Appearances and Publications
-
What Women Hear.
Suppose she awakens at dawn beside a partner with whom she is still in passionate love. What might a woman hear? A subtle symphony of breaths, a nearly imperceptible whimper seeping from the gallows of her beloved’s subconscious. She would know by the pitch of that whimper the nature of her lover’s dream. Her legs… Continue reading
-
Quick Updates.
It’s been months. I know. And I can’t even spend too much time writing this right now. But I wanted to do a quick round-up of things I’ve been writing and doing lately, in advance of what I hope I’ll have time to write soon: a longer reflective piece. Here goes: 1. I’ve still been… Continue reading
-
I Don’t Know What the Weather Will Be.
This post is titled after a Laura Mvula song of the same name, because she’s my current musical obsession (I’ll get back to that in a minute). But it’s also apt because the year’s end is nigh and, though I am starting every day bursting with anticipation and ending each day, full — of anxiety or… Continue reading
-
Stacia the Radio Producer (or the Cumulative, Collaborative Nature of Success).
I’ve been waiting awhile to be able to announce this, but today I get to let you all know that for the next nine months (and hopefully beyond!), I’m going to be producing a radio show/podcast with Morgan State University’s radio station, WEAA FM 88.9, as part of AIR/Localore’s Finding America project. Here’s how that… Continue reading
-
Toward a Life Worthy of its Art Direction.
On Monday, Medium’s Working Parents series published my essay on juggling the demands of parenting and freelance writing. It’s risky to write with candor about things like this when your employment prospects are constantly in flux. I’m never sure, when I’m at my most publicly honest, how it’ll affect any future hiring — and I’m… Continue reading
-
Three in a Day (and Other Feats).
I’ve had a busy week, juggling multiple deadlines, and as fortune would have it, everything I wrote was published today: the latest of my weekly columns at New Republic and Washington Post Act Four, as well as a quick piece for Rolling Stone. Here are links to those: “The Personal Essay Economy Offers Fewer Rewards for… Continue reading
-
Life with a Five-Year-Old Coworker.
In the past ten days, I’ve started three different potential blog posts, but I’ve been overcome with ennui somewhere between the opening paragraph and the halfway point of each. If I’m bored with the work, I know that you’ll be twice as bored. So I’m not going to publish any of that. Since my last… Continue reading
-
Children, Church, and Charleston-Writing at Vox and WaPo.
Last week, I spent four evenings at a local United Methodist Church where my daughter was attending Vacation Bible School. My grandmother suggested I sign her up. She’ll be five on the first day of August and she’s reached a tipping point as it relates to social interaction. When I moved back to Baltimore from… Continue reading
about stacia
Stacia L. Brown was born in Lansing, MI at the very end of the 1970s. She grew up in Baltimore, MD–the county, not the city. She graduated from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in DC with a BA in English and worked a few office gigs, while trying to jump-start her writing career, before moving to New York for grad school.
At 27, she finished an MFA in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College. She spent the next six and a half years working as an adjunct writing professor first in Michigan at Grand Valley State, Kuyper College and Grand Rapids Community College, then in Maryland at The Community College of Baltimore County and, for one dazzling semester, at MICA, while also working as a freelance writer for various publications, including The Washington Post, where she currently serves as a weekly contributor, New Republic, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and others.
In 2010, she became a mother.
For a semi-complete list of Stacia’s online publications, visit her bylines page.
Her short story, “Be Longing,” was selected for publication in It’s All Love: Black Writers on Soul Mates, Family, and Friends (Doubleday/Harlem Moon 2009), edited by Marita Golden. Her poem, “Combat,” appears in Reverie: Midwest African American Literature. Her essay on adjuncting as a single mother appears in the Demeter Press title, Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering and the Academy, edited by Sekile Nzinga-Johnson.
Stacia served as the 2013-14 Editorial Fellow for Community Engagement at Colorlines. In June 2015, she was part of the inaugural Thread at Yale class. She was a 2015 participant in Women’s Media Center’s Progressive Women’s Voices training program. She was a 2019 Tin House Scholar and a participant in the Cambridge Writers Workshop in Paris, also in 2019.
In addition to her work in print, Stacia is also an accomplished audio storyteller. In November 2015, Stacia became the creator and producer of Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City, a radio and podcast series that tells intergenerational stories of place and memory in Baltimore City. Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City is part of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)’s 2015 Finding America: Localore project and is produced in partnership with WEAA 88.9.
She is the creator of Hope Chest, a collection of audio essays written to her daughter and present in podcast form at SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts. Hope Chest has been featured on BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts and the Third Coast International Audio Festival podcast, Re:Sound. It was named one of Audible Feast’s Best New Podcasts of 2017. She also created and produces a micro-podcast for middle-grade book reviews, which her daughter narrates and hosts. It’s called Story on Stories.
In 2018, Stacia landed a gig at WAMU, as a producer of the NPR-syndicated daily news program, 1A. In 2020, she relocated from Maryland to North Carolina, where she produced radio and podcasts (including the incomparable Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon) for WUNC, North Carolina’s NPR station before moving onto other sonic endeavors. In 2022, she served as an advice columnist for Slate’s weekly parenting advice column, Care and Feeding.
Stacia resides in Durham with her amazing daughter Story.