I.S. Jones

I.S. Jones (Itiola Stephanie Subuola Obasuyi-Jones) is a queer American / Nigerian poet and music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. I.S. hosts a month-long workshop every April called The Singing Bullet. I.S. coedited The Young African Poets Anthology: The Fire That Is Dreamed Of (Agbowó, 2020) and served as the inaugural nonfiction guest editor for Lolwe. She is a Book Editor with Indolent Books, Editor at 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, freelances for Complex, Earmilk, NBC News THINK, and elsewhere. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart Pulp, The Rumpus, The Offing, Shade Literary Arts, Blood Orange Review, Honey Literary and elsewhere. Her work was chosen by Khadijah Queen as a finalist for the 2020 Sublingua Prize for Poetry. She is an MFA candidate in Poetry at UW–Madison as well as the Inaugural 2019­­–2020 Kemper K. Knapp University Fellowship recipient. Currently, she serves as the Watershed Director for Art Lit Lab. Her chapbook Spells Of My Name is forthcoming with Newfound in 2021. She splits her time between Southern California and New York.

Early Life
Itiola Jones was in born in Cranston, Rhode Island and lived in many parts of New Jersey. She grew up in Rancho Cucamonga, California, which is her hometown, but claims Brooklyn, New York as home. She attributes her high school English teacher, Romaine Washington, as the reason for pursuing writing as a serious career path.

Goals
Her goals is to always give tenderness space in her life and to write as her truth as much as possible before she is dead.

Inspirations
Vievee Francis, Julian David Randall, James Baldwin, Rainer Maria Rilke, Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, Richard Siken, Mary Oliver, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Linda Gregg, Toni Morrison, Suji Kwock Kim, Sharlene Teo, and Sharon Olds.

Philosophy
"'I believe writers have an obligation to create that which they do not see reflected in the world. I also believe that writers must create the novel, book of poems, book of essays, etc. that only they can write.'"

Publications
Guernica, The Rumpus, The Offing, Shade Literary Arts, The Washington Square Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Complex, NBC News Think, Brooklyn Magazine.