Stephanie Jones (she/her) is a widely published writer, editor and poet based in New York. She’s a senior features writer for DownBeat Magazine, where she has worked since 2018, and a contributing interviewer for HuffPost Latino Voices. Her byline appears in The New York Times, NPR, The Detroit Free Press, NAfME’s Teaching Music, M³ Magazine & elsewhere. She is not a critic and does not write reviews. 

 

Stephanie is a 2026 Rhysling Award finalist, a 2026 Genrepunk Wild Card nominee and a 2026 finalist in Midway Journal's -1000 Below: Flash Prose and Poetry Contest. Her poetry & fiction appears or is forthcoming in The Santa Fe Literary Review, Pine Hills Review, Nulla, Midway Journal, Thirty West Publishing, New Feathers Anthology, Encyclopedia Prismatica, The Inflectionist Review, Hollow and Sky, Troublemaker Firestarter, The Metaworker Literary Review, Four Tulips, Querencia Press, Reverie Magazine, t’ART Magazine, Orchards Poetry Journal, Entre: Magazine of the Arts, Pictura Journal, Cosmic Daffodil, SoFloPoJo, Clepsydra Literary & Art Magazine, Northern Spy: A Journal of Literature and the Arts, The Hot Mess Press & elsewhere, and as a commission for Blue Note Records. Three of her poems advanced to the final round of the 2026 HeartWood Poetry Prize competition. She’s grateful for the speculative poetry community & to have poems published in Eye to the Telescope (The Sci-fi & Fantasy Poetry Association), Crow & Cross Keys, Sublimation & 4LPH4NUM3R1C (a podcast from Zoetic Press). 

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Recently, Mutual Mentorship for Musicians invited Stephanie to serve as Development Editor for the organization’s annual literary journal: M³ Anthology of Writings Vol. 8, releasing in summer 2026. 

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In 2022, Jazz at Lincoln Center contracted Stephanie as an editorial consultant, then later as copywriter and Playbill editor through the 2023-24 season. She has written liner notes, at the artist’s request, for releases on Blue Note Records, Intakt Records, Candid and Cellar Live, and served as creator and host of “After the Call: The Official Podcast of Hot House Jazz.” In 2016, she became managing editor of New Jersey Teachers Magazine after serving as copy editor. 

 

Stephanie has been invited to join confidential national arts panels as a juror and an artist nominator; she has been tapped as a panelist for music journalism events and a guest speaker at high schools and universities, including Berklee College of Music and The New School, the latter which recruited her in 2019 to teach an interview-driven course in music business. 

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Stephanie graduated from Wellesley College, having majored in English literature. A Phi Beta Kappa and Kaye Scholar, she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The City College of New York, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. Currently, she’s completing a collection of hybrid poems.