Jane Marchant (she/her) is an interdisciplinary storyteller working with prose, self-portraiture, inherited materials, and plants to dissect rationalities of racial passing and the implications of white men’s exotification of light-skinned women of color. Her identity as a multi-racial daughter drives her art, and she uses form as evidence of existence, to createnarrative, and to place her experiences in conversation with the women in her lineage.
She is a 2024 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, recipient of an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, a Lucas Artists Fellowship at Montalvo Arts Center, and a Tin House First Book Residency. She has received support from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation, Headlands Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and Art Omi, among others.
Jane’s work has appeared in BOMB Magazine, ZYZZYVA, Guernica, Apogee, Kweli Journal, Catapult, Columbia Journal, Evergreen Review, and elsewhere. Her photography and book art have been exhibited with the Center for Book Arts, Kala Art Institute, and ACCI Gallery. She’s at work on a memoir in the form of an Encyclopedia of Botany of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Formerly the PEN America Literary Awards Program Director, Jane earned her BA and MFA from Columbia University’s nonfiction writing programs, where she served as co-president of Our Word, a student group advocating for diversity and inclusion in the graduate writing program.
Jane loves the Bay but lives in Portland, Oregon. Her favorite flower is jasmine.
