Writer
Jazial Crossley is a writer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
She writes a memoir-by-playlist called Everyone I’ve Ever Loved & All The Songs That Remind Me Of Them, published in regular installments on her Substack newsletter All The Songs.
She has won several national awards for her writing as a journalist and holds an MBA, a BA and a journalism diploma.
Everyone I’ve Ever Loved & All The Songs That Remind Me Of Them
“For this memoir-by-playlist project, I write 500 words on my memories of a song. These vignettes offer a glimpse in to the rich and varied emotions we all experience in our lifetimes through showing a brief slice of my life at a particular time, in how I relate to a certain song. What the music brings up might be shallow or it could be intense. The memory may be joyful or thick with sorrow, a reflection on pleasure or a heavy exploration of fear. Whatever emotions a song dredges up from the spectrum of human feeling, they are true.
I remember snippets alongside songs. This is the soundtrack to my life. Let me be clear: Everyone I’ve Ever Loved & All The Songs That Remind Me Of Them is not a curated selection of the coolest songs I want to associate myself with. Some of them are my jam, others are trashy and catchy – all manner of music has been part of my life.
This project invites the reader to consider, where does this song take you? What does it remind you of? Where were you in your life when you last listened to this track?”
All The Songs
In this monthly newsletter, I share with you one piece from my memoir-by-playlist project Everyone I’ve Ever Loved & All The Songs That Remind Me Of Them.
In each issue I will also tell you what I’ve been reading, listening to, watching, cooking and drinking as a way of sharing recommendations and providing an update on daily life.
Otherhood
My writing will be included in ‘OTHERHOOD, a collection of personal essays by New Zealand writers that will give voice to a common experience that still feels taboo: not being a mother. Or at least, not in the traditional sense.
It will be published in 2024 by Massey University Press.
Essays
Was she not our girl? Remembering Sinéad O’Connor
“A companion of mine has died, someone whose art kept me company in tough moments and provided stability when that was something my real life lacked. Sinéad O’Connor has passed away at the age of 56.”