Joe Deany-Braun is the curator of Perelandra Bookshop and author of Young Santa. A “quietly astonishing” debut (Los Angeles Review of Books), Young Santa sketches the life of a saint in short-form poems “worthy of Bashō or Dōgen” (David Mutschlecner).Joe’s work at Perelandra has garnered national attention for its unique approach to literary space-making and communion. In 2021, Joe established the Reader in Residence program, the first artist residency to treat reading itself as a creative act, as seen in The Colorado Sun, Literary Hub, and 9NEWS. In 2025, Perelandra Bookshop was an Emerson Collective partner bookstore finalist.Before founding Perelandra, Joe specialized in public programming as a bookseller at Boulder’s Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstores. He has been a featured speaker at The Denver Post, Poets & Writers, and the Biennial of the Americas. He holds a BA in ecosystem science and an MFA in writing & poetics.
Photo by Olivia Sun / The Colorado Sun via Report for America