Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
About Jonathan C. Lewis
Travel stirs me. To savor the enchantments worth remembering, I write microfiction travelogues.
In their locations, landmarks, monuments and meals, each story is complete and true. The narrator’s experiences, while fictional, are even truer.
I think of myself as a Distinguished Author-in-Residence. By which I mean, my writing desk is in my home.
I also assemble art from recycled materials, found objects and salvage. Assemblage art appeals to me because it converts junk into something artistic. It is a more tactile experience than writing so the creative contrast works well for me.
Prior to fiction writing, I had several careers (partial listing): CEO/founder of MCE Social Capital which finances women-owned businesses in developing countries; Owner/founder of City Art Gallery; Chief Budget Consultant to the President of the California State Senate; CEO/founder of the California Tax Reform Association; Visiting Lecturer at the NYU Reynolds Program for Social Entrepreneurship and at the UC Berkeley Blum Center for Developing Economies; Author of The Unfinished Social Entrepreneur.
Raised in San Francisco. A proud graduate of Lick-Wilmerding High School and the University of California, Davis. Married 51 years to Jeanette Gifford Lewis. My son Aaron is a lawyer.
In 2024, I was interviewed by the Living the Writing Life podcast. Listen here.
About Noah (a nomadic storyteller)
For our benefit, Noah chronicles his nomadic travels. He is a high school civics and history teacher, a widower and over-indulging foodie. He recently turned 48.
Growing up in a nondescript San Francisco neighborhood, his first journeys were hikes across the Golden Gate Bridge, strolling through Chinatown and taste-testing hand-thrown pizza next to a bowling alley on Polk Street.
To this day, he is an avid walker. A handy habit for a traveler.
Over a checkered career, he has bussed tables in a three-star restaurant, dug ditches for a landscaping company and worked the cash register in a museum gift shop. Before settling on a teaching career, he was an assistant urban planner.
Tucked into an airplane seat, Noah is easy to overlook. Average height and build. Full head of hair turning black to grey. Brown eyes. Reading glasses. His travel uniform is blue jeans, white tee shirt, running shoes.
Before his wife died in a car accident, he was married for 18 years. Three years later, he still wears a wedding band.
Noah is raising two children: Benjamin is in college, Brittany in high school. The fourth family member is his dog Magellan.
Travel is Noah’s safe space. Even when he cloaks his vacations in self-improvement, cross-cultural understanding or the study of history, he is primarily driven by a selfish, sybaritic desire to escape from the sludge in his life, the daily routine, the stinging hurts.
Noah is a travel princess, er, prince. He likes luxury hotels with character, charm and a competent concierge. A picture window with a harbor view or cityscape is a preferred amenity. In the absence of a hot shower, same-day dry cleaning and doting room service, his wife used to accuse him of whining.
He resists the idea of packing lightly. He crams as much stuff as he possibly can into a large, unwieldly suitcase with good wheels. He is of the opinion that airline baggage handlers appreciate a challenge.
He is a travel loner. He hates group touring or, for that matter, any activity with strangers. Cruise ships are the worst. While on the road, his guilty pleasure is not making new friends.
Travel is Noah’s time to ponder and appreciate the world—and his place in it.
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