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 Rumpus, New York Magazine, The Cut, Agni, Off 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.