ABOUT

Nathan Brown is an author, songwriter, and award-winning poet living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He holds a PhD in English and Journalism from the University of Oklahoma where he’s taught for over 20 years. He served as Poet Laureate for the State of Oklahoma in 2013/14, and now travels full time performing readings, concerts, workshops and speaking on creativity, poetry, and songwriting.

Nathan has published 30-ish books. Most recent are the first two books in his new memoir series: The Birth of a Vagabond. Book 1 is The Broken Summer, and Book 2 is The Fallen Autumn. His poetry collection, Karma Crisis: New and Selected Poems, was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Oklahoma Book Award. His earlier book, Two Tables Over, won the 2009 Oklahoma Book Award. And his most recent album of original songs, The Streets of San Miguel, features Joel Guzman (Paul Simon's accordion player), and International Fiddle Champion Warren Hood.

He’s taught memoir, poetry, songwriting, and performance workshops from Tuscany and Ireland to the Sisters Folk Festival in Oregon, the Taos Poetry Festival, the Woody Guthrie Festival, Laity Lodge, the Everwood Farmstead Foundation in Wisconsin, as well as for Blue Rock Artist Ranch near Austin, Texas. And, as a singer-songwriter, he's performed in venues such as the Bluebird in Nashville, the Cactus Cafe in Austin, the Mucky Duck in Houston, and the Blue Door in Oklahoma City. . . as well as overseas in Israel and Russia.

And his online live video series The Fire Pit Sessions—inspired by the Pandemic Poems Project—has had over 80,000 views. At almost 400 episodes now, in which Nathan reads a few poems from the book series and performs a song at the end, now has an established following of loyal viewers.

Naomi Shihab Nye said about Nathan’s book, My Salvaged Heart: “Brave new world! The sizzle of couplings and uncouplings – attraction and romance, ineffable magnetism, mysterious as ever – but doused with a savory dose of Nathan Brown humor, a tilted long-ranging eye that sees the next bend in the road even when he’s standing right here, firmly planted.”