Brooke Champagne was born and raised in New Orleans. For ten years she served as the Assistant Director of First-Year Writing at UA, and received the Instructor Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2017; she received the Instructor Award for Excellence in Diversity Efforts in 2022. Her essays have been selected as Notables in several editions of Best American Essays and have been honored with various awards, including the inaugural William Bradley Prize for the Essay for her work “Exercises.” She won the 2022 March Faxness National Championship Essay Tournament with her essay on Aimee Mann’s cover of the song “One.” She is also the recipient of the 2023-2024 Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in Prose. Current projects include an essay collection entitled Your Bones Are My Bones, and a memoir-in-profiles entitled Lives of the Aints.