Clifford Brooks wears many hats — poet, editor in chief, podcaster, head of a writers collective and UCLA Extension instructor. Through those endeavors he has created a community for himself as a writer, fostering projects across professions and mediums to build a strong network of creatives. UCLA Extension has broadened Brooks’experience, giving him a platform to bring lessons from his peers and other projects into the classroom, creating an inclusive learning environment that sets his students up to succeed.

“There is a family component to all of my classes,” Brooks said. “We always want students to feel safe to express their creativity.”

Brooks grew up in Georgia, surrounded by a family whose talent with prose encouraged him to pick up the pen. From then, he quickly became passionate about the written word himself.

“There was really no shock when I became a writer because I've come from a long line of storytellers.” Brooks said. “When I was around 10, I couldn't spell to save my life, but I began to write stories in this little red notebook.”

Alongside his early interest in storytelling and fiction, Brooks found a deep connection to poetry through his fascination with songwriting and lyricism. He now has four collections of poems published, and is working on a fifth.

“I believe that songs and poetry, music and poetry and lyrics and poetry are so closely related. It was like, well, I'm going to write song lyrics without all the technical song stuff. And it stuck,” Brooks said. “So around 30, when I sat down to do it, I fell in love with it.”

In addition to writing prose and poetry when he was young, Brooks would teach his little brother spelling and math. This, along with his professors in college, is what ignited his enthusiasm for teaching.

“There was this secondary passion,” Brooks said. “I wanted to be one of those professors that lit people up – that made them love this stuff and not hate being in class.”

Beyond creating a teaching environment students enjoy, Brooks uses his experience as a published writer to teach them how to handle difficult scenarios in the industry. In return, teaching has helped him become a better writer by enriching his life with interesting new people and perspectives.

“If I had to choose between being a writer or a teacher, I couldn't. My experiences teaching inform me as a writer and a poet,” Brooks said.

He happened upon UCLA Extension by way of a recruitment advertisement seeking a grammar teacher, and jumped at the opportunity to use his love for grammar in the classroom. He collaborated with leadership to develop the Grammar for Editors course from scratch.

“It was gratifying to have a crafting hand in how these classes are taught. I was able to sit down and say, ‘All right, this is grammar. I want to make it fun. I want to make it direct. I want to explain why these parts move together, why they're important.’ I think that the same grammatical rules that apply to prose apply to poetry,” Brooks said.

Beyond Grammar for Editors, Brooks teaches the Autistic Writers’ Workshop course and The Business of Writing: Practical Skills for the Professional Writer.

“With all three you get this eclectic bunch of students that have this huge age range and a wonderful discussion component,” Brooks said. “It just livens my heart when these people who thought, ‘Well, I can't talk to people,’ get empowered because they realize that I am truly listening to them, and I am incorporating that into my coursework.”

Brooks was diagnosed with autism at age 40 and takes pride in his work leading the Autistic Writers’ Workshop.

“I did not like school,” he said. “We found out much later that my writing came from, or was born from, autism. I wanted to write, and it's inexplicable.”

In the Autistic Writers’ Workshop, Brooks provides his students with tools that have helped him throughout his career as a writer, teaching autistic writers how to hone their crafts in a safe environment where they can feel comfortable expressing themselves.

“They can find themselves in the classwork. And when they leave, they have this toolkit,” Brooks said.

It is emotional and rewarding work.

“It makes me tear up. I never knew how desperately I wanted to create this class,” Brooks said. “Working for UCLA Extension has been my favorite job outside of writing I've ever had.”

Brooks also brings in his outside experience as CEO of a writers’ collective, The Southern Collective Experience, where writers are able to learn from each other and ask questions, to give his students the most informed advice possible. He also hosts Dante’s New South and is editor in chief of the Blue Mountain Review. This helps him provide the best lessons to his students while giving them a space to exercise their creativity as writers and editors.

Brooks says of his classes, “You won't walk away disappointed. You will have fun.

And, with the autism class, you won't feel ostracized. You're in that precious realm of nothing but us. So the feeling of otherness is not an option.”