brad Kessler

Brad Kessler has been herding goats and making farmstead cheese for almost two decades. His Northern Spy Farm is one of the smallest licensed dairies in the state of Vermont. He is an educator and farmer and author of the literary non-fiction Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese. He is also a critically acclaimed novelist whose work has been translated into several languages. He won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Fiction for his novel Birds in Fall, A Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as a Whiting Writer’s Award. His other books include: North, a novel, a finalist for 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in fiction and the 2022 Vermont Book Award; Lick Creek, a novel, and The Woodcutter’s Christmas. He is the editor and co-creator of Deep North: Stories of Somali Resettlement in Vermont (2023). His work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times Magazine, The Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, and Lit Hub. He’s received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Lange-Taylor Prize from Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. He teaches creative writing at the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and has lectured at, among other places, Northwestern University, Smith College, the New School University, and the Kenyan Writer’s Workshop. He is a graduate of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma and runs a small goat dairy in Southwestern Vermont alongside the photographer and activist, Dona Ann McAdams.