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elena karina byrne

WHAT BOOKS PRESS PUBLICATION: 
NO, DON'T

Elena Karina Byrne is a freelance editor, professor, Programming Consultant & Poetry Stage Manager for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and the Literary Programs Director for the historic Ruskin Art Club. Former 12-year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, she curated programs for the GRI at the J. Paul Getty Center, MOCA, the Craft Contemporary Museum, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, The Clark Library, The West Hollywood Book Fair, and USC’s Doheny Memorial Library, among others. Elena also served as a co-judge for the 2022 Laurel Prize for environmental poetry, final judge for the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards in Poetry from 2016–2018, one of three visiting writers for the 2018–2019 ten university consortia in the Georgia Poetry Circuit, and as a final judge for PEN’s Best of the West award.  Her lecture and teaching artist positions include The Poetry School, The Fine Arts Work Center, University of Southern California, Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University, The Poetry Barn, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Claremont Graduate University, Georgia Tech, Todos Santos Writing Workshops, The Los Angeles Film School, and elsewhere.
 
A Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry recipient, Elena’s five poetry collections include If This Makes You Nervous (Omnidawn, 2021), No Don’t (What Books Press, 2020), Squander (Omnidawn, 2016), MASQUE (Tupelo Press, 2008), The Flammable Bird, (Zoo Press/ Tupelo Press, 2002).  Her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews can be found in POETRY, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, New American Writing, American Poetry Review, Plume & Plume Anthologies, Los Angeles Review of Books, Narrative Magazine, Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies, Republic of Apples Democracy of Oranges: New Eco-Poetry from China and the United States, The Eloquent Poem: 128 Contemporary Poems and Their Making, BOMB, and elsewhere. Elena’s writing screenplays while completing a collection of essays entitled Voyeur Hour: Poetry Art, Film, & Desire.
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