About

Jonaya Kemper is a Nebula award winning interdisciplinary artist, activist, educator, designer, writer, and games scholar who looks at play as a means of liberation for people of marginalized identities. Their work often involves the themes of intersectionality, storytelling, and autoethnography as a means to create more inclusive futures and explore a more diverse past.

A graduate of New York University’s Gallatin Graduate School, Jonaya was awarded the prestigious e. Frances White Award for her thesis work, which contributed the term Emancipatory Bleed to the gaming lexicon. They also hold a BA in Fine Arts from Williams College.

As the former Lead Game Designer on the Carnegie Mellon University P3G project, Jonaya worked with youth to develop co-robotic games which increased STEM programming in OST (out of school time) settings. In addition to those duties, Jonaya created the first Indie TTRPG Game Design class at CMU, Little Games, Big Stories.

An in demand speaker and writer, Jonaya enjoys incorporating her life and educational experiences to produce groundbreaking works of playable, livable fiction.

You can listen to some of her many speaking engagements here.