J F Vernon Blog

About Jonathan

Writer/Director | Swim Coach | Digital Educator | Conservation Advocate

I’m Jonathan Vernon — a writer blending memoir and fiction, a performance swim coach, and a lifelong learner with a passion for storytelling, trees, and teaching.

I started MindBursts in 2010 as a digital notebook while studying for an MA in Open & Distance Education with The Open University. It evolved into a place for reflection on learning, memory, and technology. Now, it’s grown with me — becoming a creative hub for my fiction, coaching work, and conservation interests.

What I’m Working On

🖋 Creative Writing
I’m currently developing several long-form narrative projects, including:

• The Form Photo – a novella set in 1970s England, exploring teenage identity and memory.
• The Love Chart – a follow-up exploring adult fallout and emotional mapping.
• Watersprites – a mythic eco-fantasy that merges folklore, environmental change, and adolescent transformation.

My writing blends memoir with fiction, influenced by Nabokov, Vonnegut, and Henry Miller. I use AI collaboratively — not to replace writing, but to reflect, iterate, and provoke new insight.

🏊‍♂️ Swim Coaching
As Junior Performance Coach at Mid Sussex Marlins, I lead sessions for County and Regional level swimmers aged 10–18. I’m currently completing my Swim England Senior Coach (Level 3) qualification and lead squads across technical and endurance development. I write custom training sets, develop athlete profiles, and foster both discipline and curiosity in the water.

🌿 Conservation & Local Advocacy
In Lewes, I campaign for tree protection, biodiversity, and sustainable urban planning. My recent talks and blog posts explore how trees shape community memory and identity — a theme that feeds back into my creative work.

🎬 Filmmaking & Digital Storytelling
With 18 years’ experience directing and editing, I’m re-engaging with film. My recent work includes short environmental documentaries and AI-assisted visual storytelling. Sound, rhythm, and natural light are my tools.

Background

• Studied at Balliol College, Oxford; University of Birmingham; University of Kent; and The Open University.
• MA in Open & Distance Education
• Former multimedia producer and educational technologist
• Lifelong swimmer and teacher of creative thinking
• Parent, dream analyst, and devoted keeper of digital scraps

The MindBursts Ethos

This blog is an ongoing experiment — part archive, part workbench, part window into the woods. It holds writing fragments, dream analysis, AI collaborations, swim session plans, and reflections on learning and memory. Some of it is polished; much of it is in progress. That’s the point.

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A Trickster at Heart

Playful, curious, and diagnosed with ADHD in 2002, he identifies with A.A. Milne’s Jonathan Jo—a poem recited so often during childhood that he came to believe it entirely.

Jonathan Jo has a mouth like an ‘O’

And a barrow full of surprises

Whether mapping wartime romances, sketching misremembered school discos, or standing at the end of a swimming lane with a stopwatch, he brings a Trickster’s instinct: to test the frame, surprise the pattern, and never stand still for too long.

Some 1,000+ years ago, he was a King’s Special Guard (age 16) in Camelot, guarding Kenneth Moore and John Le-Mesurier. The film was ‘King Arthur and the Spaceman’.

Fig. 2. King Arthur and the Spacemen, Summer Vacation job, Alnwick Castle, 1978

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