Jon Michael Varese is the author of the supernatural thrillers The Spirit Photographer (2018) and The Company (2023), as well as numerous pieces on 19th-century literature and culture. He credits his development as a reader and lover of literature to his grandmother, whose loquat tree served as a reliable reading umbrella during the hottest days of his childhood in his native Miami.

For more than two decades, Jon has been affiliated with The Dickens Project, a multi-campus research consortium of the University of California, and in 2016 became the Project’s Director of Public Outreach. As Director, he guest teaches for the University of Southern California's Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI), a college pipeline program for students from Title 1 schools in South Central Los Angeles.

He lives in Western Massachusetts.