Liz Stephens is a Los Angeles-based enrolled member of the Choctaw tribe of Oklahoma. A performer in early versions of The Moth series, she’s now the author of memoir THE DAYS ARE GODS on University of Nebraska Press, and contributor to a number of anthologies. Her writing often examines themes of memory and identity, in her present projects through a lens of blue-collar and sex work, and rural and queer life, with, one reviewer notes, “the humor of an insider and the humility of an observer.” With a PhD in creative nonfiction storytelling and American Studies, she teaches memoir at UCLA and young screenwriters at Chapman University. She’s the winner of a Frederick Manfred Award of Western Literature, and finalist for the Duke University Documentary Prize. She runs a writer’s residency in Wonder Valley, California in an off-grid cabin outside Joshua Tree, as Mojave Desert Arts. Current projects include pilots THE FUTURE OF BIRDS, a girl’s race away from her childhood in a dystopian Mojave Desert and JOSHUA TREE, four 19-yr-olds completing community service in Joshua Tree National Park instead of jail time.