Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist born and raised in Triana, Alabama. As a young person, some of his formative writers were Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and Sylvia Plath. He created his first zine, Schlepp Fanzine, at the age of fourteen. He moved to Oakland, California, at 19. He holds a BFA in Dance and Theater from California State University, East Bay, and an MFA in art practice from the University of California, Berkeley.
Purnell’s expansive writing practice includes flash fiction, novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and zines. He is the author of the cult punk zine Fag School and of The Cruising Diaries (2014), Johnny Would You Love Me if My Dick Were Bigger (2015), Since I Laid My Burden Down (2017), and 100 Boyfriends (2022), winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. His latest book is 10 Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse (2024).
Purnell’s cross-genre works explore the linked themes of Blackness, queerness, community, sexuality, and belonging. According to Purnell, “My explorations of dance, writing, and film all fold into one another, sometimes with no clear break; I make art in a multiplicity of forms because, as a writer, I know that a picture is worth a hell of a lot more than 1,000 words.” A co-founder of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, Purnell has danced professionally for over a decade. He directed the documentary Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock (2018) on the avant-garde choreographer Ed Mock. His films have appeared at the Berkeley Art Museum, Visual AIDS, and San Francisco’s The Lab.
A prolific musician, Purnell has long been a part of the Bay’s punk scene. In 2003, he joined the electroclash band Gravy Train!!!! and became frontman for The Younger Lovers. Purnell has created music under his own name since 2020. His solo albums include No Jack Swing and Confirmed Bachelor.
Purnell was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. He is the recipient of the 2018 Whiting Award for fiction, the 2021 Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize from the Lambda Literary Foundation, and a 2022 Robert Rauschenberg Award for Performance Art/Theater. He lives in Oakland.
-
More Brontez Purnell
Text: Read an excerpt of Purnell's book Since I Laid My Burden Down at The Paris Review
Audio: Purnell appears on the podcast Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for Writers
Text: Read Purnell's "By the Book" interview at the New York Times