Elizabeth Austen spent her teens and twenties working in the theatre and writing poems. A six-month solo walkabout in the Andes region of South America led her to focus exclusively on poetry. In addition to Every Dress a Decision (Blue Begonia, 2011), she is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Girl Who Goes Alone (Floating Bridge Press, 2010) and Where Currents Meet, one of four winners of the Toadlily Press chapbook award and part of the quartet Sightline. In 2006, she produced skin prayers, an audio CD of her poems. Austen's poems have appeared in the anthologies In the Telling, Poets Against the War, Pontoon, Weathered Pages and in journals including Willow Springs, the Bellingham Review, Verse Daily, Swivel and the Seattle Review, among others. She performs regularly at Pacific Northwest venues including the Skagit River Poetry Festival and Richard Hugo House. Elizabeth served as the Washington "roadshow" poet for 2007, giving readings and workshops in rural areas around the state. She is the recipient of grants from Artists Trust, the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and 4Culture, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart prize. She makes her living at Seattle Children's Hospital, where she also offers retreats and journaling/poetry workshops for the staff.

Other poems by Elizabeth Austen in Verse Daily:
April 9, 2009:   "Humans" "the day begins in disarray..."

Books by Elizabeth Austen:

Other poems on the web by Elizabeth Austen:
"False Spring"

Elizabeth Austen's Home Page.

About Every Dress a Decision:

"Elizabeth Austen’s poems have great emotional range, formal rigor and an ambition of scope that is tempered beautifully by a considered intimacy. A poetry both luminous and grounded in the world."
—Chris Abani

"If Elizabeth Austen is 'between gods for the moment,' it’s because—gratefully!—she hovers and dances close to the vestigial, the elusive, and the transitory. She sees with a steely eye. She sings with the purest pitch. By turns tender and tough, spare and lush, these poems speak to and for the fleeting, fleeing world. An absolutely stunning and cohesive first book by a first-rate poet! What Focus Is is a joy to read, and reread."
—Nance Van Winckel

"Elizabeth Austen’s poems are pellucid, interior, and powerfully original in both vision and voice. This book welcomes into our view a writer of language-substance, awake ear, and revealed—and revealing—heart."
—Jane Hirshfield