About
Nathan Brown is an author, songwriter, and award-winning poet living in Wimberley, Texas. 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 fulltime performing readings, concerts, workshops and speaking on creativity, poetry, and songwriting.
Nathan has published over 20 books. Most recent are his new collection of poems, In the Days of Our Seclusion, the first in a series, now known as the Pandemic Poems Project, that deals with the year of the pandemic, and a new travel memoir Just Another Honeymoon in France: A Vagabond at Large. 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.
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 his online live video series The Fire Pit Sessions—inspired by the Pandemic Poems Project—has had over 30,000 views. At almost 70 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.”
Nathan is an accomplished poet and songwriter who has performed readings and concerts from the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in Long Island, NY to the Sisters Folk Festival in Oregon, the Woody Guthrie Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma, and Sultan's Pool just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem in Israel, to name a few. He's taught writing workshops from the famous Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio near Austin to the Everwood Farmstead in Wisconsin, and the Descanso Writers Retreats in Tuscany and Ireland. His performances of poetry have been likened to musical concerts, and, in fact, he now makes a good part of his living from house concerts and live shows that combine songs and poems.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
In the Days of Our Seclusion: March - May 2020
Just Another Honeymoon in France - A Vagabond at Large
An Honest Day's Confession
I Shouldn't Say... The Mostly Unedited Poems of Ezra E. Lipschitz
Arie Poetica - The Mostly Unedited Poems of Ezra E. Lipschitz
Apocalypse Soon - The Mostly Unedited Poems of Ezra E. Lipschitz
Don't Try – Co-written poems with Jon Dee Graham
My Salvaged Heart: Story of a Cautious Courtship
To Sing Hallucinated: First Thoughts on Last Words
(Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award)
Oklahoma Poems, and Their Poets
(Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award)
Karma Crisis: New and Selected Poems
(Finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Oklahoma Book Award)
Letters to the One-Armed Poet: A Memoir of Friendship, Loss,
(Winner of the 2009 Oklahoma Book Award)
(Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award)
Ashes over the Southwest
Suffer the Little Voices
(Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award)
Hobson's Choice
Nathan also worked as a professional songwriter and musician for decades in and around Oklahoma City, Nashville, and Austin. He has 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. His most recent album, The Streets of San Miguel, was recorded at the renowned Blue Rock Studios in Wimberley, just outside of Austin.
He holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Oklahoma. And he has taught History of the Arts and Humanities courses for the Liberal Studies Department at the University of Oklahoma, as well as Introduction to Songwriting for Austin Community College, and he served as the Artist in Residence at the University of Central Oklahoma.