Zaji Cox has been creating stories since she started reading at age three, discovering her passion for writing when she wrote her first short story at nine years old. She started with self-publishing at a young age, completing a fantasy adventure book at thirteen and a collection of short stories in high school. She quickly realized the value of relating fantastic events - some joyful, some dark - to how we experience the world as we think we know it. Along with being a guest speaker and workshop leader, she has been invited to participate in several events including the Portland Book Festival, PDX Poetry Festival, Survival of the Feminist reading series, Moved By Words: New Voices of Color, Corporeal Writing’s LOOP, the 50th annual Northwest Folklife Festival, XRAY FM's Amplify Women teach-in for International Women's Day, and more. She was the winner in the poetry category of Submission PDX’s reading series in 2020. She holds a BA in English, and her writing can be found in Pathos Literary Magazine, Entropy Magazine, The Portland Metrozine, Cultural Daily, CARE Covid Art REsource, 2020: The Year of the Asterisk (released October 2021 from University of Hell Press) and others. Her memoir, Plums for Months, was released from Forest Avenue Press in May of 2023.
David Milton
Zaji is also a trained dancer, having started in competitive gymnastics at age seven and moving on to dance in her teens. She has performed with the New Mexico Ballet Company and Polaris Dance Theatre, and has been a guest dancer with various companies and live musicians both locally in Portland and out-of-state. She now focuses on solo projects and enjoys collaborating with other artists as well as creating video content. She is interested in the combination of art forms and going beyond fitting into a genre or label, exploring what it means to be "in between." She has also appeared as an extra in a few TV and film projects, and you can see her on shows like Shrill and Portlandia.
Don't Blink PDX