Tina Mozelle Braziel is an eco-poet whose work celebrates Alabama. Her book, Known by Salt, winner of the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, honors the Coosa River where she grew up as well as the woods of Blount County where she lives now. Glass Cabin, a book she co-wrote with her husband, writer James Braziel, meditates on people’s places in the wilder parts of the world as it recounts how the couple built their home by hand on a ridge in Blount County. As an Alabama Poetry Delegate, Tina initiated the Eco-Poetry Film fellowship that supports local poets as they create eco-poetry films as part of Southern Exposure.
A lifelong educator and writer, Tina has developed and implemented innovative creative writing education for the University of Oregon, UAB’s English Department and University Honors Program, the Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop for high school students, and various regional conferences. As the first Eco-Poetry Fellow for Magic City Poetry Festival, Tina collaborated with the Cahaba River Society to create eco-poetry curriculum and videos. She has and continues to take particular joy in developing and teaching outdoor writing programming for groups advocating natural spaces such the Jefferson County Greenways, The Friends of the Pinchgut, and The Friends of the Locust Fork. She is the Secretary for the Board of Directors for The Friends of Big Canoe Creek. She also serves as a teaching writer at Vacca Campus for the Writing Our Stories project, a program for juvenile offenders created by the Alabama Writers’ Forum.
Tina appreciates the support and recognition her work has received as an artist resident at Hot Springs National Park, a 2022 Alabama Author Award for Poetry from the Alabama Library Association, a writer resident at the Lowrey Guest House at Auburn University, and two fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Glass Cabin was also recognized as the 2024 Poetry Book of the Year by Southern Literary Review and a top book of 2024 by First Draft. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon, an MA from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a BA from the University of Montevallo.
Learn more about Tina’s poetry at tinamozellebraziel.com and glasscabindiary.com