Lauren Brazeal Garza is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Gutter (YesYes Books, 2018), which centered on her homelessness as a teenager in Los Angeles. Her newest chapbook, Santa Muerte, Santa Muerte: I Was Here, Release Me (Tram Editions, 2023) offers a series of interviews with ghosts and other supernatural beings—inspired by her experience as a translator and collector of oral histories. She is the author of two additional chapbooks, published under the name Lauren Brazeal: Exuviae (Horseless Press, 2016) and Zoo for Well-Groomed Eaters (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Lauren writes poetry, short fiction, and essays and her work has appeared in journals such as Poetry Northwest, Waxwing, Verse Daily, Barrelhouse & Diagram. She currently teaches creative writing at UT Dallas, Writing Workshops, and Scribophile.

She is a graduate of Bennington College’s M.F.A program, with a degree in poetry, and is now a Ph.D. candidate in Literature at UT Dallas with a focus on testimonial and documentary literature, Latin American testimonio, and decolonial approaches to translation. Her scholarly research explores trauma, grief, and healing in American literature—particularly among marginalized populations. She is also writing a book that includes testimonial narratives from members of the indigenous Waorani Nation of Amazonian Ecuador, which offers collected survivor memories of their forced colonization by missionaries in the second half of the 20th century.

In addition to her writing and teaching, she is the founder and president of  Fundación Warepo Beye, a non-profit organization that provides emergency medicine, medical supplies, and vital provisions to indigenous Waorani communities in crisis in Amazonian Ecuador.

For more information, visit her P&W writer’s directory profile at Poets & Writers

Short Bio:

Lauren Brazeal Garza received her M.F.A in poetry from Bennington College, and is a Ph.D. candidate in literature from UT Dallas. She is the author of the full length collection Gutter (Yes Yes Books, 2018), a memoir-in-verse about her homelessness as a teenager; and has published three chapbooks of poetry, most recently, Santa Muerte, Santa Muerte: I Was Here, Release Me (Tram Editions, 2023), a series of fictional interviews with ghosts. Her poetry, lyric essays, and fiction have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Waxwing, and Verse Daily among many other journals. She currently teaches creative writing at UT Dallas, Writing Workshops, and Scribophile. She can be found haunting her website at www.lbrazealgarza.com