Andrena Zawinski

Andrena Zawinski, born and raised in Pittsburgh, is a veteran teacher of writing who has made her home in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2000 where she has become a mainstay in the poetry community. Her poetry embraces, in original ways and with deep-rooted emotional power, the worldwide condition of women, immigrants, and the working class alongside a reverence for the natural world in both narratives and formal verse. It reflects her working class background as the daughter and granddaughter of steel workers and coal miners and her longtime feminism. She has four full-length poetry collections in print along with six chapbooks and has edited two anthologies. Her work has received accolades for free verse, form, lyricism, spirituality, and social concern. Zawinski was a long time Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com and is founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon.