Elizabeth Austen
Producer
About
Former Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen has been interviewing poets and producing poetry segments for KUOW since 2001.
She began as an intern while in graduate school for an MFA in poetry at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Once she discovered the joy of blending her early background as an actor and director (Book–It Repertory Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Festival) with her passion for poetry as a spoken art form, she was hooked. She's been producing poetry for radio audiences ever since.
Her collection, "Every Dress a Decision" (Blue Begonia Press, 2011), was a finalist for the 2012 Washington State Book Award in poetry, and is now in its fourth printing. She's committed to fostering a broader understanding and appreciation of the literary arts in general and poetry in particular. Visit her online at her personal site.
Stories
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Nathan Cummings On Becoming A National Student Poet
Elizabeth Austen features Nathan Cummings, a senior at Mercer Island High School, as he reads his poem "Proteus" and describes what being named as one...
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Remembering William Stafford, A 'Poet Of Personal Integrity'
This year marks the centennial of the birth of William Stafford, a much beloved poet and lifelong pacifist who taught at Lewis and Clark College in...
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Kate Lebo Serves Up Slices Of Pie-Horoscopes
Poet Kate Lebo's newest collection, "A Commonplace Book of Pie," opens with an epigraph from Carl Sagan: "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,...
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Poet Anne McDuffie On Setting "Conditions"
It seems every family has at least one "wild card" relative — that person who is reliably unreliable, in one way or another. Seattle writer Anne...
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Poet Kelly Davio And The Body As Canvas
What can you tell about people based on what theyve chosen to have inked on their body? Poet Kelly Davio takes that question in a provocative direction in
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Rebecca Hoogs And The "Honeymoon"
Local poet Rebecca Hoogs' new collection, "Self-Storage" (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2013), is full of witty and surprising verbal self
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Maga Barzallo Sockemtickem's "Where I'm From"
Like thousands of other local students, Maga Barzallo Sockemtickem has had the benefit of working with a professional writer in the classroom through
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Marjorie Manwaring's "Church Camp-Out, 1978"
"Summer hearts buzz like sapphire dragonflies," writes Marjorie Manwaring in "Church Camp-out, 1978," a poem that captures the particularly adolescent
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David Wagoner And "Their Bodies"
One of the most profound duties of child to parent is to honor their last wishes, as best we can. In "Their Bodies," poet David Wagoner addresses the
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Peter Munro On "Reading My Father's Bible"
Poet Peter Munro recounts the complex mix of blessing and burden in caring for a dying parent in his multi-part poem, "Ketogenesis Apocalypse." In this