Angela Jackson-Brown

Angela Jackson-Brown is an American novelist, poet, playwright, and educator. She is the director of the creative writing program and an associate professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington, and a member of the graduate fiction faculty at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of five novels — Drinking From a Bitter Cup (2014), When Stars Rain Down (2021), The Light Always Breaks (2022), Homeward (2023), and Untethered (2024) — as well as the poetry collection House Repairs (2018) and several stage plays.

Early life

Jackson-Brown was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and spent much of her childhood in the nearby town of Ariton, Alabama. She has described coming from a family of storytellers — her father and his brothers, though not formally educated, were known locally as gifted oral storytellers, and family gatherings often centered on hearing them tell stories. She has said this oral tradition shaped her own approach to fiction, and that she has aimed to write in a voice reflecting everyday people rather than an academic register. As a child, she also noted that she did not initially realize Black authors wrote published books, which she credits as part of what drove her toward writing.

Education

Jackson-Brown holds:

• A B.S. in Business Administration from Troy University (formerly Troy State University), 1992
• An M.A. in English from Auburn University, 1996
• An MFA in Creative Writing from the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University, 2009

Career

Academic career

Jackson-Brown taught creative writing and English at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, for roughly a decade, into the early 2020s. In fall 2022, she joined the faculty of Indiana University Bloomington as an associate professor in the Department of English, where she now directs the creative writing program. She also serves on the graduate faculty of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University, her own MFA alma mater, teaching fiction in its low-residency program.

She has been a recurring faculty member and keynote speaker at writing conferences, including the Alabama Writers' Cooperative annual conference, the Midwest Writers Workshop, and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning's Books in Progress Conference in Lexington, Kentucky.

Writing career

Jackson-Brown's short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in literary journals including Pet Milk, Uptown Mosaic Magazine, New Southerner Literary Magazine, The Louisville Review, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Blue Lake Review, Identity Theory, Toe Good Poetry, 94 Creations, and Appalachian Review. Her short story "Something in the Wash" won the 2009 fiction prize from New Southerner Literary Magazine and received a Pushcart Prize nomination.

Her debut novel, Drinking From a Bitter Cup, was published by WiDo Publishing in January 2014. Her subsequent novels have been published by HarperCollins imprints Thomas Nelson and Harper Muse. Her literary agent is Alice Speilburg of Speilburg Literary Agency.

Works

Novels

Title	Year	Publisher	Notes
Drinking From a Bitter Cup	2014	WiDo Publishing	Debut novel; Set under the backdrop of the Deep South in the 70s and 80s, this coming-of-age story of redemption and grace follows Sylvia in her journey from awkward girl to confident young woman, at last standing on her own.
When Stars Rain Down	2021	Thomas Nelson (HarperCollins)	The summer of 1936 in Parsons, Georgia, is unseasonably hot, and Opal Pruitt senses a nameless storm brewing. She hopes this foreboding feeling won’t overshadow her upcoming 18th birthday or the annual Founder’s Day celebration in just a few weeks. She and her Grandma Birdie work as housekeepers for the white widow Miss Peggy, and Opal desperately wants some time to be young and carefree with her cousins and friends..
The Light Always Breaks	2022	Harper Muse (HarperCollins)	As 1947 opens, Eva Cardon is the twenty-four-year-old owner of Washington, D.C.’s, most famous Black-owned restaurant. When her path crosses with Courtland, a handsome white senator from Georgia, both find themselves drawn to one another—but the danger of a relationship between a Black woman and a white man from the South could destroy them and everything they’ve worked for.
Homeward	2023	Harper Muse (HarperCollins)	Georgia, 1962. Rose Perkins Bourdon returns home to Parsons, GA, without her husband and pregnant with another man’s baby. After tragedy strikes her husband in the war overseas, a numb Rose is left with pieces of who she used to be and is forced to figure out what she is going to do with the rest of her life. Her sister introduces her to members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—young people are taking risks and fighting battles Rose has only seen on television. Feeling emotions for the first time in what feels like forever, the excited and frightened Rose finds herself becoming increasingly involved in the resistance efforts. And of course, there is also the young man, Isaac Weinberg, whose passion for activism stirs something in her she didn’t think she would ever feel again.
Untethered	2024	Harper Muse (HarperCollins)	In the small college town of Troy, Alabama, amidst the backdrop of 1967, Katia Daniels lives a life steeped in responsibility. At the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys, she pours her heart into nurturing the young lives under her care, harboring a longing for children of her own. Katia's romantic entanglement with an older man brings comfort but also stirs questions about the path she's chosen.

Poetry

• House Repairs (Negative Capability Press, 2018) — winner of the Alabama Library Association's 2021 poetry prize.

Plays

• Anna's Wings — staged as part of IndyFringe's DivaFest, 2016
• Flossie Bailey Takes a Stand — staged at the Indiana Repertory Theatre as part of the Indiana Bicentennial Celebration
• It Is Well — written and produced by Jackson-Brown
• Black Lives Matter (Too) — co-written with Ashya Thomas
• Dear Bobby: The Musical — co-written with Peter Davis; part of the 2018 OnyxFest in Indianapolis
• Still Singing Those Weary Blues — written, directed, and produced by Jackson-Brown, 2019
• Trailer Park Love Story — debuted in Birmingham, Alabama, spring 2023

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