Brian Baumgart

Brian Baumgart (he/him) is a professor of English, as well as the current Coordinator of the English Department. He is the author of the poetry collections Cold Is Cold Is Cold (Bottlecap, 2024) and Rules for Loving Right (Sweet, 2017), and his poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in a number of journals, including South Dakota Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, Spillway, Whale Road Review, and Signal Mountain Review, among others, as well as in the anthologies Rewilding: Poems for the Environment & Working Stiff. His poetry has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net awards. At North Hennepin Community College, Brian served as the Director of Creative Writing from 2012-2022, and was 2018 Artist-in-Residence at University of Minnesota's Cedar Creek Ecological Science Reserve. In addition, he served on the Board of Directors for Northern Starz Center for the Performing Arts, a non-profit organization providing theatre, music, and dance programming for artists of all abilities. At North Hennepin, he’s been honored with a Faculty of Excellence Award, Phi Theta Kappa Above & Beyond Award, and Diversity & Equity Award (for co-advising the Realities publication), and is part of the NHCC Minnesota State College Faculty (MSCF) union leadership team. Brian is currently at work on a novel, two poetry manuscripts, a collection of lyric essays, and a play for the stage. For more, visit his website.

For the generally curious, Brian has become a pretty big basketball fan (Wolves & Lynx, y'all!), although he grew up in love with baseball (he played for many years, and then later coached little league). He's truly in love with film and live theatre. His dedication to mental health advocacy and social justice influence much of his life, including his teaching. He's happy to chat with you about any and all of this.

Also, if you're curious, here is one aspect of Brian's philosophy of teaching: Embracing Weird.

Courses taught at NHCC:

• College Writing I
• College Writing II
• Introduction to Creative Writing
• Writing Stories
• Writing Poetry
• Writing Creative Nonfiction & Memoir
• Magazine Workshop
• Nature and Literature
• Creative Writing Capstone Project
• Humor Writing (Honors Program)

Education 

• BS, Winona State University
• MFA, Minnesota State University, Mankato