Alden Jones is an award-winning author and educator, a Fulbright Specialist, and the editor of Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing.

Her most recent memoir is the Lambda Literary Award-nominated The Wanting Was a Wilderness, hailed as “a master class in memoir writing” by The Millions. Her previous books are the short story collection Unaccompanied Minors, winner of the New American Fiction Prize and a finalist for the Edmund White Award in Debut Fiction, and the travel memoir The Blind Masseuse, longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her pedagogical expertise has been cited by such outlets as Teen Vogue, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Associated Press; she speaks frequently on reading and teaching methods for the digital era. Her short works of fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Boston Globe, The RumpusNew York MagazineThe CutAgniOff Assignment, and Best American Travel Writing. A long-time travel educator and a former professor on Semester at Sea, Alden is currently an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Emerson College, and also teaches in the low-residency Newport MFA.

“Edge of the World makes clear that queer travel writing isn’t just overdue—it’s transformative.” —Slate

“Alden Jones’ wonderfully edited anthology gives us 16 different perspectives on what it’s like to be an LGBTQ+ person in the world today. …Enlightening, insightful, hopeful and frightening—it’s all wrapped up in these pages.” —Smithsonian Magazine

“[An anthology] to keep on-hand in the passenger seat and readily accessible in your carry-on for the plane…the essays in Edge of the World open the mic stand to an array of writers in the LGBTQ+ community. A fine coterie of writers that includes Garrard Conley, Genevieve Hudson, and Denne Michele Norris lends an idiosyncratic voice and a real heartbeat to the destinations they’ve dreamed of, lived in, and moved through.” —Condé Nast Traveler

“This dynamic collection of queer travel writing will have you longing for the inspiration, energy and connection brought on by exploring new peoples and places.” —Ms. Magazine

Praise for Edge of the World

  • "Edge of the World brings readers to the cusp of longing. At the heart of this collection of travel essays is a queering of narrative, of point of view, of relationships between people as well as the relationship queer humans have to the nonhuman world around them. Underneath tourism an entire universe exists that teaches us how to see each other and the planet differently. This book will open eyes and hearts in the most astonishing, beautiful ways."

    —Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Reading the Waves and The Chronology of Water

  • "In the pages of Edge of the World you'll find much more than travel advice. Each of these incredibly vulnerable and beautifully written essays remind us that our identities can affect where we go, who we are expected to be in those spaces, and that beauty (and heartache) can be found almost everywhere. I'm grateful to each of this anthology's contributors for their stories, and I believe you will be, too—queer or not."

    —De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills and Decent People

  • “If, like most queers I know, you're more yourself when you're not at home, and your sense of home itself is fraught, and most days find you simultaneously restless and dreamy and anxious about your thirst for adventure, these stories are your stories. Candid, wise, and filled with longing, Edge of the World is an essential compendium of the unique discoveries we've made on our most unforgettable journeys. I'm shocked this vital book hasn't existed until now.”

    —Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men

  • “If I were curating a cohort to accompany me on my travels I could hardly do better than the writers assembled in this collection. Witty, intelligent, gossipy, and wise, these writers remind me of why I love to travel. Their essays beautifully trace the different ways queerness interacts with being a stranger in a strange land, alive to possibility and reinvention.”

    —Alysia Abbott, author of Fairyland

  • “Edge of the World is a mesmerizing feat. It honors the exquisite complexity of queer travel with immediacy, tenderness, and ferocious curiosity. I’m so grateful for these 16 authors who chart paths through cultures and languages, along the Baltic Sea, from Mérida to Amsterdam, across class strata, and even into the past, through family lineages and memory. This collection offers a new cartography of becoming, alert to the ways queerness shapes how we see, seek, and find. This collection is a vital contribution to the discourse, arriving at a crucial moment when the illusion of virtual 'connectivity’ makes the nuance of travel more important than ever."

    —Margot Douaihy, USA Today bestselling author of Scorched Grace and Blessed Water

  • "Edge of the World is one of those rare anthologies that will live alongside you for ages. What a joy to walk through so many worlds with our most gifted writers. Whether in Senegal or Cambodia or Holland or Key West, the insights and revelations in these essays offer endless food for thought. The travel is not just multi-geographic dalliances, of course—instead we are the tourists exploring the psyches of these authors from all kinds of backgrounds. Alden Jones has brought together essential voices who span half a century in age and are rooted in all kinds of distinct cultures, concerns, inclinations, and styles. The result is a dazzling gift to our queer communities and a most loving invitation for all kinds of wandering souls to walk through the world on our too-often-overlooked magical margins."

    —Porochista Khakpour, author of Tehrangeles and Sick

Book Clubs

I’m always happy to Zoom in on a virtual book club or visit book clubs IRL in the Boston area. 

Books

Short Works

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