about

Graziella Jackson is a Brazilian-American writer, designer, artist, and educator based in the Shenandoah Valley.

Graziella was born in Burlington, Vermont and raised mostly in Northern Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. Through her college years and after, she spent time in and around Staunton, Virginia, where some of her family relocated in the late 1990s. After remaining in the D.C. area for most of her adult life and career, Graziella moved in 2024 to an historic home just outside Lexington, Virginia, located at the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley and the northern gateway to South Central Appalachia. The home, on the National Register of Historic Places, is on the traditional territory of the Monacan and Shawandasse Tula nations.

Graziella earned degrees in journalism and cultural studies from George Mason University (B.A., 2000) and Georgetown University (M.A., 2007). She began writing, editing, and desktop publishing for newspapers in 1998, and worked in various settings as a journalist, essayist, ghost writer, editor, and reviewer. Her works have appeared in The Journal Newspapers, The Gazette Newspapers, PopMatters, and Gnovis academic journal (Georgetown University). In 2002, she left the newspaper world to lead brand, content, and experience design for nonprofit, educational, and artistic organizations and helped several national nonprofits transition their editorial and design operations from print to online. She has been a voice for content and design in environmental conservation, public and arts education, and human rights for more than 25 years.

Graziella began playwriting in 2014 and her first 10-minute play, Palm, was selected that from more than 500 submissions, to be featured in the 2014 Source Festival in Washington, D.C. In 2015, she wrote and produced her first one-act play at the Capital Fringe Festival (D.C.), developed in collaboration with actor Rebecca Reinhardt Roy (in loving memory, 1978-2021). In 2020, she was selected as Keegan Theatre’s (D.C.) Boiler Room Series Playwright-in-Residence. Graziella’s plays have been commissioned, produced, and read by The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Md., and Keegan Theatre, Theater J, Capital Fringe Festival, Source Festival, Rorschach Theatre, Word Dance Theatre, and The Playwright's Forum in Washington, D.C. In 2015, 2016, and 2017, she had works produced for the One Minute Play Festival (1MPF) at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and PEN America.

In addition to design and writing, Graziella is an artist who focuses on our connection with the natural world. She does this through garden design, botanical illustration, ceramics, and mixed media. She has taught literacy and English for speakers of other languages in Washington, D.C., and Prince George’s and Howard counties in Maryland. She also has served on the boards of the Washington Improv Theatre, Centre for Digital Resilience, and United for Iran.

Graziella is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps (2002-2006) and is a citizen of both the United States and Brazil. She has lived most of her life in the United States, following a brief time abroad in the early 1980s in Khartoum, Sudan and West Berlin, West Germany.

Graziella creates art, writes music, designs and cultivates native and edible gardens, explores Appalachian nature and culture, and works alongside her partner, Karl, to preserve and restore their historic home.