Brian Broome is the author of the acclaimed debut memoir, PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021). He received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, where he was a K. Leroy Irvis fellow. He has been a finalist in The Moth storytelling compeition and won the grand prize in Carnegie Mellon University’s Martin Luther King Writing Awards, as well as a VANN Award from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation for journalism in 2019. He lives in Pittsburgh.