**** See Videos from MÖBIUS 25^th Anniversary Celebration on YouTube!

**** See THE DR. ZYLPHA MAPP ROBINSON INTERNATIONAL POETRY AWARD at www.mobiuspoetry.com. Winners announced soon.

New York and African Tapestries (Fly By Night Press, 2007) was a Small Press Review “BEST PICK”. Please see it on the poetry, calendar & ordering pages.

Among her many honors, Juanita Torrence-Thompson has been nominated “2009 WOMAN OF THE YEAR” by The American Biographical Institute Board of International Research.

Her 6th poetry book, Breath-Life, will be published by Scopcraeft Press in 2009. Her 7th book, Talking With Stanley Kunitz, was a finalist in the prestigious Many Mountains Moving Poetry Competition.

Juanita studied poetry with CORNELIUS EADY at Cave Canem in New York and YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA at Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and received her certificate in poetry from the University of Wisconsin. This culminated in publication of her first poetry book, Wings Span to Eternity, then Spanning the Years, which was endorsed by poets Rochelle Ratner, Maria Mazziotti Gillan as well as EBONY, Newsday and New York Trend. Celebrating a Tapestry of Life, her third book, was endorsed by Gordon Parks, Nikki Giovanni, Daniela Gioseffi, Laura Boss, Tom McKeown, Dr. George Dawson and Barbara Hantman etc. as well as Merle English of Newsday. Celebrating a Tapestry of Life and Spanning the Years were published by Torderwarz Publishing Company. Celebrating a Tapestry of Life is in the English Library in Zurich, Switzerland as well as U.S. libraries. Read poets Pam Bernard and Thaddeus Rutkowski reviews of her poetry audiobook Poetry Among The Flowers: Queens Meets Asia on her poetry audiobook page.

Juanita Torrence-Thompson spoke and read at the Hilton during the 2006 National Federation of Poetry Societies, Inc. convention in San Antonio, Texas. She has been invited to speak and read numerous times by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and has also spoken at 100 Black Women of Long Island in New York. She has also read with Pulitzer Prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa & other award-winners such as Cornelius Eady, Daniela Gioseffi, Colette Inez, Hal Sirowitz, Stephen Stepanchev, Louis Reyes Rivera, Samuel Menashe, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Laura Boss, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Rochelle Ratner, John Amen and more.

She has been interviewed & read on TV & radio, including: TV Eyewitness News (Hartford, CT), QPTV (NY) (many times), & “Caribbean Classroom” by John Crow; NY Cable “Growing With Grace,” Manhattan Cable TV “Flying Fish.” Cablevision Ch 20 “LI Poets on Film” interview by Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan & JTT solo reading; Time Warner Cable, Brooklyn by Alfred P. Harris. -- RADIO: Bombay, INDIA; WLRN (National Public Radio); WPOW (Miami) WAFG (Ft. Lauderdale FL); WNYE, NY (many times); WLIB (NY) “Felipe Luciano Show.” WWRL, (NY) WBAI many times) & “Perspectives” reading with Suffolk County Poet Laureate, Daniel Thoms Moran, & interiwed by/Louis Reyes Rivera; WILD (Boston) “To the Point;” WNUA (Chicago); WBAA (Indiana); WAIC “Tony Gill Show” & “The Gospel Hour” Springfield. MA; WBET (many times) (Brockton, MA).

She writes poetry columns for newspapers in New York and Massachusetts: The Culvert Chronicles and Point of View and is a former poetry columnist for New Voice of New York.

Juanita Torrence-Thompson won fifth prize in the national Writer’s Digest Poetry Award out of 4,000 poems submitted. She also won second prize in the Spoken Word Poetry Contest by New York Association of Black Journalists, and First Prize in the New York Public Library Poetry Contest (Adult Division) as well as Editor’s Choice Awards from The Robin’s Nest and The Nashville Newsletter. She won second prize in the Poetry Society of Michigan International Poetry Contest for 3 poems in categories of: humor, free verse and rhyming verse. She also won honorable mention twice for the Margaret A Walker Short Fiction Competition, the Paul Laurence Dunbar Poetry Award, the Writer’s Digest Contest for feature articles and children’s fiction. Her poetry and prose appears in anthologies such as An Eye for An Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 and The Spirit in the Words (Daimler Chrysler) and publications like Black Enterprise, YSB, Class, Paterson Literary Review, Westview: A Journal of Western Oklahoma, The Montserrat Literary Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Main Street Rag, Phantasmagoria, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Chaminade Literary Review, California Quarterly, Clark Street Review, Caprice, Lips, Snail’s Pace Review, New Laurel Review, Curbside Review, Quantum Leap (Scotland), Jones Avenue (Canada), have also published her poetry. Poetry Nottingham (England), Speed Poets (Australia)

She has come full circle to performing and writing. As a precocious 10-year old in Massachusetts she wrote, directed and starred in her first play which was exhibited during Black History Month in Boston. As an actress-singer, she appeared in London, England; New York and New Jersey in revivals of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” Douglas Turner Ward’s “Day of Absence” and Sophie Treadwell’s Obie-winning “Machinal.” Now she mesmerizes audiences as she reads her poetry in Singapore, Switzerland and at the University of Cape Town in South Africa as well as at numerous U.S. colleges and universities including Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Barnard College, New York University, Howard, Georgetown, University of Chicago, University of Miami, Rutgers, Penn State, Fordham, New School University, Queens College, Queensborough Community College, BMCC, Wayne State, Livingstone College and many more. She had also read at various elementary, junior high and high schools such as the UN International School, John Bowne High School, Martin Van Buren High School, Brockton High School (Massachusetts), Pompano Beach High School (Florida), and at libraries in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester, Massachusetts Florida and Michigan. Bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, Borders and independent stores in New York, Massachusetts and Florida. Also: UNITY journalists convention in Seattle, WA, Detroit Writer’ss Conference, Queens Botanical Garden (solo reading), Alley Pond Environmental Center (many times), Nuyorican Café, etc. See Calendar.

Torrence-Thompson received her M.A. from Fordham University and B.S. from SUNY, Empire State College. She holds or held memberships in Queens Council on the Arts, The Poetry Society of America, Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, Poets House, The Fresh Meadows Poets, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, The National Association of Black Journalists, Native American Journalists Association, Black Americans in Publishing and the American Association of University Women.

She may be contacted for poetry readings/speaking at:
Torderwarz Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 671058
Flushing, New York 11367-1058
Email: poetrytown@earthlink.net
Website: www.PoetryTown.com

For further information, please consult directories, including Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American Women, A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, International Authors and Writers Who’s Who, Dictionary of International Biography and Who’s Who Among African Americans.

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