Franny Choi is an award-winning poet, essayist, and cultural organizer who works at the intersections of race, gender, technology, history, and the speculative imagination. Her work has been published widely, including in the New York Times, the Paris Review, and the Atlantic. She developed her practice in community with artists and activists in Providence, RI before continuing her studies at the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program, where she received an MFA in Poetry. She is the author of two poetry collections: Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing) and Soft Science (Alice James Books), which won the Elgin Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Her work has been awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship, Princeton's Holmes National Poetry Prize, and a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship, as well as residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony, and Serenbe. Her poems have been taught in abolitionist trainings by Mariame Kaba, translated into five languages, adapted for music, and broadcast on NPR's Code Switch and All Things Considered.
A veteran of the spoken word/slam circuits, she has toured extensively, performing and teaching poetry through organizations including InsideOut Literary Arts Detroit and Project VOICE. She is a former Co-Director of the award-winning Providence Poetry Slam and the Founder and Director of Brew & Forge, which leverages the power of readers and writers to help build social justice movements. Since its founding in 2016, Brew & Forge has mobilized over 200 writers to raise more than $20,000 in capacity-building support for grassroots social justice organizations. A former News Editor for Hyphen Magazine, Franny has collaborated with organizations like the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center to highlight the voices of queer and trans poets of Asian/Pacific diasporas.
Alongside Danez Smith, Franny co-hosts the Poetry Foundation's podcast, VS, which has had ~1 million streams/downloads to date. She teaches classes in poetry and performance at Williams College, where she is the incoming Arthur Levitt, Jr. Artist in Residence. More information at www.frannychoi.com.
