MFA Programs in Writing present a reading by:
Amy Gerstler
Light refreshments and book sale at the event
All are welcome to join!
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Humanities Instructional Bldg. 135
@5:30pm
Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, art criticism, journalism, and plays. She has published thirteen books of poems, a children's book and several collaborative artists books with visual artists. Is This My Final Form? her most recent book of poems, was published by Penguin Random House in April 2025. In 2019, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts CD Wright Grant. In 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Scattered at Sea, a book of her poems published by Penguin in 2015 was longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Kingsley Tufts Award, and was a finalist for the PEN USA Literary Award. Her book Dearest Creature (Penguin, 2009) was named a New York Times Notable Book, and was short listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. Her previous books include Index of Women, Ghost Girl, Medicine, Crown of Weeds, which won a California Book Award, Nerve Storm, and Bitter Angel, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2010 she was guest editor of the annual anthology Best American Poetry. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Poetry, several volumes of Best American Poetry and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry. A short play of hers was recently produced at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California. Gerstler has taught writing and/or literature and/or visual art at the University of California at Irvine (where she is a Professor Emerita), California Institute of the Arts, Cal Tech, Art Center College of Design, the University of Utah, Pitzer College, The Bennington College Writing Seminars, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a musical with composer/ actor Steve Gunderson.