KB Brookins is a Black, queer, and trans writer and cultural worker from Texas. What does freedom look like? What can we learn from nature and our past? How do you reintroduce yourself in a world that refuses queerness? How can we use poetry as a tool in the toolbox that helps build freedom? This collection explores those questions, and manifests a world where Black, queer, and trans people get to live. The speaker isn’t afraid to call themselves out while also bending time, displaying the terror of being Black/queer/trans in Texas, and more - all while using humor and craft. Deep Vellum builds community around the literary arts by hosting conversation-driven events and fosters inclusion in the literary arts by publishing works by writers from around the globe and from its home base in Texas.In this debut full-length collection, KB Brookins’ formally diverse, music-influenced poetry explores transness, politics of the body, gentrification, sexual violence, climate change, masculinity, and afrofuturism while chronicling their transition and walking readers through different “rooms”. It was founded in 2013 with the mission to bring the world into conversation through literature. Contact Deep Vellum Development Coordinator Lindsay King at you would like to discuss other giving options.ĭeep Vellum is an independent nonprofit publisher based in Dallas. All contributions will now be put toward Round Two, which will open when funds become available. I’m so grateful to the Deep Vellum Emergency Fund for stepping up and to all of the folks who joined us for our One Page Salon fundraising event and added their dollars to this worthy and important effort.”Ĭontributions can still be made to the Deep Vellum Emergency Fund here. It’s up to all of us to make sure the most vulnerable among us get through this global crisis and that they are able to continue sharing their stories long after this pandemic has passed. This literary community of ours is big and diverse and creative and strong. Executive Director Becka Oliver explained their decision to raise money for the fund: “The Deep Vellum Emergency Fund’s goal to support Texas writers in need aligns perfectly with everything the WLT is about – it was an easy decision to throw our support behind it. We already knew that Texas writers were some of the most diverse and curious writers on the planet, but the list of publications they sent us in their applications reveals a whole new level of incredible work.”Īlong with seed funding from Deep Vellum board member Paul Wingo, the Writers’ League of Texas also donated proceeds from a One Page Salon event they held this month. “On the other hand,” Evans continued, “we learned so much about writers across the state-both about their inspiring and creative work and about their resilience. 28% of applicants were recently laid off from secondary, non-literary jobs, and a full 50% now earn an annual income of less than $15,000.” “The data we collected through the online applications,” explained Deep Vellum Executive Director Will Evans, “painted a dire portrait of economic need. The grants are intended to assist Texas writers with short-term financial needs, and Deep Vellum already has plans to begin fundraising for a second round of the Emergency Fund grant since the economic fallout will continue to negatively impact writers through the rest of 2020 and beyond. Awardees include poets, essayists, novelists, playwrights, screenwriters, and children’s book writers, and they publish original work in English and Spanish. Today Deep Vellum announced that it plans to award 43 small grants to writers from around the state in order to help mitigate the devastating effects of the crisis on the literary community in Texas.Īwardees come from across the state and include recipients from rural areas in Central and West Texas and the southern border, as well as from all of Texas’s major metropolitan areas. Media Contacts: Will Evans ( and Sara Balabanlilar ( - In response to the economic crisis spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dallas-based nonprofit publisher Deep Vellum launched an emergency fund for Texas writers last month.
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