Michelle Bitting
Senior Lecturer of English | Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, CA, UNITED STATES
Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts
Media
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Biography
Michelle Bitting was short-listed for the 2024 Cleaver Magazine “Duality” Creative Non-Fiction Award and has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department for her original poem “Twyla” as a finalist in the Paris/Olympiad cultural exchange this September 2024. She was short-listed for the 2023 CRAFT Character Sketch Challenge, the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize, and named a finalist for the 2021 Coniston Prize and 2020 Reed Magazine Edwin Markham Prize. She won Quarter After Eight’s Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest, the Beyond Baroque Foundation Poetry Award, the Glimmer Train Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the Ruminate Magazine, Sonora Review and New Millennium Flash Prose contests. She is the author of six poetry collections: Good Friday Kiss, winner of the inaugural C & R Press De Novo First Book Award; Notes to the Beloved, winner of the 2011 Sacramento Poetry Center Book Prize; The Couple Who Fell to Earth (2016, C & R Press); Broken Kingdom, winner of the 2018 Catamaran Poetry Prize; and Nightmares & Miracles (Two Sylvias Press), winner of the Wilder Prize and recently
named one of Kirkus Reviews’ 2022 Best of Indie. Her chapbook Dummy Ventriloquist launched in 2024 from C & R Press. Recent poetry appears on The Slowdown, Thrush, Cleaver, The Poetry Society of New York’s Milk Press, and is featured as Poem of the Week in The Missouri Review. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, her poems have also appeared on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. Bitting holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University, Oregon, and a PhD in Mythological Studies, emphasis Poetry and Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is writing a novel centered around Los Angeles and her great grandmother, stage and screen actor Beryl Mercer, and is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University.
Education (4)
Pacifica Graduate Institute: Ph.D., Mythological Studies 2018
Pacifica Graduate Institute: M.A., Mythological Studies 2016
Pacific University: MFA, Poetry 2009
University of California, Berkeley: B.A., Dramatic Art 1987
Areas of Expertise (4)
Poetry
Creative Non-fiction
Mythological Studies
Drama
Accomplishments (6)
Finalist for “Twyla” a commissioned poem for the Paris/Olympiad cultural exchange (professional)
2024
Semi-finalist: Cleaver Magazine “Duality” Creative Non-Fiction Essay Award (professional)
2024
CRAFT Journal of Writing Character Challenge, shortlisted for “Beryl" (professional)
2023
Winner, Two Sylvias Press Wilder Book Prize (professional)
2021
Finalist, Montreal International Poetry Prize (professional)
2020
Winner, Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Prize
2019
Links (2)
Languages (1)
- English
Media Appearances (3)
Embracing Your Darkest Hour: An Interview with Poet Michelle Bitting
Advice for Writers online
2022-06-11
This blog is an interview with the writer Michelle Bitting, whose book Nightmares & Miracles, winner of the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Prize, establishes her as an important voice in poetry.
Michelle Bitting - Poetry.LA Interview
Poetry.LA online
2022-05-06
In this video, poet MICHELLE BITTING, author of five collections, is interviewed by series host MARIANO ZARO. Bitting's latest collection, "Nightmares & Miracles" (Two Sylvias Press, 2022), won the 2020 Wilder Prize.
Michelle Bitting: Preparing the Body for Poetry
The Poetry Saloncast online
2020-02-25
In this interview captivating poet Michelle Bitting discusses the connection between movement, mythology, and writing poetry. A trained actress and dancer, Michelle says that writing poetry is a lot like being in a performance, where one needs to generate and sustain a certain mood in which to enter the text and keep the momentum going.
Event Appearances (3)
Guest Lecturer: “Writing Without Boundaries and Constraints: Unexpected Sources for Opening Worlds on the Page”
August 2024 | Jacar Press, A Gathering of Poets
Featured Poet: Guess Who’s Coming To Town Reading Series
July 2024 Santa Barbara
Featured Poet: The Great Outdoors
October 2023 Greystone Mansion & Gardens
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