Taika Brand
Taika Brand (born on May 10, 1966) is an American writer and poet from Concord, Massachusetts. She is the grand-daughter of American writers Millen Brand and Pauline Leader1. Brand graduated from Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts in 1984.2 in 1988 she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. While attending Roger Williams she became aquainted with poet and National Book Award Recipient Mark Doty and later attended his workshops in Provincetown. In 1988, Brand-Matthews was accepted in the Brown University MFA program where she became friends with poet Diane Thiel, and studied under Michael Harper and Michael Ondaatje. In 1990 Brand received a Master of Fine Arts. Also in June 1990, she was married to Robert Matthews and changed her name to Taika Brand-Matthews.
In addition to her grandparents, Brand was heavily influenced by her mother, Erika Brand, an artist (now remarried and known as Erika Marquardt-Cohen)3.
She has been a teacher at Attleboro, Acton, and Belmont, and a tutor/mentor at DARE House.
Publications
She has contributed to
- Prairie Schooner, Summer 2000, University of Nebraska
- Fish Stories: Collective III (A Literary Annual of Fiction and Poetry)
- Aldebaran Literary Magazine, Roger Williams University
- Catalyst: A Magazine of Heart and Mind (now Vision)
- Connecticut River Review
- Conceive Magazine
- Experiencing Infertility: Stories to Inform and Inspire, Ellen S. Glazer (Editor)