Jason Kyle Howard is the author of A Few Honest Words, an essay collection that explores how the land and culture of Kentucky have shaped American music through the work of musicians including Naomi Judd, Joan Osborne, Dwight Yoakam, Nappy Roots, Matraca Berg, Jim James, and others. He is the author of the acclaimed essay and oral history collection Something's Rising (co-written with bestselling novelist Silas House), which was hailed by the late Studs Terkel as "a revelatory work" for its unflinching look at mountaintop removal coal mining through the eyes of thirteen environmental activists. 

Howard's essays, features, and commentary have appeared in publications including the New York Times, Oxford American, Salon, The Nation, The Millions, Utne Reader, Paste, and Sojourners, on C-SPAN's Book TV and NPR, and in a variety of anthologies. A widely acclaimed music writer, he has interviewed musicians spanning all genres including Yoko Ono, Carly Simon, Naomi Judd, Dwight Yoakam, Patty Griffin, and the legendary folksinger Jean Ritchie.

Howard is editor of Appalachian Review, a literary quarterly based at Berea College, where he teaches and directs the creative writing program. He serves on the faculty of the Spalding University Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing, and holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and degrees from The George Washington University and the University of Kentucky.

Howard's work often engages themes of history, popular culture, sexuality, female iconography, and the intersection of place and identity. A street haunter in the tradition of Virginia Woolf, he has an enduring love of walking, tea, dogs, rivers, trains, cardigans, hot water bottles, rose and violet creams, live music, English history, and Anne Boleyn. ​