Joya Taft-Dick

• Joya has spent her academic and professional life to date pursuing the untold stories of women and girls, across several continents. Her work has ranged from supporting a US congressional commission conduct research on sexual violence in prisons and jails, to serving as a 'gender specialist' on an agriculture project in Ghana.
• She recently graduated with distinction from the University of Cape Town's Masters Program in Creative Writing where she completed a mother-daughter memoir exploring the theme of 'erasure.'
• A homebrewer and craft beer enthusiast, Joya is also a feature writer and guest editor for "On Tap," South Africa's first and only craft beer magazine.

Experience

As a writer and communications professional with expertise in the field of gender, Joya has spent the past 15 years writing about, advocating for, and supporting programs in gender and human rights, in the US, Africa, and South Asia. Most recently, she worked in an editorial capacity for Narratively and the literary magazine NonBinary Review, and her writing has appeared in such outlets as The Guardian, Global Post, Mic, Global Citizen, and Safe, On Tap, Foyer, and Anchor magazines, among others.

Education

Joya has a master's degree in international development and human security, with a focus in gender, from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as well as a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Cape Town.