Biography - Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith is the author of five books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, a choice for Library Journal's Best Poetry Books of 2008, and oneof NPR's top five books of 2008; and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection, winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and About.com’s Best Poetry Book of 2006. She also authored the ground-breaking history Africans in America and the children’s book Janna and the Kings. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly and many other journals, and she has performed around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Poets Stage in Stockholm, Rotterdam’s Poetry International, the Aran Islands Poetry and Prose Festival, the Bahia Festival, the Schomburg Center and on tour in Germany, Austria and Holland. She is a Pushcart Prize winner and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history. She is a professor at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island, and is on the faculty of both Cave Canem and the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. |  |
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Biography - CR Avery
| C.R. Avery is a unique, raw and dynamic performer. His genius lies in many genres - blues, hip-hop, spoken word and rock & roll. He is a one-man band with the rare ability to sing poetic verse while beatboxing simultaneously while pounding the piano and adding harmonica like a plot twist. A multi-talented front man for his Legal Tender String Quartet; a crazed lead singer/harp player for his rock & roll group The BoomChasers; a lyrical dynamo & the musical backbone of the spoken word trio Tons of Fun University. C.R. Avery has recorded over fifteen albums as well as writing & directing six hip-hop operas, from New York’s Bowery to L.A.’s South Central. He has toured throughout Canada the USA and Europe (headlining or opening for Billy Bragg, Buck 65, and Sage Francis) and garnered the attention of music peers the likes of Tom Waits (“...he’s blowin’ my mind”); blues harp trail blazer Charlie Musselwhite (“...no one plays harmonica like him… no one…”); and folk legend Utah Phillips (“...raw talent”). His incredible live performances have been described as Bob Dylan in the body of Iggy Pop; colliding with Little Walter, the Beastie Boys and Allen Ginsberg. |
Biography - Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
 | Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's work can be found in McSweeney’s Internet Tendancies, Rattle, Barrelhouse, decomP, kill author and Conduit, among others. She is the author of the non-fiction book Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull Press, 2008) as well as five books of poetry, most recently Everything is Everything (Write Bloody Press, 2010). When not on tour, she can be found loitering at NYC's Bowery Poetry Club, where she helps run the Tuesday night poetry slam series, NYC-Urbana, and dates the surly barkeep, poet Shappy Seasholtz. For more information, please visit her website: www.aptowicz.com |
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Biography - Rob Sturma
| | ROB STURMA used to be called “Ratpack Slim” when he ran around Los Angeles doing performance poetry and slam. When he wasn’t being scored subjectively, he ran the seminal LA open mic Green (from 2003-2007) with superstar selector DJ Jedi and beatboxer Joshua Silverstein and produced a series of webstories for KCET.org called “Children of Slam.” Now they call him Rob Sturma again, especially while promoting his new book of poems, Miles of Hallelujah, on Write Bloody Press. He’s graced stages across the country from the Nuyorican Café to the Ugly Mug in Orange, CA and back again. He's performed with DJ Z-Trip in a packed club, and in a hotel room full of professional wrestlers, the latter which resulted in his poem “Mick Foley” being featured on TNA Wrestling’s website on their “Spin Cycle” segment. He now rests his head on the red dirt of Oklahoma City, where he is the poetry chair for the IAO Gallery, co-curator of The Encyclopedia Show: OKC, co-director of Oklahoma Young Writers' Collective, shooting poetry videos for pop culture website Geekweek.com, forever writing, maintaining the website robsturma.com, and getting more prepared for the impending zombie apocalypse than you are. |
Biography - Anis Mojgani
| Anis Mojgani is a two time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam. A Pushcart Prize Nominee and former resident of the Oregon Literary Arts Writer’s-In-The-Schools program, Anis has performed at numerous universities, festivals, and venues around the globe. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in the pages of Rattle magazine. A founding member of the touring Poetry Revival group, Anis is also the author of, Over the Anvil We Stretch, published from Write Bloody. Originally from New Orleans, he currently lives in Portland OR in a pointy white house. |
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