functional and technical specifications for business and technical audiences.
  • Create and maintain presentations and diagrams of system architecture and data flow.
  • Facilitate software projects by analyzing system impacts and risks and conveying them to the Change Control and Corporate Information Security departments.
  • Created a template for writing specifications documents.
  • Wrote ATM screen text and created and maintained a style sheet for this text.

Freelance Technical Writer, ATM Banking, Wells Fargo, San Francisco, California (October 2004 – June 2005)

  •  Wrote a guide to using a new database of the ATM network.
  • Documented the procedure for installing software onto ATMs.
  • Defined vendor responsibilities in supporting ATM software and hardware.
  • Documented various internal procedures.
  • Technical Editor, PeopleSoft, Pleasanton, California (October 2002 – June 2004)
  • Wrote Designing PeopleSoft Training Courses, a three-day instructor-led course on applying principles of instructional design to writing courses.
  • Developmentally edited and copyedited documentation and training materials for applications in such fields as human resources, customer-relationship management, and financial management.
  • Developed a course structure based on job function.
  • Trained editors in design-document review and the principles of instructional design.
  • Created templates and wrote guidelines for preparing course-design documents.

Senior Technical Editor, Openwave, Redwood City, California (March 2001 – October 2002)

  •  Worked with writers and the production team to develop instructor-led and online courses on mobile-Internet applications and messaging software.
  • Developed, copyedited, and proofread documentation.
  • Worked with writers and other editors to restructure relevant documentation for inclusion in a new online reference.
  • Contributed to the ongoing revision of the style guide.

Senior Technical Editor, Oracle, Redwood City, California (January 1998 – March 2001)

  • Developmentally edited, copyedited, and proofread courses on subjects including data warehousing, server management, programming tools, and financial services.
  • Contributed to the ongoing revision of the style guide and gave the editorial-services orientation for new writers.
  • Revised the Editorial Quick Reference Guide and spearheaded projects including an aid for writers in using the Oracle University PowerPoint templates and a revision of the style guide to accommodate courses on Web-based applications.

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Visiting Lecturer, University of Washington. Led advanced and intermediate fiction-writing workshops, taught a literature class, conducted independent studies in the novel, served as adviser to the undergraduate literary magazine, and served on an awards committee for undergraduate fiction prizes. (Fall 1994 – Spring 1997)

Lecturer of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law. Taught an intensive course examining current theories of legal writing. (Summers 1992 – 1994)

Adjunct Assistant Professor of English and Communications Design, University of Baltimore. Taught “Ideas in Writing,” an upper-level course that investigated various strategies of writing and reading. (Fall 1991 – Spring 1994)

 

EDUCATION

University of California Berkeley Extension
Introduction to Technical Writing

The Johns Hopkins University
Degree: M.A., Writing Seminars

Yale College
Degree: B.A. in English, magna cum laude