Annie Bien

Annie Bien was born in Hong Kong and now lives in New York City. She has taught a poetry project for young teens at the NYC Public School 140, and received her first commission for playwrighting at the Soho Theatre Company in London. She is currently writing a children's book, Think Cool, based on a request from the Dalai Lama's sister, Jetsun Pema. Her poetry has appeared in Andwerve, who nominated her for a Pushcart Prize, in Quattrocento, based in North Wales, UK, in Snakeskin, and soon to appear in Loch Raven Review. She is a Pushcart nominee, a runner up for the Georgetown Review Contest 2006, and on shortlists for the UK Guardian Poetry Workshop and the Strokestown 2007 International Poetry Competition, Ireland . Her poem reading was included on RTE Radio 1 - The Poetry Programme by Pat Boran.

"I have noticed that if I think a poem is particularly crummy, sometimes it has the opposite effect on the reader, so I realize I might not be a good judge of my writing. Some poems just feel right, but others take a while to get to know because I'm not sure where they come from. Sometimes the ones I thought were awful initially look a lot better a few months later during rewrite and that really 'fantastic' poem looks pretty trite. Others just have a way of being one that I'm really fond of for whatever reason, and I have to make sure whatever it is that reaches me reaches others. Sometimes I think of my poems as unruly little creatures needy of attention.

I've also really enjoyed reading the other poets writing because there's a kind of carefree feeling in knowing we're all just doing the best we can every day to come up with a poem. If something revelatory occurs before the 30th, will be sure to post that and the poem that emerged from it."

Annie