Haylie Brooke Swenson (she/her) (Dr. Haylie if you’re nasty) is a writer and educator currently living in Washington, DC. She has a PhD in English with a focus on animal studies from The George Washington University. She’s currently working at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and revising her first novel. She is represented by Heather Carr at The Friedrich Agency.

Her short fiction appears in HAD, where it was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her personal essays have appeared in Cup of Jo and New York’s The Cut. Her academic writing, which focuses on animals and ecosystems in medieval texts, has been published in postmedieval, Shakespeare & Beyond, and in several edited collections.

In the second year of her master’s degree, Haylie won the Michael Camille Essay Prize for her essay about a medieval sketchbook artist who claimed that his drawing of a lion was “contrefais al vif” (drawn from life). Her PhD dissertation, “Dog, Horse, Rat: Humans and Animals at the Margins of Life,” focuses on how vulnerable human characters form empathetic relationships with animals in a variety of plays, novels, and films.

Haylie grew up in California and Oregon and studied Biology and English at Pacific University. After college, she worked in conservation education at the Oregon Zoo, National Aquarium, and Maryland Zoo. She loves books, animals, perfume, art museums, Twitter (God save us), and working with people. She hates potato salad, mayonnaise, and dodgeball. You can find her screaming about TV on Twitter.