SWWIM: Sunni Brown & Elizabeth Jacobson

SWWIM Reading Series at The Betsy Writer's Room presents eight celebrated women poets in residence, September 2025-April 2026. Each visiting poet pairs with Miami's vibrant literary voices for intimate readings, fostering cross-generational dialogue and celebrating contemporary women's poetry.

This series offers audiences rare access to emerging and established poets in an intimate setting, fostering meaningful connections between writers, readers, and Miami's thriving arts community. Presented with support from the Jorge M. Perez Family Foundation CreARTE.

ABOUT THE POETS

Sunni Brown Wilkinson is the author of Rodeo (winner of the 2024 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, selected by Patricia Smith and forthcoming from Autumn House Press), The Marriage of the Moon and the Field (Black Lawrence Press) as well as the chapbook The Ache & The Wing (winner of the Sundress Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has been awarded the New Ohio Review 's NORward Poetry Prize, the Joy Harjo Prize, the Sherwin Howard Award, and the Association for Mormon Letters Poetry Award. She holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University and teaches at Weber State University. Born and raised in Logan, UT, she now lives in Pleasant View, UT, with her husband and three sons.

Elizabeth Jacobson was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets 2020 Laureate Fellow. Her third collection, There Are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral is just out from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. Her previous collection, Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, won the New Measure Poetry Prize selected by Marianne Boruch (FVE/Parlor Press, 2019), and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. Her other books include Her Knees Pulled In (Tres Chicas Books), two chapbooks from Dancing Girl Press, Are the Children Make Believe? and A Brown Stone, and the anthology, Everything Feels Recent When You’re Far Away, Poetry and Art from Santa Fe Youth During the Pandemic, which she co-edited. Her work has been sustained with grants and residencies by many organizations including nine consecutive grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry for her community work. She is a Reviews Editor for the on-line literary journal Terrain.org and directs the poetry programs at Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts. Elizabeth lived in Miami Beach for ten years and now spends part of each year in Lake Worth Beach

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