Jackson Holbert ’17
In the five years since I graduated from Brandeis I've worked as a call center representative, a book seller, and a librarian, among other things. I took a year between undergrad and grad school (but only because I didn't get accepted to the only grad school I wanted to go to the first time!). After that year off I started an MFA in Poetry at the Michener Center for Writers, a full-funded MFA program in Austin, Texas. The point of that particular program was to give students as much time as humanly possible to read and write (which meant you did not have to teach to receive funding). In my three years at Michener I started to--I hope--figure out how I want my work to interact with the world. While there I also got to study with wonderful professors like Natasha Trethewey and Elizabeth McCracken. I wasn't exactly sure what to do after grad school so I applied to be a Stegner Fellow at Stanford. I was lucky enough to get accepted and I moved up to Oakland to start that program in the fall of 2021. While at Stanford I've had the opportunity to run Independent Studies with creative writing students and also TA certain classes (I even TA'd a fashion class!). I've also gotten the opportunity to work closely with the Stanford faculty, including Louise Gluck and Patrick Phillips. (photo credit: Stanford University)