
Bryce Berkowitz
Writer. Professor.

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Bryce Berkowitz is a poet, fiction writer, screenwriter, and cattle dog owner.
He is the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's AMC TV Pilot Award (2021), selected from 15k entries. His TV pilot Meaderville has ranked in the Top 20 in multiple categories on Coverfly's Red List, placing it in the top 1% of 110k total screenwriting entries, including Top 20 Dramas of the Year. The following year, his pilot River Rats was named in the Top 30 Dramas for the AMC TV Pilot Award at the Austin Film Festival (2022), placing it in the top 1% of 110K total screenwriting entries on Coverfly. Most recently, he was a finalist for the NBC TV Writers' Program (2022) with two pilots: Meaderville and The Minor Gods of West Virginia; and he was a finalist for the Big Apple (NYC) Film Festival (2023) with his animation pilot Imaginary Friends.
His first collection of poems, Bermuda Ferris Wheel, won the 42 Miles Press | Indiana University Poetry Award (2022). His poems have been selected for national anthologies, including twice for Best New Poets (2017, 2021) and once for New Poetry from the Midwest (2019). Berkowitz is a recipient of the Illinois Emerging Writers | Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award (2017) and the winner of the Big Muddy| Southeastern Missouri State U. Short Story Contest (2020). He was a finalist for The Script Lab TV Pilot Competition (2022), and a semi-finalist for the Austin Film Festival Warner Bros. TV Pilot Award, Austin Film Festival One-Hour Drama Award, Big Apple Film Festival, and the ScreenCraft TV Fellowship (2021, 2022, 2023). He was a finalist for The Missouri Review's Miller Audio Prize for a music-poem project (2021), which is available to stream/play to your right. His writing has appeared in The Sewanee Review, The Missouri Review, Chicago Sun Times, Southern Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Cimarron Review, Passages North, Nashville Review, the minnesota review, The Southampton Review, and other publications.
Berkowitz is at work on a dark-comedy crime novel, several TV pilots, a feature animation script, and a second poetry collection. He is a professor at Butler University. Prior to academia, he worked as a literary department assistant at Agency for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. Prior to the agency, he waited tables, bartended, and booked touring hip hop acts for five years. For a large part of his youth, he painted graffiti, produced hip hop music, booked touring hip hop acts in the Midwest, and skateboarded. He's a sucker for subcultures, working-class stories, and old movies. He has lived in Illinois, California, West Virginia, Montana, and Indiana. Berkowitz has a BA in Creative Writing (with a book-to-film adaptation concentration) from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia University.

Listen to me read a poem to music below:

Book
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Bermuda Ferris Wheel | 42 Miles Press | Indiana U. Poetry Award Winner, October 2022
Select Publications
Poetry
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"Thank You, Forgiveness." Best New Poets, reshared by @poetryisnotaluxury
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"After Running into My Student at Therapy." Southeast Review
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"When I Think Back in Gapped Couplets." Salamander
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"Sitting at the Light at 46th and Meridian." Southern Indiana Review
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"There's More than God or Semi-Trucks in Indiana, Not that You'd Know." The Columbia Review
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"The Writers' Bench in Gapped Couplets." The Common
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"Life Outside the Dream Box." Saranac Review
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"Keep Your Plastic Flowers, I'm Not Dead Yet." The Missouri Review
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"The Market." The Laurel Review
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"This is Not Your Mama's Sabra." Blue Earth Review
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"Let Me Paint Thanksgiving." Puerto del Sol
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"Hepburn Manor, Los Angeles." The Missouri Review *Miller Audio Prize finalist
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The above poem is read to music and featured on a short podcast
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"After the Drunk Guy at The Cellar Asked if I Spoke Arabic." Hobart
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"Microwaving Sub Sandwiches in the Trailer." The Missouri Review and Best New Poets (2021) *Selected by Kaveh Akbar
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"Atmosphere in Our Bullshit Little Town." The Normal School
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"Concessions." So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library
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"The Good Life." Cimarron Review *Pushcart Prize Nomination
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"The View From Here." the minnesota review
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"The Practice of Becoming Oneself." Gulf Stream
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"The Perfect Time to Leave One Home for Another." Poet Lore *Pushcart Prize Nomination
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"First Montana, Next Wyoming." The Meadow
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"Illinois Breakdown." Barely South Review
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“Morning in West Virginia.” The Fourth River *Selected for New Poetry From the Midwest
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“The Perfect Time to Walk Out of Someone’s Life.” The Sewanee Review
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"How the Journey Worked." The Southampton Review
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“Thank You, Forgiveness.” Best New Poets (2017) *Selected by Natalie Diaz
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"Looking Back at 21st and Hoyne, Chicago." Zone 3
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"We're Not There Yet." Yemassee
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"Yeah, Sure." Yemassee
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"In My Little Book of Things I Write Down." Barrow Street
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"We Do What We Do." Barrow Street
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"Morning in West Virginia." New Poetry from the Midwest (2019)
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"After Graffiti, Northside Carbondale." Hot Metal Bridge
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"All That Matters." Nashville Review *Best of the Net Nomination
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"Sixth Grade Autobiography." Hawai'i Pacific Review
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"Boulder, Colorado, 1989." Sierra Nevada Review
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"This is West Virginia, Not Los Angeles, and All of a Sudden I Feel Old." Sierra Nevada Review
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“It Always Does.” Salt Hill *Pushcart Prize Nomination
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“Feeling Out of Place at Home.” Chicago Quarterly Review
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“What Remains.” Bayou Magazine
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“I’d Rather Not Say.” Sugar House Review
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“Summertime Chi.” Appalachian Heritage
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“After You Almost Divorced Your Husband.” Permafrost
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“Just Once.” Ninth Letter
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“Concessions.” Third Coast
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"How Long Has It Been?" The Meadow *Pushcart Prize Nomination
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"Illustrating Emily." Hawai'i Pacific Review
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“Whoever You Love I Hate & Whoever You Hate I Love.” The Fourth River
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“My Mother is Texting Me About God, Again.” Barrow Street
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“Dirty Dancing Saves The World.” The Laurel Review
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“Stay Off My Plate.” The Southampton Review
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“We Have Problems.” Hobart
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“Waking Up.” Hobart
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“The Birthday Gift.” Hobart
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“Skylark.” Permafrost
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“Soul Searching In a Peach Orchard.” Hawai’i Pacific Review
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“Boys Will B-Boy.” Passages North
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“Walk Among Men on State and Chicago.” Tampa Review
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“What Does My America Look Like?” Permafrost
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“Three Girls in a Drive-by Shooting.” The Pinch
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“California: The New American Dust Bowl.” The Pinch
Screenwriting
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"Imaginary Friends," Coverfly, The Red List #14 Animated TV Half-Hour, May 2023
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"River Rats," ScreenCraft TV Fellowship, semi-finalist, May 2023
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"Imaginary Friends, " Big Apple Film Festival, finalist, May 2023
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"Meaderville," Big Apple Film Festival, semi-finalist, lab submission, May 2023
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"Meaderville," Big Apple Film Festival, honorable mention, April 2023
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"Meaderville," Coverfly, The Red List #12 Drama Television One-Hour, March 2023
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"Meaderville," Tracking Board Launch Pad, second rounder, March 2023
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"River Rats," Tracking Board Launch Pad, second rounder, March 2023
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"River Rats," Austin Film Festival, AMC TV Pilot Award, semifinalist, October 2022
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Selected from 10k entries; under consideration for finals as of October 2022
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"Meaderville," Stage 32, TV Drama, semifinalist, August 2022
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"The Minor Gods of West Virginia," Stage 32, TV Drama, quarterfinalist, August 2022
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"Meaderville," Coverfly, The Red List #20 Drama Television One-Hour of the Year, June 2022
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Top 1% of all 85,000 screenwriting projects, 2022
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"Meaderville," Coverfly, The Red List #9 in Drama Television One-Hour, May 2022
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Top 1% of all 81,000 screenwriting projects, 2022
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"Meaderville," The Script Lab, finalist, 2022
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“The Minor Gods of West Virginia,” ScreenCraft TV Fellowship, quarterfinalist, 2022
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“Meaderville,” Coverfly, The Red List #14 in Drama Television One-Hour, April 2022
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Top 1% of all 79,000+ screenwriting projects, 2022
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“Meaderville,” Austin Film Festival, AMC TV Pilot Award winner 2021, (selected from 14,648 entries)
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“Meaderville,” Coverfly, The Red List #11 in Drama Television One-Hour, November 2021
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Top 1% of all 65,000+ screenwriting projects, 2021
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“Meaderville,” Austin Film Festival, One-Hour TV Drama Award, semi-finalist (top 2% of 14,648 entries), 2021
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“Meaderville,” Austin Film Festival, Warner Bros. Pilot Award, semi-finalist (top 2% of 14,648 entries), 2021
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“Meaderville.” ScreenCraft TV Fellowship, semi-finalist, 2021
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“Stitch,” ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Contest (judged by editors from The Paris Review, Granta, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), quarterfinalist, 2019
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“Sheriff,” ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Contest, (judged by editors from The Paris Review, Granta, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, quarterfinalist, 2019
Fiction
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"Payback for Mongoose Charlie.": 1st prize winner of the Big Muddy | Southeastern Missouri State U. Short Story Competition *Pushcart Prize Nomination
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“Stitch.” Permafrost
Hybrid: Creative Writing Meets Professional Writing
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"In Doubt." The Laurel Review
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"Everything is So Sun-Drenched and Awful." The Laurel Review *Pushcart Prize Nomination
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“Broad Ripple, Toxic Masculinity, & The Uber Driver That Asked About the Snow.” The McNeese Review
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“Dear Standard Parts of a Workplace Letter—the hell do you know(?).” The McNeese Review
Nonfiction
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“My Mother Made Popcorn in a Casserole Dish.” Permafrost
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“Hello Chicago.” Chicago Sun Times