I was over the moon to learn “Slouching like a velvet rope” won the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York for 2021, and very blessed to have shared a stage with the judge, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown, in October 2021.
It’s of course only now I have time to post any of the reading photos here on my web site….
On Facebook they presented this…
Tebot Bach Announcement on Facebook. (Also serves as alt-text for the image). Excerpted from the Tebotbach.org web site announcement:
“Congratulations to Betsy Aoki, winner of the 2021 Patricia Bibby First Book Award for her poetry manuscript, Breakpoint.
Final judge Dorothy Barresi called Breakpoint “cutting edge” and praised its many “moments of brilliance.”
By day, Elizabeth (Betsy) Aoki leads tech teams to build social applications, search/metrics products and video games. By night, she writes fiction and poetry, and contributes poetry book reviews to the International Examiner.
A 2019 National Poetry Series finalist, she’s received grants and fellowships from Clarion West Writers Workshop, The City of Seattle, Artist Trust Foundation, Jackstraw Writers Program, and Hedgebrook.
Her work has been included in two anthologies Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry (Two Sylvias Press) and Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves: A Contemporary Anthology of Asian American Women’s Poetry (Deep Bowl Press). Her chapbook, Every Vanish Leaves Its Trace was published by Finishing Line Press.
Other publications include (alphabetical order):Asian Pacific Journal, Calyx, Enizagam, Hunger Mountain, Nassau Review (2015 Writer Award,) Nimrod Journal of Prose and Poetry, Phoebe, Poetry Northwest, Seattle Review, Southern Humanities Review (finalist for Auburn Witness Poetry Prize), The Seattle Times, Strange Horizons, Terrain.org (Letters to America series), and Uncanny Magazine. She has a poem forthcoming in ASIMOV’S Science Fiction.”
Link to Tebot Bach web Site Announcement is here.
There are a number of reasons you might find me here – my technology projects, social media, public speaking, or my writings (technology or creative). Though most of my post-MFA creative energy has been devoted to poetry, I was fortunate to join the speculative fiction writing community by attending Clarion West in 2016. I work on technology projects by day, and dream up new worlds at night. :)
For the most part, social media channels are the most active (and timely!) ways to reach me, or you can use the contact form on this Web site.
Live it vivid!
Betsy Aoki 
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