Jarid Nidal Manos, an American writer and activist, is the author of Ghetto Plainsman [2010], the upcoming Her Blue Watered Streets, and the literary blogstory Fear & Loving: Where Sea Level Meets the Deep.In addition, he just finished The Sun and the Water, a collection of short stories.
As an activist and non-profit leader, Jarid Manos is also Founder of Great Plains Restoration Council, based in Fort Worth, Texas with expanded operations in West Texas, Atlanta, GA and South Florida. GPRC created the Ecological Health model and Restoration Not Incarceration™, and Shark Therapy™ initiatives.
Jarid Manos is a Huffington Post contributor, and has also appeared in the New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, USA Today, Smithsonian, Congressional Quarterly, Houston Chronicle, Albuquerque Journal, New York Nightly News, Grist, NBC-5, New York Magazine, and many others.
In 2011, Jarid Manos and his book Ghetto Plainsman were the recipients of a $34,500 Arcus Foundation literary award to mount the national “Sharing the Journey” Tour, which allowed him to travel to places across the country that don’t normally get visiting authors. From the Alameda County Jail in Oakland, CA, to Breakout!, a small non-profit in a warehouse under the bridge in New Orleans run by young black transgender women fighting police criminalization of their lives, to inner city Newark, to being the keynote speaker at the Unity Fellowship Church National Convocation in Los Angeles, and more, Jarid shared the themes and ideas in Ghetto Plainsman and people discussed what it meant to be part of the American story of our own lives, particularly in finding paths to self-acceptance and a deeper health.
In 2011 he was appointed to the Relevancy Committee of the National Park Service/Obama administration, which worked to better connect diverse communities and National Parks with each other.
Jarid Manos is a featured guest speaker at universities, jails, churches and other places of faith, organizations, events, conferences, businesses, chambers of commerce, and schools nationwide.
A vegan athlete, Manos is particularly attuned to the body and how we live in our world, including inside our own lives.
He is now exploring the oceans and the tension of our times through diving, especially freediving, as climate change and urban struggle grip the world. It’s street level at sea level.
He recently joined the Advisory Board for Karenna Gore’s Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University in New York City.
About writing:
Ghetto Plainsman, Jarid Manos’ first book, took eight years to write.
Her Blue Watered Streets was begun in December 2010.
Jarid says:
“I think the American story is particularly the story of people on the land. That includes what’s left of the raw, original wild, this primitive America Toni Morrison speaks about, that reaches through time to touch our lives even today.
It also includes our concrete neighborhoods and streets, and the human expression of moments, trauma, movement and earned awareness that are built like layers of sandstone into the land.
I am drawn to edges. I wear the streets and what’s left of wild nature like I wear my senses and skin.
Beyond human characters, I feel that landscape is a character itself. So is the tension of our times.”
Jarid believes that good American literature can be transformative for social and personal change through an experiential story.
About Great Plains Restoration Council:
Through Jarid Manos’ guidance, GPRC has helped found the Ecological Health movement, which helps young people take care of their own health and lives through taking care of the Earth. GPRC teaches Ecological Health practices and principles through Plains Youth InterACTION™, Restoration Not Incarceration™, and Your Health Outdoors™.
