Brooke ShaffnerBrooke grew up part Garza, part Shaffner on the Texas-Mexico border. Her Garza grandfather was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who harvested citrus fruit before putting himself through school to become a pharmacist. Her Shaffner grandfather wasraised Mennonite and the first in his family to attend college. She grew up singing Christmas carols with her hilarious tias leading synchronized hand jives and cheering at drag pageants in her town's only gay bar. Her novel Country of Under is a book that straddles borders, bringing together drag queens, nuns, activists, artists, and healers. Country of Under won The 1729 Book Prize in Prose, judged by Diane Zinna, and is forthcoming from Mason Jar Press in April 2024. The novel was also the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction runner-up and was shortlisted for Dzanc Books' Prize for Fiction and Black Lawrence Press's Big Moose Prize. An excerpt won the Asheville Writers' Workshop Fiction Contest. Brooke is currently working on a memoir that explores living and loving in the face of radical uncertainty through the experiences of her father becoming a quadriplegic when she was a child, living with the chronic illness primary sclerosing cholangitis, and losing a love to cancer. An excerpt won the 2023 Lit/South Award, judged by Melissa Febos, and appeared in Litmosphere. Other work has been published in The Hudson Review, Lost and Found: Stories from New York, The Lit Pub, Marie Claire, and BOMB. Brooke has been awarded artist grants from United States Artists and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation and residency fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Jentel Foundation, the I-Park Foundation, and VCCA. She received her MFA from Columbia University, where she was a Dean's Fellow, and won the Charles Lloyd Writing Award at Davidson College. Read more at BrookeShaffner.com. Brooke is the Founder/Director of Between the Lines, which offers writing, editing, tutoring, and workshops. She's worked with Rio Grande Valley students on admissions and scholarship essays for 13 years. These students' stories keep her connected to the border. She received her MFA from Columbia University, where she was a Dean's Fellow. Her writing has been published in The Hudson Review, Lost and Found: Stories from New York, The Lit Pub, Marie Claire Magazine, and BOMB. She has been awarded artist grants from United States Artists and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation and residency fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Jentel Foundation, the I-Park Foundation, and VCCA France. Read More Read Less