Jax Connelly (they/she) is an award-winning writer whose creative nonfiction explores the intersections of queer identity, unstable bodies, and mental illness.
Jax's work has received honors including three Notables in the Best American Essays series, Nowhere Magazine's Fall 2020 Travel Writing Prize, first place in the 2019 Prairie Schooner Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest, and the 2018 Pinch Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction, among others. They were a finalist for Fourth Genre's 2021 Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize and for New Letters' 2021 Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction, and a semi-finalist in the 2020 Boulevard Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers. Her experimental and hybrid essays have also appeared in [PANK], The Rumpus, Hunger Mountain, Ruminate, Pleiades, Tahoma Literary Review, Zone 3 Literary Journal, and more.
Jax's day job is in marketing for a tech company. They live in Rogers Park with her elderly Jack Russell terrier, Cloo, whose hair is always everywhere, including Jax's headshot.