[1] On October 12, 2013, Jones, a gay resident of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, was stabbed by a knife-wielding man after leaving the Acro Lounge.
[2] During his recovery, Jones participated in the creation of Don't Be Afraid, a province-wide campaign to combat homophobia,[3] and was selected as the grand marshal of the 2014 Halifax Pride parade.
[5] At the time, he was a music student in Toronto, whose stated goals included creating something positive out of his experience by using choral music as a tool of healing and social change education;[6] he subsequently launched Vox, a community choir dedicated to social change through artistic performance in Halifax.
[8] He previously won the festival's RBC Script Development Award in 2020 for a feature screenplay titled It's the Fear That Keeps Me Awake.
[10] It was subsequently staged at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in 2023, in a production directed by Jillian Keiley.