Gabrielle Bates

Gabrielle Bates is the Social Media Manager of Open Books: A Poem Emporium. She also serves as designer and contributing editor for the Seattle Review, a reader for Poetry Northwest, and the official voice of Broadsided Press on twitter; volunteers as a poetry mentor through the Adroit teen mentorship program; and teaches occasionally as a spotlight author through Seattle’s Writers in the Schools (WITS). The recipient of scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Mineral School Artist Residency, and the University of Washington, Gabrielle’s work appears, or is forthcoming, in Poetry, New England Review, jubilat, the Missouri Review Poem of the Week, Black Warrior Review, Guernica, and the Best of the Net anthology, among other journals. Manuscripts-in-progress include a collection of poems, a book-length poetry comic, and an illustrated collaboration with poet Adrienne Raphel. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she currently lives in Seattle.

Gabrielle received a 2017 GAP Award to work on a collection of poems and two book-length poetry comics. Poetry comics are an exciting emerging field of literary art, and Gabrielle has appreciated the opportunity to tease out its possibilities as a presenter at AWP 2016 in LA, a Spotlight Author through WITS, and a guest instructor in Multimodal Composition courses at the University of Washington. The form—akin to both poetry and graphic prose, yet distinct from both—hinges on the power of juxtaposition between text and image. Her work as a poetry-comic artist informs my poetry, and vice versa.

Artist Trust thanks the Amazon Literary Partnership for underwriting this award through Artist Trust’s Corporate Partnership program. For information about supporting Washington State artists, visit here.