Teachers

Susan Briante is the author most recently of Defacing the Monument (Noemi Press 2020), a series of essays on immigration, archives, aesthetics and the state, winner of the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism in 2021. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly calls the collection “a superb examination of the ethical issues facing artists who tell others’ stories” and a “dazzlingly inventive and searching text.” 

Briante’s collection of poetry The Market Wonders (Ahsahta Press) was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. The Kenyon Review calls it “masterful at every turn.” The collection was recently translated into Spanish by the poet Giancarlo Huapaya and published under the title El Mercado se pregunta by Kriller71 (Madrid). Briante is also the author of the poetry collections Pioneers in the Study of Motion and Utopia Minus (an Academy of American Poets Notable Book of 2011. Of Utopia Minus, Publisher’s Weekly declared: “this book finds an urgent language for the world in which we live.”

She has received grants and awards from the Atlantic Monthly, the MacDowell Colony, the Academy of American Poets, the US-Mexico Fund for Culture, and (most recently) the Ucross Foundation. Recent work has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Best American Poetry (2021) and The Brooklyn Rail. She is a professor of English in the creative writing program at the University of Arizona. There she serves as co-coordinator of the Southwest Field Studies in Writing Program, which brings MFA students to the US-Mexico border to engage in reciprocal research projects with community-based environmental and social justice groups. She is also a member of the Detained project, a team of artists, scholars and activists who record and archive the oral histories of formerly detained migrants and asylum seekers.

Sara Brickman is a queer Jewish writer and performer born in Ann Arbor, MI. The winner of the Split This Rock Poetry Prize, Sara has received grants and scholarships from the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Yiddish Book Center, 4Culture, and Artist Trust, and their performance have appeared at On The Boards and theaters and community spaces nationwide. A BOAAT Writers Fellow and Ken Warfel Fellow for Poetry in Community, their writing appears in Narrative, Adroit, The Indiana Review, Muzzle, and the anthologies Ghosts of Seattle Past, The Dead Animal Handbook, and Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls. They are currently at work on a book of poems and hybrid essay collection and performance about community resilience, trauma, statuary, and collective organizing in Charlottesville, VA during the white-nationalist rallies of 2017. Sara holds an MFA from the University of Virginia and lives in Seattle, where they work in a library, teach writing to youth and adults, and parent a cat named Latke. 

Sharon Bridgforth is a writer that creates ritual/jazz theatre. A 2020-2023 Playwrights’ Center Core Member, Sharon has received support from the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network.

Matt Briggs is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. His essay "Falling and Always Falling: Twin Peaks and the Clear-Cut Landscape" appeared in Moss: Volume One. His short stories have been published in The Seattle Review, StringTown, the Chicago Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of eight works of fiction, including the novel in stories The Remains of River Names and the novel Shoot the Buffalo, which was nominated for a Washington State Book Award and won the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award. Briggs grew up in the Snoqualmie Valley and currently live in Des Moines, Washington. 

Trevino L. Brings Plenty, MFA, enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Brings Plenty is a filmmaker, musician, and poet. His work has appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, Red Ink Magazine, World Literature Today, Plume, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Waxwing, Poetry, New Poets of Native Nations. Brings Plenty’s books are Wakpá Wanáǧi Ghost River (2015) and Real Indian Junk Jewelry (2012).

Michelle Brower has spent over fifteen years as an agent, first at Wendy Sherman Associates and most recently as a partner at Aevitas Creative Management. She co-founded Trellis Literary Management in 2021 in order to better serve and support her authors and create an agency with a lasting positive impact in the world of publishing.

Her list spans the spectrum of literary and commercial fiction, from thought-provoking story collections to page-turning thrillers. She is primarily interested in work that focuses on storytelling and emotional connection, rather than formal experimentation, and believes that the best reading experience engages both the heart and the head. She is looking for book club novels (a commercial idea with a literary execution), literary fiction, literary suspense, genre fiction for a non-genre audience, and upmarket women’s fiction. In non-fiction, she is looking for a personal story that illuminates a greater subject. Michelle also very selectively represents literary Young Adult fiction. In all of these areas, she is looking to support underrepresented voices.

Michelle is honored to work with books that have received a variety of accolades, including NY Times Bestsellers, National Book Award finalists, and Read with Jenna, Target, and Barnes and Noble book club selections. Her authors have received recognition from the Whiting Awards, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, MacDowell, the Steinbeck Fellow Program, the Sewanee Writers Conference as well as from many other organizations.

Michelle received her Masters degree in British and American Literature from New York University. Originally from New Jersey, she now lives in Seattle with her family.

Michelle’s favorite non-client authors (if your work is similar, feel free to get in touch!): Maggie Shipstead, Lily King, Louise Erdrich, Deesha Philyaw, Kiley Reid, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Kazuo Ishiguro, Yaa Gyasi, Celeste Ng, Jennifer Egan, Shirley Jackson, Ann Patchett, Sarah Waters.

Rebecca Brown is the author of 14 books published in the US and abroad, most recently YOU TELL THE STORIES YOU NEED TO BELIEVE (Chatwin Books, 2022). Her other books (novels, short stories, essays, prose poems) include AMERICAN ROMANCES, THE HAUNTED HOUSE, THE DOGS:A MODERN BESTIARY,  THE TERRIBLE GIRLS (all with City Lights) , THE GIFTS OF THE BODY (HarperCollins) and NOT HEAVEN, SOMEWHERE ELSE (Tarpaulin Sky).  She has also written a play, the libretto for a dance opera, a one-woman show, Monstrous, commission by Northwest Film Forum,  and popular arts and book criticism.  Her written work has been translated into Japanese, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Italian, etc.  She has taught writing and literature for 40 years in venues as diverse as prisons, public schools, homeless encampments, senior citizens’ centers, at-risk youth centers, and universities.  Her visual work has been displayed at the Frye Art Museum, Hedreen Gallery, Henry Art Gallery, Simon Fraser Gallery (Vancouver, BC) and the University of Arizona Poetry Center Gallery. She has taught and lectured in the US, UK, Belgium, Italy,  Germany, Japan and Uganda.  She was the designer, co-founder and first curator of the Jack Straw Writers program, first writer in Residence at Hugo House (1997-1999) and is a former Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers conference.   She lives in Seattle.

drea brown is a poet-scholar and assistant professor in the English Department at Texas State University. They are the author of dear girl: a reckoning (Gold Line Press 2015) and co-editor of Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature (University of Pittsburgh Press 2021). A recipient of fellowships from VONA, Cave Canem, and Hedgebrook, their writing has been featured in anthologies as well as various creative, academic, and public journals such as Smithsonian Magazine, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Southern Indiana Review, About Place Journal and Zócalo Public Square.

DERRICK C. BROWN is a novelist, comedian, poet, and storyteller. He is the winner of the 2013 Texas Book of The Year award for Poetry. He is a former paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne. He is the owner and president of Write Bloody Publishing, which Forbes and Filter Magazine call “…one of the best independent poetry presses in the country.” He is the author of eight books of poetry and four children’s books. The New York Times calls his work “…a rekindling of faith in the weird, hilarious, shocking, beautiful power of words.” He lives in Los Angeles. 

MAHOGANY L. BROWNE, selected as Kennedy Center's Next 50 and Wesleyan's 2022-23 Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, the Executive Director of JustMedia, Artistic Director of Urban Word, is a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Browne has received fellowships from Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research & Rauschenberg. She is the author of recent works: Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky, Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby, & Black Girl Magic. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne's latest poetry collection Chrome Valley is a promissory note to survival and available from Norton in Spring 2023. And she readies for her stage debut of Chlorine Sky at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, Illinois. She is the first-ever poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center and lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

S.K. Brownell is writer, artist, and educator from the American Midwest. Their work has been shortlisted for the inaugural Samuel R Delany Fellowship in Speculative Fiction and has received the National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Excellence Award, Solstice Literary Prize in Fiction Editor's Choice, and other honors. They are a Tin House Workshop alumn and a Sewanee Conference Tennessee Williams Scholar. Their fiction, poetry, and drama has appeared in Speculative North, Decoded, Great Lakes Review, Newfound, and elsewhere. Stephanie holds an MFA from Boston University and teaches at Carroll University, GrubStreet, and Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop. They currently live in Boston with a cat called Wander. Find them online at skbrownell.com or @skbrownell.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/skbrownell

Brenna Bruce captures a folk sound that makes you nostalgic for voices from the past. Moved by the honest writing and soothing melodies of Americana, she is inspired by the universality of telling stories through song and sound. She has one of those voices that captures all of the air in the room, leaving the listeners stunned, curious, and viscerally connected to the present moment.