Jason Kyle Howard

Jason Kyle Howard is Salon’s Senior Ideas Editor. He writes about the Democratic Party’s efforts to construct a winning message and agenda, and how politicians use political rhetoric to influence public opinion and shape the American people’s perception of political and cultural moments.

Howard’s work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, The New Republic, Washington Monthly, The Nation and in other publications, as well as on NPR and C-SPAN’s “Book TV.” He is the author of two books: “Something’s Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal” (with 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 13 environmental activists, and “A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music,” which explores how the land and music of Kentucky have shaped American music. In 2023 he cowrote the story for the Grammy-nominated music video of “In Your Love” by Tyler Childers, which was the first country music video with a gay storyline to be released by a major record label.

Howard serves on the faculty at Berea College and Spalding University’s Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Creative Writing. Find him on Bluesky at @jasonkylehoward.bsky.social and on Instagram at @JasonKyleHoward.