Michal “MJ” Jones is a writer, poet, musician, parent and earth visitor living in Oakland, CA. A curious and talented interdisciplinary writer, MJ's work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and is featured or forthcoming in Anomaly, TriQuarterly Review, Kissing Dynamite, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Non-binary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity, Everyday Feminism, Black Girl Dangerous, The Body Is Not An Apology, Wear Your Voice Magazine, and many other venues. MJ is the recipient of fellowships from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, the San Francisco Writers Grotto, VONA - Voices of Our Nations, Winter Tangerine, and Kearny Street Workshop's Interdisciplinary Writers Lab. In 2020 and 2019, they were recruited to serve as a panelist for the San Francisco Arts and Berkeley Arts Commissions, reviewing individual grant applications in the literary arts category. MJ also serves as an Associate Poetry Editor at Foglifter, an award-winning literary home for queer and trans writers.
​MJ’s words are deeply open and vulnerable, reflect life living at the intersections of Black, queer, non-binary identity, and display a genuine sense of self-awareness. They are currently busy raising a glorious toddler and finishing their first full collection of poetry. MJ is the Community Engagement Fellow in the MFA in Poetry program at Mills College (2021), where they will focus on curating workshops for trans & gender non-conforming writers.