Biography
Mahogany L. Browne (she/her) is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. A 2022 Kennedy Center Next 50 fellow, the inaugural distinguished writer in residence at Wesleyan University, a MacDowell Arts Advocacy awardee, an NAACP Image Award nominee, and a New York Emmy nominee for How to Build a City, Browne has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Art for Justice, Baldwin Center for the Arts, Hawthornden, Mellon Foundation, Rauschenberg, UCross, and elsewhere.
Her acclaimed books include Vinyl Moon; Chlorine Sky (optioned by Steppenwolf Theatre); Black Girl Magic; and the frequently banned works Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. She is the founder of the Woke Baby Book Fair, a national celebration of diverse children’s literature.
Browne’s poetry collection Chrome Valley, praised by The New York Times and Publishers Weekly, won the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize. Browne is the recipient of the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University. Her most recent young adult novel, A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, was longlisted for the National Book Award. Browne holds an honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from Marymount Manhattan College and serves as the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
