Joe Deany-Braun is a bookseller living in northern Colorado. He is the author of Young Santa, “quietly astonishing” poems of youth and myth (Los Angeles Review of Books).Joe’s work at Perelandra Bookshop has garnered national attention for its unique approach to space-making and communion. In 2021, he established the Reader in Residence program, the first artist residency to treat reading itself as a creative act. In 2025, Perelandra was an Emerson Collective partner bookstore finalist.Before Perelandra, Joe specialized in public programming as a bookseller at Boulder’s Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstores. He holds a BA in ecosystem science and an MFA in writing & poetics.
Photo by Cori Storb
Selected Writings
The smallest particle in the known universe
To the person who set their drink on a book of Serhiy Zhadan's poety
Sticky rice with toddler
The motorcycle as a medium for poetry
Navigating the multiverse of the market
Reading in an age of melting ice
