KELLI ANNE NOFTLE grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia and has lived for the past 12 years in Southern California. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. As an undergraduate, she studied painting restoration and art history at the Lorenzo D'Medici School in Florence, Italy and also lived and worked with art students in a study abroad program in Paris, France. Her first publication, a personal essay, appeared in the Harvard Summer Review while attending the Harvard Extension Program during the summer of 2001. Although she was not academically involved in the writing program at Point Loma, she hosted a weekly open mic on-campus poetry reading and participated in several community open mic readings in San Diego. In 2005, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a Masters Degree in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California. There, she studied with poets David St. John, Elena Karina Byrne, Holly Prado, and Amy Gerstler. Mentored by Elena Karina Byrne, she interned at The Ruskin Art Club, host to poetry readings and workshops with award-winning published poets. It was then that she began reading contemporary poets and discovered early influences: Mary Ruefle, Charles Simic, Richard Siken, Larry Levis, and Martha Ronk. After receiving her Masters Degree in 2007, she focused on music, singing and performing with various Southern California indie-pop bands and musicians. Her singer/songwriter solo project, Miniature Soap, has performed many times in Los Angeles and she is currently recording a full length album at Red Rockets Glare Studio in West Los Angeles that will be completed by 2012. Over the past few years, her poems have appeared in several literary journals including: Anti-, Blackbird, The Baltimore Review, Colorado Review, Conduit, Cream City Review, The Greensboro Review, The Journal, The Nepotist, The Offending Adam, Oranges & Sardines, Quarter After Eight, and VERSE. Kelli currently resides in east Los Angeles, works as an assistant to the CEO of a shipping company near LAX, and is working on a second book of poems, a novel, and collaborating on a performance piece with a Los Angeles artist/actor.
