Venus Jones is the author and founder of SHE ROSE, an international spoken-word poet, accomplished actress, and has served as an associate professor of English and communication at Mission College. She utilizes her experiences in the media, entertainment, and academia to help emerging and existing leaders deliver high-stake presentations.

She graduated with honors from Mills College with an MFA in Creative Writing. She’s a former MTV intern and opened for Def Poetry on Broadway. She’s a MALI fellow, Mosaic America Fellow, and served on the board of Poetry Center San Jose. She spent many of her wonder years in Ohio and currently resides in Santa Clara, California. She recently wrote, directed, and produced; the award-winning animated short film Lil Red is Riding the Wrong Way in the Hood.

She was crowned “The Keeper of the Gate” at the 2023 Harlem Book Fair, she’s been endorsed by Langston Hughes’s Family, awarded “Most Inspiring Solo Performance” at the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival in 2012, and her one-act play Race and War (an awkward conversation) was highlighted at the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival in 2015.

She’s been published in several printed anthologies and online journals and has proudly graced the cover of Spoken Vizions magazine. Other publications include four spoken word albums and three books. In her spare time, she can be found dancing to smooth jazz and funk music or joking around with her best friend and husband of twenty-two years.

Her motto is waging peace through poetry. One of her favorite quotes is by Alice Walker: “The most common way people give up their power is by believing they don’t have any.”