Africana Studies Alumna Publishes Debut Novel
Writing Her Future, from 2019
Monica Brashears is a senior graduating with a double major in English and Africana Studies. During her time at UT, she has received the Robert A. Burke Creative Writing Award, the Eleanor Burke Award for Nonfiction, the Michael Dennis Poetry Award, and the Margaret Artley Woodruff Award. She also received the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship were she participated in study abroad traveling to Senegal.
Monica was also listed as summa cum laude, on the Dean’s List in the College of Arts and Sciences. Upon graduation, she will attend Syracuse University in fall 2019 to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (fiction).
Brashears Publishes Debut Novel to Great Acclaim
Monica Brashears’ (’19) House of Cotton (Flatiron Books, 2023) has received positive press from many news outlets. The book was previewed on The Today Show. Brashears came back to UT to give a reading on April 17, 2023.
See the article published by Today
About House of Cotton, from Monica Brashears’ website:
Magnolia Brown is nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, her predatory landlord, and the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown.
One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. She accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.
Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone. House of Cotton will keep you mesmerized until the very last page.