Bria Strothers (she.they)

My Journey to this Dimension Began When…

I started telling stories and never stopped. My name is Bria Strothers and I am a creative writer. I graduated from George Mason University with a BA in English and a focus in American Literature. In 2020, I also graduated from Pratt Institute with an MFA in Creative Writing. During this time, I’ve sustained myself as an educator, teaching artist, and publishing professional concerned with giving young people a voice in writing and reading. My work in prose, comics, screenplays, and audio is maintained within the realm of the Black speculative. It has continued to become a large part of my life in how I choose to be a historian in this moment, in the stories I choose to hold and keep as an archive.

The afrofuturist and whimsical persists in my short stories and poetry in order to provide space for their telling. The surreal and mythical show up in the comics I script by the extraordinary worlds I manifest in them. The magical and fantastical permeates in the screenplays I write because of the ways that my people continue to show up. I write because my whole being demands it and my time as an orator is never-ending. As is time. I strive to make something in my prose, in comics, in animation, in video games out of my telling because it matters. I am writing because human nature is to write out of and not into yet, I push against that. I write because of the futures that were not promised to me and my people. And for the ones still waiting to be written.

For Dark Figures is not only a collection of my written work, but a platform for welcoming different means of storytelling (because the telling is important). This site will feature written work across multiple mediums along with my sonic work which embodies what I call “being a sonic storyteller.” As an artist and recent MFA grad, I found that music was calling to me. Perhaps in my journey as an amateur DJ during my time completing a thesis manuscript, I realized it was necessary to think of sound as a means of archiving stories as well. Thus, this site will center work that I’ve written to be performed or listened to with an auditory component. Much of this audio includes music that inspired my afrofuturist prose from my manuscript and musical artists that I felt matched the soundscape I was trying to create. It is all still fresh and coming together, but necessary for me to get out. So I am here, creating in a world that would rather I not. And existing anyway.

Download Full Resume Here

Accomplishments

• “The Serpent’s Daughter” webcomic with art by Lucy Camacho, forthcoming.

  • “The Serpent’s Daughter” Negative Space Comics Comic Book Competition Semifinalist, 2022.

• “Taught Us How to Breathe, Together” published by Porch Water Press in The Water Behind Us: An Archive for a New World, 2023.

• “Now In Color” with art by Kameron White and colors by Dorilys Giacchetto published by Lifeline Comics in Hairology, 2023.

• Unlock Her Potential Fellow with Publishing Mentor Tochi Onyebuchi, 2023.

• Voodoonauts Fellow, Summer 2022.

• Representation Matters Publishing Mentor Program, July-December 2022.

• “The Orator’s Guide to Returning” published by midnight & indigo literary magazine: Nineteen Speculative Stories by Black Women Writers (Issue 6), February 2022.

• “For Dark Figures” published by Apparition Literary Magazine: Resistance (Issue 5), April 2019.

• Watch a special rendition of a soundscape collaboration with artist Yazmine Graham for her Make With Me instagram series. Had a wonderful time creating this sonic/visual collab! Thankful to have had the chance to share space with Yazzie and watch her work. Be sure to follow her @pizzaandfries and @thejerseyslice. You may also view more of Yazzie’s work at thejerseyslice.com.

• Check out the DJ podcast collaboration with fellow DJ Shelly Spinelli known as Free Spin. “Free Spin is a collaborative DJ platform designed to bring the vibes, knowledge, and connect a larger community. Through cyphers, interviews, lessons, and more; our goal is to create a bridge between DJs and music lovers across all levels.” You may check out the Free Spin instagram @free_spin for an archive of the show! Also, be sure to follow my co-host Shel Spin @shell.spin.

Writer. Orator. Sonic Storyteller.