Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz



Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (born 26 November 1978) is an American poet and non-fiction writer. Most recently, she has been awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry and the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency.

Life
A native of Philadelphia, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in 1996 and received a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from New York University in 2000. Her brother, Kevin Aptowicz, is a professor of Physics at West Chester University.

Poetry
Aptowicz was introduced to the New York City Poetry Slam community by NYU classmate, Beau Sia. In November 1998, at age 19, she founded the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam series. NYC-Urbana was the formal continuation of a poetry slam series started by Bob Holman and as of 2008, has earned three National Poetry Slam Championships: 1997 (as Team Mouth Almighty), 2000 and 2002. Aptowicz was a member of the 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2010 NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam teams. Well-known poets who have been on NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam teams including Taylor Mali, Beau Sia, Anis Mojgani and Sarah Kay, among others. Aptowicz was also the 2010 Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWps) representative for NYC-Urbana. As of 2010, NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam is still held weekly at the Bowery Poetry Club. Aptowicz currently runs the series with Taylor Mali, Shappy Seasholtz and Jeanann Verlee.

Aptowicz's most recent book is Everything is Everything, which Write Bloody Publishing released in January 2010. In 2011, Write Bloody Publishing also re-released Aptowicz's four previous books -- Dear Future Boyfriend (2000), Hot Teen Slut (2001), Working Class Represent (2003) and Oh, Terrible Youth (2007) -- which had originally been published by the Ann Arbor basement press, The Wordsmith Press.

Aptowicz appeared in the concert film Taylor Mali & Friends Live at the Bowery Poetry Club and in the documentary Slam Planet (2006). In 2003, she served the overseas mentor for Mouth Off!, a youth poetry show commissioned by the Sydney Opera House. She frequently tours with poets Buddy Wakefield, Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani on their "poetry revivial tours," joining them on their 2008 Junkyard Ghost Revival tour, 2009 Elephant Engine High Dive Revival tour and 2010 Night Kite Revival tour.

In November 2010, it was announced that Aptowicz had been awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. She is one of only handful of "slam poets" who have won NEA grants. As of 2011, the other poets are Hal Sirowitz (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1993, and won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 1994 ); Jeffrey McDaniel (who was on numerous DC and California slam teams in the mid to late 1990s, and won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2003 ); and Adrienne Su (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1991, and won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2007 ).

In February 2012, it was announced that Aptowicz had been awarded the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency. The residency takes place in the former residence of poet Amy Clampitt and provides "an established or emerging poet or literary scholar with the rare gift of extended time and a reasonable stipend so that he or she may substantially further his or her creative work." Aptowicz is the first poet from a poetry slam background to be awarded this residency.

Non-fiction
Aptowicz has published non-fiction essays and articles in such publications as Bust magazine, About.com's Poetry Channel and the spoken word anthology Word Warriors.

In 2008, Soft Skull Press published Aptowicz's Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins wrote that the book "leaves no doubt that the slam poetry scene has achieved legitimacy and taken its rightful place on the map of contemporary literature" and the Washington Post named it one of five Notable Books on Exploring Poetry in 2008. Aptowicz spent 4 years writing the book, which "explores the birth, growing pains and continuing development of the Poetry Slam." The book features interviews with Saul Williams, Maggie Estep, Bob Holman and Slamnation director Paul Devlin, among others.

Aptowicz also penned the non-fiction screenplay, Mütter, a screenplay based on the life of Mütter Museum founder Thomas Dent Mütter. The screenplay would go on to win the 2003 "Set In Philadelphia" Screenwriting Award at the Philadelphia Film Festival and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship at the 2004 Hampton International Film Festival. In 2005, she was invited to attend the 2005 Sloan Film Summit in support of the screenplay, and was commissioned to write an article about her experiences at the Summit by New York City's Museum of the Moving Image. As of 2008, the screenplay remains unproduced, although a short based on the feature-length script was created as a part of the Philadelphia Film Festival prize package.

In 2010, Aptowicz was named the 2010-2011 University of Pennsylvania ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residence. She will be using the residency to work on "a non-fiction book about the life and times of Thomas Dent Mutter." The Mütter Museum has granted Aptowicz full access to their museum, library and archives for the duration of the residency so that she may conduct her research for the book, and the Mütter Museum's Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine has additionally awarded Aptowicz with a Wood Institute Travel Grant to help further fund and support her work on this project.

Recognition

 * NEA Fellowship: National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship for Poetry
 * Winner: Writer-in-Residence University of Pennsylvania (2010–2011)
 * Winner: Poet in Residence: Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana (2009).
 * Winner: Nadine B. Andreas Public Scholar in Speech Communication, Minnesota State University, Mankato (2008).
 * Winner: Hampton International Film Festival's Sloan Fellowship for Screenwriting (2004).
 * Semi-Finalist: Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting for Mütter (2004).
 * Winner: Grand Prize, Philadelphia Film Festival for Mütter (2003).
 * Winner: Myers Foundation Grant (2001 and 2003).
 * Two-Time Winner: National Poetry Slam: Slammaster's Slam (2000, 2001).
 * Three-time Winner: NYU/Barnes and Noble Monologue Contest (1999–2000)

Publications

 * Everything is Everything (Write Bloody Publishing, 2010; ISBN 0984251510)
 * Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull Press, 2008; ISBN 1887012176)
 * Oh Terrible Youth (2007) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 1935904663)
 * Working Class Represent (2004) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 1935904728)
 * Hot Teen Slut (2001) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 193590468X)
 * Dear Future Boyfriend (2000) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 1935904701)

Anthologized
Collections in which Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's work is included
 * Elephant Engine High Dive Revival  (Write Bloody Publishing, 2009; ISBN 0982148895)
 * The Good Things About America (Write Bloody Publishing, 2009; ISBN 098214881)
 * Junkyard Ghost Revival  (Write Bloody Publishing, 2008; ISBN 0981521363)
 * Herding Kites: A Celebration of Australian Writing (Affirm Press, 2008; ISBN 0980374642)
 * The Last American Valentine (Write Bloody Publishing, 2007; ISBN 0978998979)
 * Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press, 2007; ISBN 1580052215)
 * His Rib: Stories, Poems & Essays by Her (Penmanship Books, 2007; ISBN 0978969529)
 * Bowery Women (YBK Publishers, 2006; ISBN 0976435985)
 * Poems from the Big Muddy: National Poetry Slam 2004 Anthology (Co-Editor) (The Wordsmith Press, 2005; ISBN 1893972224)
 * Poetry Slam (Manic D Press, 2000; ISBN 0916397661)
 * Will Work for Peace  (Zero Panik Press, 1999; ISBN 1922268825)

Audio CDs

 * Sass Machine, 2001

CD Anthologies
Collections in which Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's work is included
 * Excellence in the Field of Awesomeness (The Wordsmith Press, 2009)
 * Attack of the Urbanabots (The Wordsmith Press, 2007)
 * New High Score (The Wordsmith Press, 2004)
 * Best of Urbana 2003 (The Wordsmith Press, 2003)
 * Prayer Wheel Junkies: Best of the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam 2002 (KPS, 2002)
 * Urbana: Bowery Poetry Club (The Wordsmith Press, 2002)
 * Spoken Word Underground (The Wordsmith Press, 2001)
 * NYC Slams (Anthology) (PoetCD, 2000)