---

elena karina byrne

Former 12-year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America and Executive Director for the AVK Arts Foundation, Elena Karina Byrne is a multi-media artist, private editor, freelance lecturer, the Literary Programs Director for The Ruskin Art Club, and annual Poetry Consultant and Moderator for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. She also designs poetry programs and teaches for Poetry School UK, Poetry Barn, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, and the Craft Contemporary Museum. She also sits on the advisory board for What Books Press. She has been a Contributing Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and recently one of the final judges for the Kate and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards in Poetry from 2016-2018, and one of three 2018-2019 Georgia Circuit visiting poets.
Elena received the 2015 Distinguished Service Award from Beyond Baroque’s Literary Arts Center. She was part of the West Hollywood Book Fair’s Planning Committee and worked with Red Car studios editing several documentary film projects including, The Big Read, Muse of Fire and Why Shakespeare? Since 1991 Elena has organized or funded programs for the Museum of Contemporary Art, the University of Southern California’s Doheny Memorial Library, the Getty Research Institute at the J. Paul Getty Center, UCLA's CAP/Center for the Art of Performance, Columbia University's School of the Arts International “Word for Word” Translation Project, The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, The Craft Contemporary Museum’s ekphrastic poetry series, The Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Metro Art live Poetry in Motion annual readings, and the renowned Chateau Marmont “Act of the Poet” series. She was the 2005 Poetry Co-Editor for The Los Angeles Review and one of three judges for the 2006 PEN USA Literary Award in Poetry. 
Elena Karina Byrne's books are: If This Makes You Nervous (Omnidawn, 2021), No Don’t (What Books Press, 2020), Squander (Omnidawn, 2016), MASQUE (Tupelo Press, 2008), and The Flammable Bird, (Zoo Press, 2002).
Her book reviews, interviews, and essays have appeared in POETRY, LARB Poetry International, The Journal, Slope, Omniverse, and elsewhere.  Elena's publications include, 2009 Pushcart Prize XXXIII Best of the Small Presses, Best American Poetry 2005, POETRY, The Yale Review, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Verse Daily, The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Narrative, New American Writing, Black Renaissance Noire, BOMB, The Kyoto Review, Barrow Street, VOLT, Antioch Review, Verse, diode, Plume & Plume Anthologies, Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes, Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies, Poetry Daily Anthology, The Eloquent Poem anthology, and Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language and Style. 
Elena is enrolled in Antioch University Santa Barbara's MFA Program where she is completing her first screenplays, collection of short stories, and book of essays entitled: Voyeur Hour: Poetry, Film, Art & Desire.