Jos Charles

jos charles (stylized in lowercase) is a trans American poet, writer, translator, and editor. Her book feeld won the National Poetry Series, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2024, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. She currently resides in Long Beach, California.

Early life and education Charles grew up in a conservative Evangelical Christian family, and wrote her first poem, about the Crucifixion, when she was seven years old. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arizona. She is a PhD student in English at the University of California, Irvine.

Biography Charles's debut poetry collection, Safe Space, was published in 2016 by Ahsahta Press. Her poetry has been published by Poetry, PEN, Washington Square Review, Denver Quarterly, GLAAD, Lambda Literary, The Feminist Wire, Action Yes, Bloom, and The Capilano Review. In 2016 Charles received a Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship through the Poetry Foundation and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. Chosen for the National Poetry Series by the poet Fady Joudah, it has been praised for its groundbreaking twist on classic pastoral traditions.

In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an event widely considered a watershed moment in the modern LGBTQ rights movement, Queerty named her one of the Pride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people".

Publications Safe Space (Ahsahta, 2016; ) feeld (Milkweed, 2018; ; ) a Year & other poems (US: Milkweed, 2022, ; UK: Broken Sleep Books, 2024, )