About

Brian Laidlaw is a poet and songwriter from San Francisco. He studied Creative Writing as an undergraduate at Stanford, at which point he began setting his own poems to music; after graduating in 2005 he toured and rambled throughout the country for several years as a solo folksinger.

In 2008, Brian moved to Minneapolis to earn an M.F.A. in poetry at the University of Minnesota.  In the last year he has received awards and honors from the Loft Literary Center, the Weisman Art Museum, and the Jerome Foundation.  His lyrics have been featured in American Songwriter Magazine and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in New American Writing, FIELD, VOLT, Quarter After Eight, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. 

Brian has released numerous full-length projects, most recently the CD No Horse Town and the hybrid book/album Wolf Wolf Wolf.  A dedicated wordsmith and instrumentalist, he collaborates and co-writes with ensembles from coast to coast, and continues to perform regularly in the Twin Cities and greater Midwest. He also teaches songwriting at McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, and poetics at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.


Other projects include:


Yes!Lets Collective
Very Small Animal
The Family Trade
Alpenglow