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Olivia Gatwood | |
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| Born | February 23, 1992[ citation needed ] Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.[ citation needed ] |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | American |
| Website | |
| oliviagatwood | |
Olivia Gatwood (born February 23, 1992[ not verified in body ]) is a poet, writer, and educator on topics that include coming of age, feminism, gendered violence, & true crime.
Olivia Gatwood was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on February 23, 1992.[ citation needed ] Her mother, Jill, is a sex educator and H.I.V. epidemiologist and her father, Byron, is a middle school teacher. [1] She spent three years in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago where she began writing poetry at age 11 at the suggestion of a librarian. [2]
Gatwood's continued interest in poetry stemmed from her use of the art form as an outlet for her emotions; in an interview she explained, "teenagers have a lot of feelings and thoughts, but are often told that there's no space for those things to exist. But spoken word is the exact opposite. The more you can express, the better." [3]
While still in high school, Gatwood led a collection of women who reported a local bakery to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for sexual harassment and won a settlement of over $10,000. [1]
Gatwood graduated from the Pratt Institute's fiction program in 2015. [3]
 | This section needs expansionwith: standard elements of a WP biography career section, including professional, organizational, publishing, and speaking commitments. You can help by adding to it. (January 2020) |
Gatwood is a poet, writer, activist, speaker, and educator on topics that include sexual assault prevention and recovery. [4] Gatwood was a finalist at Brave New Voices, Women of the World and the National Poetry Slam. Her performances have been featured on HBO, Huffington Post, MTV, VH1, and BBC among others. Her work has been featured in Muzzle Magazine, The Winter Tangerine Review, Poetry City U.S.A., Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The Missouri Review.
Gatwood and fellow poet Megan Falley created an interactive show called Speak Like a Girl, a traveling poetry show that focuses on gender issues, body image, growing up and other topics. The pair has performed "Speak Like a Girl" in cities across the United States, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit. [3]
Gatwood is the author of two poetry collections, New American Best Friend (2017) and Life of the Party (2019). She also contributed to Woke: A Young Poet's Call to Justice (2020, with Mahogany L. Browne and Elizabeth Acevedo). [5] Her first novel, Whoever You Are, Honey, was released by The Dial Press at Random House in 2024. [6]
After numerous published poems, Gatwood presented her first published collection, New American Best Friend . [7] In it, Gatwood wrote about her childhood, the transition from teenage years to young adulthood, her views on gender and sexuality, and the violence and joys in her life. [7] “One more thing when they call you a bitch, say thank you. say thank you, very much.” quote from the book.
In 2017, New American Best Friend was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Poetry. [8]
Life of the Party interrogates the author's relationship to fear and true crime, as well as the media's obsession with the murder of women. It was published in August 2019 by Penguin Random House. [9]
In December 2018, Gatwood started the podcast, Say More, with "her best friend and fellow poet", Melissa Lozada-Oliva,[ citation needed ] in which they interview each other on topics and answer emailed questions from listeners.[ citation needed ] It had presented its fortieth episode by the end of 2019. [10]
The second season of the podcast began March 4, 2020 with episode 41, "AMERICAN DIRT, REPRESENTATION & TECH BROS." [11]
Many of her recorded readings can be found on Gatwood's website and at Button Poetry. Among her most widely recognized and lauded poems are the following:[ citation needed ]
As of February 2020 [update] , Gatwood resides in Santa Cruz, California. [18]
Allie Esiri, formerly Allie Byrne, is a British writer, poetry curator and producer who is a former stage, film, and television actress.
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. Her novel Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Taylor McDowell Mali is an American slam poet, humorist, teacher, and voiceover artist.
Donna Masini is a poet and novelist who was born in Brooklyn and lives in New York City.
Idra Novey is an American novelist, poet, and translator. She translates from Portuguese, Spanish, and Persian and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Phoebe Robinson is an American comedian, New York Times best-selling writer, and actress based in New York City.
Trista Mateer is an American writer and visual artist from Westminster, Maryland. She won the Goodreads Choice Award in 2015 for poetry with The Dogs I Have Kissed. Her collection Aphrodite Made Me Do It was also voted one of the best books of the year by Goodreads users in 2019. She has been invited to speak on multiple occasions about cultivating a social media presence for poetry and for the importance of queer representation in media. Her decade-spanning poetry collection "I Swear Somewhere This Works" was awarded the Bronze in LGBT+ Nonfiction for the 26th annual Foreword INDIES Best Books of the Year Awards.
Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese-American poet known for her written and spoken poetry. Elhillo received a BA degree from the Gallatin School at New York University and an MFA in poetry from The New School. Elhillo has performed all around the world. She has won acclaim for her work and has been the recipient of several prestigious poetry awards. Elhillo has shared the stage with notable poets such as Sonia Sanchez and has taught at Split This Rock and Tin House Summer Workshop. Currently, she is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
Melissa Broder is an American author, essayist and poet. Her work includes the novels The Pisces, Milk Fed, and Death Valley ; the poetry collection Last Sext ; and the essay collection So Sad Today, as well as the Twitter feed also titled So Sad Today, on which the book is based. Broder has written for The New York Times, Elle, Vice, Vogue Italia, and New York magazine‘s The Cut.
Amanda S. C. Gorman is an American poet, activist, and model. Her work focuses on issues of oppression, feminism, race and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. She published the poetry book The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough in 2015. She rose to fame in 2021 for writing and delivering her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration of Joe Biden. Gorman's inauguration poem generated international acclaim and shortly thereafter, two of her books achieved best-seller status, and she obtained a professional management contract.
Melissa Lozada-Oliva is an American poet and educator based in New York. Her poem "Like Totally Whatever" won the 2015 National Poetry Slam Championship and went viral.
Elizabeth Acevedo is an American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Tiffany D. Jackson is an American author and filmmaker. She writes young adult fiction and makes horror films. She is best known for her NAACP Image Award—nominated debut novel Allegedly.
Atticus is an anonymous poet. He is the author of five books, including The Dark Between Stars and The Truth About Magic, both of which are New York Times Best Sellers.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahogany L. Browne</span> American poet[1] curator, writer, organizer and educator](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Mahogany_L._Browne_x_Miami.jpg/320px-Mahogany_L._Browne_x_Miami.jpg)
Dr. Mahogany L. Browne, is an American poet curator, writer, organizer and educator. As of July 2021, Browne is the first-ever poet-in-residence at New York City's Lincoln Center.
Angel Nafis is an American poet and spoken-word artist. She is the author of BlackGirl Mansion. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. She published five short story collections and many poems. She has won several awards including the Frederick Bock Prize in 2017 for her poem "Maqam".
Lang Leav is an Australian novelist and poet.
Dominique Christina is a writer, performer and social activist. She is a champion at the National Poetry Series and Women of the World Poetry Slam.
Janae Johnson is a writer, cultural worker, and DJ from Sacramento, California.
0:00—Girl; 3:00—My Mother Says I Wasn't A Bad Girl; 6:15—We All Got Burnt That Summer; 9:15—My Grandmother Asks Why I Don't Trust Men; 12:06 Mans/Laughter; 16:40—Murder Of A Little Beauty; 18:05—She Lit Up Every Room She Walked Into; 20:38—Aileen Wurnos Takes A Lover Home; 24:10—Ode To Pink; 26:23—All Of The Missing Girls Are Hanging Out Without Us.
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