Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan T. Bailey is an award-winning writer, artist, and conservation photographer. He is the author of the poetry book "The Sun Has Shifted As Have I," the literary memoir "When I Was Red Clay: A Journey of Identity, Healing, and Wonder," and co-author of "The Greater San Rafael Swell." His work has appeared in Arizona Highways, High Country News, Indian Country Today, and more. Bailey lives in Tucson, Arizona.

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Awards: Reading the West, Foreword Indies

Communities: Arizona Author, Tucsonan, LGBTQ+, Neurodivergent, Person with a Disability

Books:

The Sun Has Shifted As Have I

Poems
Poetry
Torrey House Press
April 2026
ISBN 9798890920362
Paperback, 0 pages

A lyric reckoning with the radical possibility of joy. “Bailey’s poems hold a wisdom that feels desperately needed in our times. ” —SUNNI BROWN WILKINSON, Rodeo Jonathan T. Bailey maps the process of transformation, weaving themes of longing, belonging, and self-discovery. Set against the beauty of the West where the buzz of cicadas and the song of the hermit thrush echo across the desert, the collection draws power from the land’s ability to hold both desolation and renewal. Bailey’s poetry embraces contradiction as essential to healing, refusing to separate pain from beauty or vulnerability from strength. Rather than offering closure, these poems reveal how wholeness is forged through emotional risk and the clarity gained by facing oneself fully. More/less

When I Was Red Clay

A Journey of Identity, Healing, and Wonder
Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction
Torrey House Press
October 2022
ISBN 9781948814638
Paperback, 180 pages

A young person’s story of growing up gay in a rural Mormon town and the wild places where he found refuge. This intimate record lays bare one person's experience growing up in a rural Mormon community and struggling to reconcile his sexual orientation with the religious doctrine of his childhood. Weaving together prose, poetry, and stories scrawled on the margins of high school notebooks, Jonathan T. Bailey encounters truth-seeing owls, anachronistic gourds, and the hard-edged realities of family and church. In When I Was Red Clay, he navigates desert landscapes, mental health, and the loss of faith with unflinching honesty and biting humor. More/less