Teachers

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.

Isabelle (she/her) is a writer/performer. Her solo show, Extraordinarily Outstanding Luck, was selected as a Top 4 Finalist with Live & In Color and has been workshopped at the Naropa Summer Writing Program, the BIPOC Open Mic Sessions, A.P.E., and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Acting credits include: As You Like It (Phebe) at Wooden O/Union Arts Center, Songs of the Moon (Minh) at the 5th Ave Educational Tour, Romeo and Juliet (Juliet), Sense and Sensibility (Margaret), The Rivals (Dina) at American Players Theater, and A Christmas Carol (Belle) at the Children’s Theater of Madison. She spearheaded the first AAPI mainstage at her alma mater, the UNC School of the Arts.

Ana Maria Caballero is a first-generation Colombian-American poet and writer. Her work has won multiple awards, including the Beverly International Prize for Literature and Colombia’s 2014 José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize. She’s been a finalist for the Academy of American Poets Prize, Ploughshares’ Emerging Writer’s Contest, the Essay Press Book Prize and the Tarpaulin Sky Book Award, among others. Her writing has appeared in numerous outlets, including L.A. Review of Books, Tupelo Quarterly, Sundog Lit, The Southeast Review, SWWIM and Jai-Alai Magazine. She believes poems should be valued as works of art and is excited about making this value manifest via blockchain technology.

Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox (University of Pittsburgh, 2016), winner of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. She and E.J. Koh co-translated Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle (Zephyr Press, 2021). Cancio-Bello has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kundiman, the Knight Foundation, and the American Literary Translators Association, and her work has appeared in Best Small Fictions, Kenyon Review Online, The New York Times, and more. She is co-director for the Adoptee Literary Festival and PEN America Miami/South Florida Chapter, and a program coordinator for Miami Book Fair. www.marcicalabretta.com