Eric Paul (E.P.) La Brecque was born in the California coastal-meets-border city of San Diego, on the ancestral land of the Kumeyaay Nation, in 1961. One branch of his family was instrumental in founding its New Town. Another arrived at the end of the Second World War, along with thousands of others from the South, to work in the city’s defense factories.

La Brecque earned a BA in Communications/Visual Arts from the University of California at San Diego. While there, he took classes with writers and poets including Lydia Davis, Steve Kowit and Jerome Rothenberg as well as filmmakers and performance artists including Jean-Pierre Gorin and Eleanor Antin. After school, he took part in the city’s lively poetry and performance scene until leaving for Los Angeles in 1987 to try his hand at various ventures including selling art and operating a video production company.

After working as the in-house publicist and archivist for the designer Deborah Sussman and her Los Angeles-based firm, Sussman/Prejza, La Brecque decided to go into business on his own as a copywriter and communications consultant. By 2000, he had successfully evolved his business to focus on brand-building and naming. An early proponent of a narrative-based approach to brand communications strategy, he incorporated his business as Applied Storytelling in 2007.

La Brecque’s work, both personally and professionally, has led him to an ongoing study of storytelling traditions from different cultures and eras, and for purposes that weave together entertainment, persuasion, healing, spiritual illumination and the search for meaning. He is fascinated by inarticulate responses to ineffable situations. His personal work often draws on his experiences working in and with diverse organizations and communities throughout the US and elsewhere.