Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is the author of three nonfiction books and eight collections of poetry. Her forthcoming nonfiction book, The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker,, is the extraordinary forgotten story of an event known in its day as “the first shots of the Civil War”—a stylish, propulsive, intimately human tale of farmers, socialites and self-emancipated folks with little in common who came together to stand against injustice… and won. 

Her previous nonfiction book, Dr Mutter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, spent three months on the New York Times best seller list, and screenplays based on the book has won awards at the Philadelphia Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, the Sloan Foundation, and the Black List. Her first nonfiction book, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City was named a “Poetry Book of the Year” by The Washington Post.

Cristin’s eight collections of poetry span her entire writing life, beginning with Dear Future Boyfriend, published while she was still an undergrad at New York University; and Hot Teen Sl*t, her memoir-in-verse about her first job out of college: working as an editor for an “adult” website in the early days of the internet. Her next three collections –Working Class Represent; Oh, Terrible Youth; and Everything is Everything – cover her upbringing in Philadelphia as well as the 15 years she spent as a poet and organizer in New York City. The Year of No Mistakes, her memoir-in-verse about the break-up of a long term relationship, was named the Texas Poetry Book of the Year by the Writers League of Texas. Her next two collections, How to Love the Empty Air and Against Vanishing, completed her Texas triology.

Cristin graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied screenwriting and playwriting. She ran the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam – first out of CBGBs, and later out of the Bowery Poetry Club – while working as a permission’s assistant at the Artists Rights Society in Lower Manhattan. Her poetry and nonfiction work have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, [more], and other publications. Awards including a fellowships and residencies in association with the National Endowment for the Arts, the University of Pennsylvania, Hedgebrook, and the Amy Clampitt House, among others. 

Cristin lives in her hometown of Philadelphia with her husband, the novelist Ernest Cline, and their family.