bio
Michelle Denise Jackson is a Fat Queer Black Girl who tells stories. She was born and raised by a family of Respectable and Exceptional Negroes in Southern California. From an early age, they demanded she embody Black Excellence. Instead, Michelle used her dolls to reenact the soap operas she snuck in when her parents weren’t home – leaving Barbie and Ken naked in bed together for them to find. When she outgrew her dolls, she moved on to playing The Sims and writing angst-ridden poetry.
A misfit by default, Michelle weaponized her imagination and passion for storytelling to create space for herself in the world. First, as reigning Supreme of her high school’s thespian society. Then, as a slam poet and theatre major at Cal State Long Beach. After two years at CSULB, she transferred to NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. There, Michelle explored the intersections of storytelling, performing arts, social justice, and media & cultural studies in a self-designed concentration she (obnoxiously) titled, "(Re)Constructing/Imagining Reality through Narrative and Performance." During her time in New York, she continued to write and perform spoken word poetry with NYU's top-ranked slam poetry team.
After receiving her B.A. from NYU, Michelle returned home to SoCal. In 2011, Michelle co-founded ¡DUENDE! Long Beach, a grassroots arts organization that provided arts-based workshops and performance opportunities to local youth. Michelle also taught sex education and led youth programs for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles and the South L.A. Youth Advisory Council for Reproductive Health. She is one of the founding organizers of the Spring Into Love Healthy Teen Fest, an annual day of workshops that educate and celebrate sexual health and reproductive justice.
When sliding condoms on plastic bananas finally lost its spark, Michelle decided to pursue her passion for writing full-time. She co-wrote, co-produced and co-starred in the theatrical poetry show, A Necessary Body, and the the web series, GIRL, GET YO' LIFE!. She was also a contributing writer and editor for the acclaimed Black feminist digital platform, For Harriet. She then went on to get her MFA in Writing for Screen & Television from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she was a recipient of both the Annenberg Graduate Fellowship and the Edward Small Screenwriting Award. She also served as event coordinator for the John Wells Writing Division's annual industry networking event, First Pitch.
She is now a television writer, working on the acclaimed OWN series Queen Sugar, created by Ava DuVernay. She was previously staffed on the upcoming Netflix series Pieces of Her (based on the novel by Karin Slaughter), Maid (adapted from the New York Times bestselling memoir by Stephanie Land), and HBO Max coming-of-age series Generation. Before getting staffed, she supported the writers’ rooms of Grey’s Anatomy (ABC), Mrs. America (FX), and Pieces of Her.
Having spent her whole life struggling to embrace who she is, Michelle writes stories that center and celebrate people from marginalized communities doing the messy work of becoming their whole and free selves.
But more than anything, she just wants to make her Momma and Daddy proud.
