Lydia Swartz

Lydia/Lenny Swartz makes things out of poetry, images, performance, and found audio. Their chapbook, Land of Lists, was published by Floating Bridge Press, where it was a finalist in the 2016 competition. Their deck of shufflepoems was published by Minor Arcana Press in 2014. They spent December 2015 as a Starry Night artist in residence in Truth or Consequences, NM. They proposed to their partner of 16 years onstage at Gay Uncle Time in June 2016. At every full moon, they invite their pack to howl at moonrise on the shore of Lake Washington. In muggle life L Swartz is Kate Robinson, a marketing writer at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington. Lydia/Lenny documents literally where they stand each day of the Trump regime at the propagandaministry Tumblr, keeps a Seattle Spoken Word calendar, and jabbers on Facebook and Instagram.

Lydia/Lenny received a 2017 GAP Award to create a map (printed and virtual) of the Seattle queer community before and during the AIDS crisis. By accessing Seattle Gay News archives, by recording the stories of survivors, by looking up important addresses in phone directories, and by hunting ghosts via diedinhouse.com, Lydia/Lenny will harvest and curate the stories that made their world then.

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.