Amber West is a feminist poet/writer, theater-maker, arts activist, and educator with more than a decade of experience in nonprofit development, communications, and management. After earning her BA in Literature/Creative Writing at UC Santa Cruz, West served as an AmeriCorps VISTA, developing and managing a mentoring program for at-risk youth in Richmond, CA. She worked for five years as Grants Coordinator for UCSF’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health before moving east to earn her MFA in Poetry at NYU and her PhD in English at UCONN. West has taught creative writing in under-resourced public schools through nonprofits such as America SCORES and Community Word Project. Her poems and articles have been published in journals and anthologies such as The Feminist Wire, Calyx, Journal of Research on Women and Gender, Women Write Resistance, The Routledge Companion to Puppetry & Material Performance, and Furies: A Poetry Anthology of Women Warriors. Her poetry chapbook, Daughter Eraser, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her plays and "puppet poems" have been performed on the east and west coasts. She is co-founder and director of NYC-based artist collective, Alphabet Arts, and artistic director of the Puppets & Poets festival at The Bushwick Starr theater in Brooklyn, NY. She is also Senior Grant Writer at Girls Write Now.