Jonita “Jo” Davis was born in 1980, on the cusp of the millennial generation, in Michigan City, Indiana. Davis has always been an avid reader, curator of odd knowledge, and lover of superheroes. She was determined to put all of this to work in a writing career. At age 10, the young Blerd put her family, friends, and teachers at school on notice: she would one day become a famous writer. That’s why her first book, published in the Michigan City Public Schools Gifted and Talented Program in 4th grade (and titled Gloria Gooddoctor), is a coveted volume. Or, it will soon be.
The path to this dream was not a straight one. By the time she graduated with an English degree from Purdue University (after a misguided stint in political science and accounting), Davis would start on the path to becoming a famous writer, with 4 children at her heels. She was a stringer for the LaPorte County Herald Argus and The Michigan City News-Dispatch. She also wrote content for the web for the likes of e-how, Move.com, Hotels.com, SmileMD, ePersonal Finance, and many other clients.
Her work was flexible and allowed her to raise four kids at home with the most interesting stories to tell. While freelancing, Davis also worked for the Michigan City Port Authority (MCPA), first chronicling the association’s history (which became a book Michigan City’s Marinas 2009, followed by Michigan City’s Washington Park in 2011, both from Arcadia Publishing). She later joined their board of directors as one of the youngest members and the second black woman appointed to the board in the city’s history. Davis would don the mantle of Director of Public Relations and Advertising, creating a web presence for the agency that today has an international following.
Davis freelanced for several years while serving on the MCPA board, raising kids, and burning the candle at both ends. She burnt out around 2012 and began exploring a step off the professional writing path and into teaching. She entered the Purdue University graduate English program in the fall of 2012 as a conditional student (those accounting classes came back to haunt her in the form of a low undergraduate overall GPA). Davis would excel in grad school, learning the keys to analysis and leaning into cultural studies and narrative. She would assist the department chair in hosting the 2015 International Conference on narrative in Chicago, while also presenting a paper on police narratives. In fact, before Davis graduated from the program in 2015, she would present 6 papers at conference including two presentations at the National American Culture/Popular Culture conference and once at the coveted ASAP.
She stepped out of grad school and into the classroom, but also back into writing, this time with a little more substance and more of a personal stake in the work. Her first work “Engaging the Senses” for Creative Nonfiction was a personal essay that combined her teaching philosophy with her battle with post-partum depression. Davis would write this after giving birth to two more children while attending grad school. However, these birth experiences led to meeting a group of Black women writers who would help her launch her career. She published more prolifically for publications such as the Washington Post, Ravishly, Redbook, Women Under Siege, The Guardian, and Yes! Magazine and many more. In 2018, Davis became a film and television critic for BGN, also reporting on films from junkets and set visits. She also took on the mantle of Managing Editor as the organization reorganized to make a more substantial mark on the entertainment industry. Black Girl Nerds claimed to be the only entertainment outlet owned and operated by Black women.
It is Davis’s work for BGN on camera and off that has made her a rising star in the writing community. She has interviewed a veritable “who’s who” of Hollywood film and has reviewed or critiqued some of the most popular films and television offerings this year. She is a Rotten Tomatoes critic, using her Purdue training in criticism and cultural studies to bring audiences a deeper understanding of the entertainment properties they love. Today, she is a member of the CABJ (Colorado Association of Black Journalists), AAFCA (African American Film Critics Association), Institute of Independent Journalists, Colorado Press Association, the National Writers Union, and International Film Society of Film Critics.
Davis is an executive producer of the Black Cape Media YouTube Channel and Medium magazine and also the creator and producer of the Creators in COVID podcast. She is still writing about her personal life and working on various projects that hope to see the light of day soon. In addition to the projects, she is currently teaching writing and rhetoric at the University of Denver.
Leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of tomorrow.
Jonita Davis 