Jared Jackson is a writer, educator, and arts administrator. His writing has been published in The Yale Review, Guernica, Kenyon Review, n+1, VQR, and elsewhere. His short story “Bebo” was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2023, guest edited by Min Jin Lee.
His work has received support from MacDowell, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Center for Fiction, Baldwin for the Arts, Instituto Sacatar, Tin House, the Writer’s Block Residency, Loghaven, the Hawthornden Foundation, and the Granum Foundation. His debut story collection, Locals, forthcoming from Viking, brings together stories—including “Bebo”—that follow the lives and dreams of young residents of his hometown of Hartford, CT. He worked on the linked collection during his 2021 and 2023 residencies at MacDowell.
Jackson received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University, where he was the recipient of a Chair’s Fellowship and a Creative Writing Teaching Fellowship. In 2022, he was named a New York Foundation for the Arts Executive Leader of Color.
While at MacDowell, he will be working on his debut novel, New Boy, also forthcoming from Viking.
Portrait by Roqu Nonini
