[close] Lina ramona Vitkauskas is a Lithuanian-American poet living in Chicago. Her full-length book of poetry, THE RANGE OF YOUR AMAZING NOTHING (Ravenna Press) will be available in 2009. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Failed Star Spawns Planet/Star(dancing girl press, 2006), and Shooting Dead Films With Poets(Fractal Edge Press, 2004).


In her spare time, she is the co-editor of the 8-year-running, online literary milk magazine She won an Honorable Mention in the Carson McCullers Award STORY Magazine Short Fiction Competition (1999); was a finalist in the Cleveland State University Open Poetry Series (2002); and won 1st place in the DES Journal Fiction Competition (1996). In addition to her own works, she has written a preface for French author, Denis Emorine, in his latest experimental fiction book, Au chevets des mots (A Step Inside, Červená Barva Press, 2006.)

She has been internationally published in many literary magazines and anthologies including The Prague Literary Review, The Chicago Review, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab Books, 2007), Aufgabe, Moria, MiPoesias, Van Gogh's Ear (Paris), Rampike (University of Windsor), Paper Tiger (Australia), Bridges (The Lithuanian-American Journal), The Mississippi Review, The Wisconsin Review, Lituanus (Lithuanian Quarterly Journal), In Posse Review Multi-Ethnic Anthology (Ilya Kaminsky, editor), and many others. Upcoming publications include 2008 Outside Voices Anthology of Younger Poets (Ed. Jessica Smith - Outside Voices), White Fungus (New Zeland), Another Chicago Magazine, Blossombones, Fifth Wednesday, and Arabesques (Algeria).

She has served as a curator for Woman Made Gallery's Poetry Series, as well as the Lithuanian editor for UniVerse: A United Nations of Poetry. She has read at various venues all over Chicago and the Midwest including The Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, Northwestern University, Around the Coyote Arts Festival, Indiana University-Northwest, Quimby's, Myopic Books, Woodland Pattern Bookstore, The Black Rock Bar, and Santara-Sveisa Lithuanian Arts, Literature, and Political Conference.

An upcoming spoken word CD will be released in 2008 as well as a chapbook of poems based on John Frankenheimer's movie, SECONDS titled Wilson 722. [close]