Brianna Wheeler is an author, journalist, and storyteller in Portland, Oregon.
Her first book, Altogether Different was published by Korza Books in 2023, with a special bookclub edition published in 2024.
She covers arts, culture, and local politics for Willamette Week and Portland City Cast. Her creative nonfiction work has appeared in The Nasiona, Midnight and Indigo, and has been featured in Medium’s Human Parts newsletter. She is the host of XRAY.fm’s Success Stories, and is a frequent contributor to curated storytelling events all around Portland.
She self-published the comic zines Would You Still Be My Friend If…? Success Vol I, II, and III, and Soup: The Cookbook. Her Portland Burger Blog was one of the most popular food blogs in Portland (when food blogs were more of a thing), and she also sometimes writes and performs jokes about her gay dads and ghost mom.
She is also an amateur piano, flute, clarinet, guitar, violin, and autoharp player, as well an avid roadtripper, semi-confident roller skater, and novice seamstress.
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Brianna Wheeler was born in Salem, Oregon, and raised in San Pedro, California. She moved from Long Beach, California to Portland, Oregon in 2006.
Brianna attended Long Beach Community College and was the president of both the Art Club and Metalsmithing Club. During her time as a student, she also performed and toured as part of the rap group Foxy Autopsy and with the Long Beach hip hop collective Beer Barons. During this time she also actively exhibited her own visual art as well as curating a number of group and solo shows in a variety of small galleries and cultural centers throughout the Long Beach and South Bay areas.
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After moving from California to Oregon, Brianna acted as volunteer coordinator and interim event coordinator for Portland’s Q Center, performing as both host and organizer, while self-publishing a collection of illustrated, diary-style zines and performing stand-up in a number of local clubs. She went on to launch PopCycle Events, which curated more than a dozen immersive art events, before shifting to a career as a freelance writer. After stints at NW Kids, Travel Oregon, Weedmaps, and various travel and commerce blogs, she settled into a gig as an arts and culture contributor at Willamette Week, as well as a reporter for Portland City Cast, and the host of her own radio show, Success Stories
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In 2023 her first book, the bestselling Altogether Different, was published by Korza Books. It’s been nominated for an Eric Hoffer Award and has had a second book club edition published.
Altogether Different is a hybrid work of historical nonfiction that braids Brianna’s late grandmother’s genealogical research, including the story of her heroic ancestor, Dangerfield Newby, the first of John Brown’s raiders to die during the raid on Harpers Ferry, into an illustrated, contemporary memoir.
Brianna Wheeler 