J WORTHAM (b. Alexandria, Virginia) is a multidisplinary artist, filmmaker and writer.

They are also a sound healer, reiki practitioner, herbalist, and community care worker oriented towards healing justice and liberation.

Wortham is also an award-winning staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, and former co-host of the podcast ‘Still Processing.” Their journalism work has won awards from the National Association for Black Journalists, the National Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, the Webby Awards, the Newswoman’s Club, and nominated several times for the National Magazine Awards.

They are the proud co-editor of the visual anthology “Black Futures,” a 2020 Editor's Choice by The New York Times Book Review. Wortham is also currently working on a non-fiction collection of essays about the body and dissociation for One World, due out in early 2027.

In 2025, they were the recipient of the Rabkin Prize for arts criticism. They’ve previously been awarded fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Art Omi, North Coast, and the Kelly Writers House, among others. In 2023, they served as executive producer on the award-winning “Queer Futures,” a short film anthology produced by Multitude Films and Chicken and Egg. In 2022, they were awarded an oral history fellowship to gather stories from queer elders as part of The Elders Project, helmed by Jacqueline Woodson. Their work has been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, comissioned by Creative Time and the Whitney Museum. They have been invited to keynote at universities around the country, and they have been in conversation with notable figures, including Solange, Britney Griner, Roxane Gay, Laverne Cox, and Pussy Riot co-founder, Nadya Tolokonnikova.

They have facilitated sound baths, lunar ceremonies, cacao rituals and reiki treatments, both publicly and privately.

In 2016, they recieved a hand-written note from Beyoncé, along with a bouquet of flowers.

They mostly live and work on stolen Munsee Lenape land, now known as Brooklyn, New York, and is committed to decolonization as a way of life.

The People’s Beachdocumentary

The People’s Beach
documentary