Amber West

Amber West is a poet, writer, educator, and theater maker originally from California with roots in Tennessee and Oklahoma. Her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Calyx, Puppetry International, The Feminist Wire, Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, Furies: A Poetry Anthology of Women Warriors, and The Routledge Companion to Puppetry & Material Performance. Her poetry chapbook, Daughter Eraser, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2015, and her “puppet poems” have been performed nationally. West earned her BA in Literature/Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz, MFA in Creative Writing at New York University, and PhD in English at University of Connecticut. She is co-founder and director of the artist collective, Alphabet Arts, for whom she created and directed the Puppets & Poets festival in NYC from 2011-2015. Her full-length poetry collection, Hen & God, was published by The Word Works in 2017 and described by Grace Cavalieri in the Washington Independent Review of Books as “out of the ordinary writing.” West is creator and director of Whitmania, the west coast's largest celebration of Walt Whitman's bicentennial. She teaches writing at University of California, Los Angeles and lives in North Hollywood with her husband, actor Sam T. West, and their son.