Sun, 1 January 2006
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is the author of five books of poetry -- Dear Future Boyfriend (2000), Hot Teen Slut (2001), Working Class Represent (2003), Oh, Terrible Youth (2007) and Everything is Everything (2010) -- all available on Write Bloody Publishing. She is also the author of the canonical slam history, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull Press, 2008). Born and raised in Philadelphia, Cristin moved to New York City in 1996 to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she majored in Dramatic Writing. It was there where she was first introduced to poetry slams by her classmate, Beau Sia. In 1998 at the age of 19, Cristin co-founded the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam, a weekly series dedicated to showcasing the most innovative voices in poetry. NYC-Urbana won the National Poetry Slam Championship three times and won the first ever Group Piece Nationals, which celebrates multi-voice poems. The NYC-Urbana Poet Slam is still held weekly at NYC’s famed Bowery Poetry Club. Post-college, Cristin has worked as an editor for the “Adult” section for online portal About.com (which served as the inspiration for her book, Hot Teen Slut), slung coffee as the founding cafe manager for the Bowery Poetry Club and served as a rights manager at the Artists Rights Society. In July 2010, she was named the 2010-2011 ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, where she spent the year researching and writing a book on Thomas Dent Mütter, founder of the Philadelphia’s (in)famous Mütter Museum. Aptowicz currently is living in Austin, TX, with her partner, poet Shappy Seasholtz, and their two rescue two dachshunds: a nine-pound chocolate wire-haired named Max Bialystock and an eight-pound silver dapple short-haired named Alvy Singer. Cristin continues to perform and lecture internationally & nationally, including residencies with or performances at the Sydney Opera House, the Gasworks Art Complex (Melbourne Australia), Joe’s Pub (at NYC’s Public Theatre), the Largo Theatre (Los Angeles) and universities & colleges, such Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College and Amhearst College, among many others. Her poetry and non-fiction has been published in various journals, including Rattle, McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies,Pank, La Petite Zine, decomP, Umbrella, The Other Journal, Danse Macabre, Conduit, Barrelhouse and Monkeybicycle, among others… Recent awards include a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency. For more information, please visit her website at www.aptowicz.com.
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