LaToya Jordan

Since her sophomore English class in high school, LaToya Jordan knew she wanted a career as a writer. However, she didn’t realize she’d be writing by day and by night: in addition to her fiction, poetry, and the occasional essay or reported piece, she works as a professional writer for a local government agency. Her writing has appeared in Anomaly, Literary Mama, Mom Egg Review, Raising Mothers, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, and more. Her flash fiction story “Offering” was chosen as a spotlight story in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press) and named Wigleaf’s Top 50 2021. Her essay “The Zig Zag Mother,” appears in My Caesarean: Twenty-One Mothers on the C-Section Experience and After (The Experiment) and another essay, “After Striking a Fixed Object,” published by The Manifest-Station, was listed as “notable” in Best American Essays 2016. She is also the author of Thick-Skinned Sugar (Finishing Line Press), a poetry chapbook. LaToya is currently working on a speculative short story collection with elements of horror and magic realism from the perspectives of Black women and girls about mothering, being mothered, and wanting to mother.

LaToya is a news junkie, pop culture lover, and true crime aficionado, and draws inspiration for her stories from the media, music, and Black American history. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, where she lives with her English teacher husband and their two children – the oldest reads every story she writes even though they aren’t age appropriate and the youngest helps edit drafts with his crayons. She received an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BS in public relations and journalism from Utica College. Follow her on Twitter @latoyadjordan.