Brent was born in Moscow, Idaho and raised in the countryside of Pasco, Washington. As an adult he’s bounced around the northwest a bit, straying as far as Missoula, Montana, but eventually found his way back to Pasco, where he currently lives with his cat and dog in a little farmhouse with a leaky roof. He grew up rural working class, and spent most his childhood reading books, tracking baseball statistics, and talking to himself. With an overactive imagination, a strong sense of empathy, and living the majority of his life in the solitude of a sprawling countryside, the writing life suits him.

Brent has a deep affection for the Pacific and Inland Northwest, and almost all of his stories are set somewhere within those general, regional confines. He hopes to add a unique, rural voice and perspective to a long line of successful writers from the American Northwest.

His writing doesn’t fall neatly into any genre or category, but is most closely characterized as literary fiction. He occasionally threads folkloric and surreal elements into his stories that are otherwise rooted within our generally-accepted tenets of what constitutes “reality.” His writing tends to cover a broad array of topics, including, but certainly not limited to, the rural working class, mental health, neurodivergence, the environment, trauma, and masculinity in rural America.

He has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, an MEd in Sport Management from Washington State University, and served as Fiction Editor for Dress Blues Press for about a year. He’s worked a variety of day jobs, but he won’t bore you with those details.

If you have questions, feel free to reach out at brent.atkinson@vcfa.edu