Lynne Thompson

Lynne Thompson is the daughter of Caribbean immigrants. A recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the City of Los Angeles where she lives, Thompson was appointed the City’s Poet Laureate for 2021-22. In 2022, Thompson received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. In addition to Blue On A Blue Palette (BOA Editions, 2024), Thompson is the author of Fretwork (Marsh Hawk Press, 2019), winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize; Start With A Small Guitar (What Books Press, 2013); and Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press, 2007), winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award. Other honors include the George Drury Smith Distinguished Service in Poetry Award, Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award, the Stephen Dunn Prize for Poetry, as well as fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, and the Summer Literary Series in Kenya. A lawyer by training, Thompson sits on the boards of the Los Angeles Review of Books, Cave Canem, and the Poetry Foundation, and she served as Chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College, 2018-2022, A faculty member for the Low-Residency MFA in creative writing at the University of Nevada, Reno, she also facilitates private workshops, most recently for Beyond Baroque, Napa Valley Writers Conference, Moorpark College Writers Festival, and Central Coast Writers’ Conference.