B. L. Bruce holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in post-modern literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz with post-graduate work at UC Berkeley.

Bruce’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Avocet Review, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, The Monterey Poetry Review, Fulminare Review, and Blue Heron Review, and is an internationally published haikuist with work in the American Haiku Society’s Frogpond Journal, Modern Haiku, seashores, Akitsu Quarterly, folk ku, and many others.

Bruce was named Featured Poet of Homebound Publications’ 2013 holiday issue of The Wayfarer followed by the inclusion of seven of her poems in the Poems from Conflicted Hearts anthology alongside Poet Laureate Alice Shapiro. In addition to receiving the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize, Bruce was also the recipient of PushPen Press’s Pendant Prize for Poetry for her haiku series published in THREE with Poet Laureate Erica Goss. In 2023, she was the winner of the Los Gatos Poetry Contest for her piece “Once each year,” awarded by Poet Laureate Jen Siriganian. “Once each year” later went on to receive a Pushcart Prize nomination from The Lakeshore Review.

A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and three-time award-winning author, Bruce’s debut collection, The Weight of Snow: New & Selected Poems, published in 2014 by Black Swift Press, earned her the nickname “the heiress of Mary Oliver.” Her second book, 28 Days of Solitude (Back Swift Press, 2015) was written entirely during her four-week residency in the remote forests of Northern California. Also written during this stay, her chapbook, The Starling’s Song, published in 2016, was selected as the Honorable Mention of the 2017 Pacific Rim Book Festival in the poetry category. Her fourth book, Measures, was released in February of 2021. Her latest collection of poetry, Blue California Sky, was published in 2024 by Finishing Line Press.

In 2020, she founded and is editor-in-chief of Humana Obscura, an online and print literary magazine publishing poetry, prose, and artwork with a nature/environment theme.

Aside from her writing pursuits, Bruce is a marketing director, graphic designer, photographer, and amateur filmmaker.

Connect with her on Instagram @b_l_bruce and on X @the_poesis.