Media Bio

J. R. Welch is a writer and visual artist raised in Missouri’s Bootheel and based in New Orleans. His work spans fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, painting, installation, and photography, drawing on the people, histories, landscapes, and cultural life of the American South and the Mississippi River.

His writing and art have appeared in The Christian Century, Reckon Review, Blueline, The Queens Review, Pictura Journal, Amethyst Review, Tendrils, Microscopic, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and other publications. His short fiction was longlisted for The Southeast Review’s Best Short Short Award, judged by Kristen Arnett, and “The Line Between Us” was selected as cover art for The Oakland Review, Vol. LII, Gibbous. He is a 2026 Ross Lynn Foundation Arts Interchange resident and an MFA candidate in Fine Arts at the University of New Orleans.

Welch is completing River Calling: The Cost of Myths, a memoir shaped by the Mississippi River corridor, and Ditch Promises, a portrait of Missouri’s Bootheel and the northern edge of the Delta. His poetry manuscript, Every Fiber, is in development.