Jorrell Watkins

A Black man with cornrows is wearing blue glasses, a blue suit, a brown turtleneck and is sitting in a dark gray chair.

Jorrell Watkins is from Richmond, VA. He is an alum of Hampshire College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He received fellowships from the Association of University Centers on Disabilities, Smithsonian Institution, Fulbright Japan, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His disability inclusive play Meet us at the Horizon was produced by Combined Efforts Theater Co. for its 2019 world premiere. His chapbook If Only the Sharks Would Bite won the inaugural Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series in Poetry (Black Rock Press, 2020). He is also the coauthor of Studies in Brotherly Love (Prompt Press, 2021), a poetry chapbook based on Malcolm Corley’s paintings, with Claretta Holsey, DJ Savarese, and Lateef McLeod. His debut full-length collection, Play|House is forthcoming in 2024 by Northwestern University Press, Curbstone Books. Currently, he lives in LA and is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing & Literature at USC.