POET. EDITOR. EDUCATOR.

Michal ‘MJ’ Jones (they/he)  is a poet, parent, and editor in Oakland, CA. Their debut collection, HOOD VACATIONS, won the 2024 Lambda Literary Award. They are also the author of a chapbook, SOFT ARMOR (2023). A finalist of the National Poetry Series, their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Split Lip Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, American Academy of Poets, and Tri Quarterly Review. Often addressing & troubling aspects of life, violence, and identity, MJ’s work blends the lyrical, documentary, and confessional. 

From 2022-2024, MJ served as the Editor-In-Chief of Foglifter, an award-winning literary journal publishing radical work by LGBTQIA2-S writers. They have been awarded fellowships from Lambda Literary, Hurston/Wright Foundation, and VONA/Voices. They received their MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College in 2021, where they also received the distinguished Community Engagement Fellowship. An engaged literary citizen, they have repeatedly served on individual artist review panels for the cities of Berkeley and San Francisco, and as both assistant and final judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Winning Writers. Their personal and political essays have been featured in Everyday Feminism, Black Girl Dangerous, The Body Is Not An Apology, and other venues.