Jonathan Fast

Jonathan Fast (born April 13 1948, in New York City) is an American author and social work educator.

He attended Princeton University, and earned graduate degrees at Columbia University and Yeshiva University. He has a daughter ([1]) Molly Jong-Fast from his first marriage to author Erica Jong, and two sons from his marriage to Barbara Fast, a Unitarian minister.

Fast currently resides in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Westerly, Rhode Island, and teaches research at ([2]) the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University.

His father, Howard Fast, was the author of many best-selling novels, including the book Spartacus, that later became the basis for the film of the same name. He was a member of the American Communist Party, and he later served a three month prison sentence for "contempt of Congress". While growing up in a literary milieu influenced Jonathan toward a career as a writer, a liberal political climate laid the ground work for his interest in social work.

Jonathan Fast began writing science fiction and then broadened out into other genres. Of his eight novels, the most successful, from both a commercial and literary perspective, is the historical novel, The Golden Fire, an account of two brothers who battle to be king, set in India during the Gupta Empire (ca. 300 AD).

Fast seems to have given up the writing of fiction, but frequently publishes scholarly articles in the field of social work, concentrating in the area of school safety, violence, and school rampage shootings (e.g., The Columbine High School massacre) and the use of technology in teaching. ^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

Fiction

• The Secrets of Synchronicity (1977)
• Mortal Gods (1978)
• The Inner Circle (1979)
• The Beast (1981)
• The Golden Fire (1986)
• The Jade Stalk (1988)
• Stolen Time (1990)

Adaptations

• Newsies (1992)

External links

• Fast's faculty page at Yeshiva University
• The Reluctant CyberProf, Fast's personal website.
• Audio interview at Wired for Books.org by Don Swaim

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