joj (them/them) is a France-based American nonbinary writer of creative nonfiction–memoir, essay, prose poetry. They are a self-described collector of unused graduate degrees, the most recent (2020) an MA in Creative Writing from Ball State University. Their work explores themes of place, class, queerness, parenthood, infant loss, plant medicine, and the nomadic/peripatetic. Their writing has appeared in Insider, Parents, Yes!, Five Minutes, Your Life is A Trip, and The Matador Network and New Lines.
While at NES, they are finishing the revisions of the memoir they completed at NES in May of 2023–entitled HOW I LEARNED FRENCH–which weaves the story of their year of study abroad in France into glimpses of their backstory couched in the experience of movies that suggested France (and French) would be socially transformative–an interrogation of how television and film shape expectations and reality perception of the low/poverty class.
Instagram and Linktree: @jojthefirst
Facebook: Joj Thefirst
Bluesky: @jojthefirst.bsky.social