Linda Ravenswood

Linda Ravenswood
Carolyn Forche and Linda Ravenswood in Los Angeles
Born	Los Angeles, California

Linda Ravenswood is a writer, artist, and vocalist. The play Bike Odyssey L.A. (with Brian Sonia Wallace) won a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant in 2014.^[1] It was also awarded a Producer's Encore Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, where it premiered. Her first book, Hymnal, from Mouthfeel Press, 2012, and short story "The Infant Golem of Prague", The Bicycle Review, 2012, were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The poem "The peas" from Hymnal received a Pushcart Prize nomination for Poetry in 2013. Her work has been recognized by the City of Los Angeles, the City of West Hollywood, the Los Angeles Library Foundation and the Metropolitan Transit Authority for Bike Odyssey L.A. She was shortlisted for Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2017 and a Finalist for Poet Laureate of West Hollywood in 2016.

Early life

Linda Ravenswood was born in Los Angeles, California. She has English, Irish, Czech, Danish, Native American (Wampanoag) and other ancestry. She is a descendant of the Mayflower adventurer Stephen Hopkins. She holds a BFA from (CalArts) and an MA from Mount Saint Mary's College. She has lived extensively in the US, Ireland and the UK.

Her father, Oscar Montano, was a well known barman, semi-pro golfer, and raconteur in Burbank, California.^[2] Born in Baja California, his nightclub Sardo's, was a hangout and unofficial club house for the NBC Studios, whose headquarters were around the corner. Her mother, Marianne McKee, is an executive secretary and chief of staff for national and international corporations (including JPL, NME, Leisure Technology, and Braun and Co.) Her career in business spans six decades.

Personal life

In her twenties, she lived in Ireland with her husband, the songwriter and music interpreter/musicologist Garrison White, where she continued to write. Taught by Meredith Monk, Karen Finley, and Charlie Haden, her practice includes allusion to memory and lineage. She now lives in Los Angeles.

Work

Writing poetry from age ten, she was first published by the Irish imprint Interaction Publications (Flaming Arrows, Ed. Leo Regan) in Sligo, in 1994.^[3] She had steady appearances in reviews such as The University of Salzburg Press (2009), The Wilshire Review (Ed. R. Sam Deese, Boston University, 1999) The Hamilton Stone Review (2010), BLAZEVOX Books (2011), and Underground Voices. Ravenswood's writing has been featured in more than 50 print journals and online sites.

Her books include Hymnal (Mouthfeel Press, 2012), ^[4] “Voices from Leimert Park, Harriet Tubman Press, 2017”, The Frankenstein Prophecies (with Robert Romanyshyn, forthcoming 2017), Linda Ravenswood Collected Works 2000-2016, An Assembly of Performance Texts (forthcoming 2017), Gallery Tally (LACMA Press, 2017), Llano del Rio Performance Texts (forthcoming 2018), Near Kin (Sybaritic Press, 2014),^[5] MUDSLINGER (with Charles Linder, Gallery 16, San Francisco, 2013), and The Best of Lines + Stars (2010).

Her live poetry performance has been commissioned for Royce Hall and the Centre for the Art of Performance, The Broad,^[6] Google,^[7] AWP Pen USA, and The Bootleg Theatre.^[8]

Called a 'quintessential L.A. artist', she has appeared with Eloise Klein Healy, Azam Ali, Viggo Mortensen, S.A. Griffin and Shane MacGowan. She is a frequent collaborator with Gina Young ^[9] (REDCAT, Highways,^[10] USC Visions and Voices,^[11] The Hammer Museum^[12]), Charles Linder,^[13] Kristina Wong,^[14][15] and METRO, The Metropolitan Transit Authority.^[16][17] She is a fellow at The Women's Centre for Creative Work.

References

External links

Media related to Linda Ravenswood at Wikimedia Commons