Joya McCrory hails from Detroit, and is the product of a once-famous boxer dad and a highly religious mom—so while she has never been trick-or-treating, she also has never had to deal with bullies. Joya’s work centers on telling sneakily heartfelt stories, full of weird millennial humor about identity and figuring out one’s place in the world. Joya is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she received a Summer Hopwood fiction award for her collection of short stories. She also studied screenwriting at UCLA.