21st Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors

Traci Brimhall, a University Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and Narrative Medicine at Kansas State University, is celebrated for her unique poetry that intertwines the ordinary with the surreal. She has authored five poetry collections, including the upcoming "Love Prodigal" (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), and her work has been prominently featured in journals such as The New Yorker, Orion, The New Republic, and The New York Times Magazine. Brimhall's teaching experiences, supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Parks Service, and Academy of American Poets, have spanned diverse settings from farm schools to medical communities, reflecting her commitment to fostering creative expression across varied environments.

As the current Poet Laureate of Kansas, Brimhall has focused her initiatives on uniting the state's agricultural heritage with literary arts. Her advocacy includes projects like poetry cookbooks, food-based mad lib poems, and bringing poetry to the State Fair, aiming to enrich the lives of all Kansans through language.

Brimhall's literary contributions extend beyond poetry to include essays published in prestigious journals such as Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her accolades include awards like the Barnard Women Poets Prize for "Our Lady of the Ruins," and her work has been recognized in Best American Poetry anthologies.

Educationally, Brimhall holds degrees from Florida State University (BA), Sarah Lawrence College (MFA), and Western Michigan University (PhD). At Kansas State University, where she directs the creative writing program and holds the Donnelly Faculty Award in English, she continues to inspire and mentor aspiring writers.

Her numerous residencies and fellowships include an Artist-in-Residence position at Bighorn Canyon through the National Parks Service and the My Time fellowship from the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow. Brimhall's scholarly pursuits also include the Karnes Fellowship from Purdue Libraries, focusing on the unpublished poems of Amelia Earhart.

Traci Brimhall's career exemplifies a profound dedication to poetic innovation, community engagement, and scholarly exploration, making her a pivotal figure in contemporary American poetry and beyond.

Joseph Fasano is a writer and educator. He studied mathematics and astrophysics at Harvard University before changing his course of study and earning a degree in philosophy, with a focus on philosophy of language after Wittgenstein. He did his graduate study in poetry at Columbia University, working with Mark Strand, Lucie Brock-Broido, Richard Howard, and others. Beyond his Professorships, Fasano is passionate about developing inclusive learning communities outside the walls of academic institutions. As an educator, his mission is to help each student synthesize diverse fields of study to develop a unique and informed voice, a depth of attention, and a capacity to break free of reductive mindsets. His "Poetry Prompts," originally designed to help children create, have spread around the world, helping millions of people of all ages find their voices through the craft and magic of poetry.

Fasano is the author of two novels: The Swallows of Lunetto (Maudlin House, 2022) and The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing (Platypus Press, 2020), which was named one of the "20 Best Small Press Books of 2020." His books of poetry are The Last Song of the World (forthcoming from BOA Editions, 2024); The Crossing (Cider Press Review, 2018), praised by Ilya Kaminsky for its "lush drive to live, even in the darkest moments"; Vincent (2015), which Rain Taxi Review hailed as a "major literary achievement";  Inheritance (2014), a James Laughlin Award nominee; Fugue for Other Hands (2013), which won the Cider Press Review Book Award and was nominated for the Poets' Prize, "awarded annually for the best book of verse published by a living American poet two years prior to the award."

A winner of the RATTLE Poetry Prize, he serves on the Editorial Board of Alice James Books, and he is the Founder of the Poem for You Series, a digital space offering recitations of listeners' favorite poems by request. His writing has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Yale Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Boston Review, American Poets, Measure, Tin House, American Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, American Literary Review, Verse Daily, the PEN Poetry Series, the Academy of American Poets' poem-a-day program, and other publications. It has been widely anthologized and translated into many languages, including Spanish, Swedish, Lithuanian, Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian. He is also a songwriter, and his debut album, The Wind That Knows The Way, is available wherever music is sold or streamed.