Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet from San Antonio, TX, now based in Houston. She is the author of the poetry collections We Are Owed. (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020). Her academic and poetic works explore queerness, Black personhood in Mexican American spaces, girlhood, loneliness, and care. Ariana is a national collegiate poetry slam champion, winner of two Academy of American Poets Prizes, Lambda Literary Fellow, and a recipient of a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Grant. She holds a BA in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies from UT Austin, an MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas. She currently develops ethnic studies and ELA curriculum for high schools and colleges and teaches creative writing to teens in Houston. Ariana has been writing, performing, and teaching for over a decade.
“The virtue that I have long admired in the poems of Ariana Brown is the warmth that is directed upon the audience. And these poems know and identify their audience with gentleness and gratitude, even—or especially—when the audience is the self. Even death links its fingers with praise, even dislocation is met with a crawl back to some familiar affection. I am thankful to once again be witness to these poems that welcome and make space for the people who most need it. And for how Ariana Brown sets a lens on the world that is critical, but always caring.”
- Empire and nation building
- African diaspora history
- Mexican history
- Spirituality and healing
- Spoken word performance
- Black feminism
- Queerness and desire
- Mental health, loneliness, and grief
- Historical and ancestral memory
- Creative writing process
- Artist talks
- Workshops
- Live poetry performances
- Keynote speeches — incorporating spoken word poetry & Ariana’s background in ethnic studies, teaching, and underrepresented voices in literature.
- Panel discussions — on topics in the interdisciplinary humanities, including but not limited to creative writing, the business of being a writer, ethnic studies, Black women’s literature, librarianship, teaching, and the American South.
- Class visits — with your college classroom over Zoom in which Ariana will share poems and answer questions from your students about the topics in her work and her creative writing process.
- Commissioned writing — such as essays, reviews, and creative works.
- Voiceover work — as a calm, soothing narrator for audiobooks, films, and training videos.
Ariana Brown - For the Black Kids in my 8th Grade Spanish Class