2024 Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference

KB Brookins is a Black, queer, and trans writer, cultural worker, and visual artist from Texas. Their writing is featured in Poets.org, HuffPost, Teen Vogue, Poetry Society of America, Oxford American, and elsewhere. KB’s poetry chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their poetry collection Freedom House, described as “urgent and timely” by Vogue, won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for the Best First Book of Poetry. Freedom House was named a Best Book of 2023 by four publications. KB adapted Freedom House into a solo art exhibit, which debuted at Prizer Arts and Letters in April 2024. Their debut memoir Pretty (Alfred A. Knopf) released in May 2024. 

KB’s background in nonprofit management, student affairs, and K-12 teaching informs their cultural work. They founded and led two nonprofits with friends and community members to advance LGBTQIA+ justice and nurture/amplify marginalized artists in Central Texas. For two years, KB was the Program Coordinator of the Gender and Sexuality Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where they founded the Black Queer & Trans Collective and co-led the President’s LGBTQIA+ Committee. KB served as Project Lead for the Winter Storm Project, Do You Want a Revolution, and Watch Dogs; they also facilitated a youth video poem workshop on policing in Austin, Texas schools (which can be viewed here), and hosted a variety show to raise funds for trans people’s gender affirming care. Most recently, they successfully petitioned for the creation of the city of Austin’s adult poet laureate program. 

KB has earned fellowships and residencies from National Endowment of the Arts, Sewanee Writers Conference, Lambda Literary, Tin House, Civil Rights Corps, and elsewhere. Their poem “Good Grief” won the Academy of American Poets 2022 Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize. KB starred in a short documentary titled “Earth To KB”, which screened at film festivals in London, Dallas, New York, and Seattle. Currently, KB is an MFA candidate at The University of Texas at Austin. They do readings, speaking engagements, workshops, and consulting in their areas of interest. 

When not writing, KB enjoys reading good books, throwing a lil sumn’ on the grill, and sending memes to their spouse. Follow KB online at @earthtokb, and subscribe to their sporadic opinions/updates through their newsletter, Out of This World.