Jax Connelly (they/she) is the author of We Have Attempted to Contact You and Have Failed on Several Occasions, winner of the 2024 Quill Prose Award at Red Hen Press and forthcoming in 2027.
The essay collection, which explores the intersections of queer identity, unstable bodies, and mental illness, was also a finalist for AWP's 2025 Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction under a different title.
Four of Jax’s essays have received Best American Essays Notables, and they've been a winner or finalist in prose contests at Prairie Schooner, Nowhere, The Pinch, Fourth Genre, New Letters, Boulevard, CutBank, and Black Warrior Review, among others. Her work has also appeared in publications like The Georgia Review, River Teeth, The Rumpus, Pleiades, and [PANK].
Jax has received residency awards from Ragdale and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. They hold an MFA from Columbia College Chicago and a day job in marketing, and they are currently working on another essay collection and a hybrid queer breakup book that blends memoir, fiction, and prose poetry with experimental forms. She lives in Chicago with her partner and their husky-shepherd mix, Bruno.
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