KB Brookins

KB Brookins is an award-winning Black, queer, and trans writer, educator, and cultural worker.

KB Brookins

Title/Position
Artist-in-Residence (2025 - 2026)

Pronouns
they, them, theirs

Biography:
KB Brookins is a Black, queer, and trans writer, educator, and cultural worker from Texas. KB’s chapbook “How To Identify Yourself with a Wound” won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut collection “Freedom House” won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s memoir “Pretty” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024) won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award and the Dorothy Allison/Felice Picano Emerging Writer Award.

Website: https://earthtokb.com/
Social Media: Instagram, Tik Tok, Bluesky, and Substack
Previous Work Samples:

kb headshot

“End Cash Bail” Exhibition Opening

"End Cash Bail" — which showcases the impact of Texas jails on incarcerated folks and their loved ones through breathtaking poetry, paintings, collages, cyanotypes, photography, and more — culminates KB Brookins' artist residency with the ACLU of Texas.

Wednesday, January 14, 2026
5:30 – 8 p.m. CT

Lawndale Art Center
Cecily E. Horton Gallery
4912 Main Street
Houston, Texas 77002

RSVP

Project Focus

Through original composition, workshop facilitation, community curation, and public presentation, KB Brookins will draw attention to the human impact of pretrial detention in Texas jails, with a particular focus on Harris County.

Learn more about KB's residency on Texas Public Radio, Glasstire, The Texas Signal, ARTNews, and The Art Newspaper.

I’m so excited and grateful to be an artist-in-residence with the ACLU of Texas! My project will include writing workshops, op-ed curation, and art events on pretrial detention in Harris County jails.

This work is so important to me. I hope to do my part in creating a world beyond carceral punishment.