Patty Tomsky

Patty Tomsky is a multi-genre writer and journalist. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mile High MFA in Denver, Colorado. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction has been published in many journals and magazines such as FEMZINE UK, Allegheny Poetry Village; Paterson Review; Kota Press: Lilliput Review; US 1 Worksheets and Madness Muse. She won Third Place and Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize and her poetry circus, Rock n Roll Hootchy Koo, a multimedia narrative and music event won a Pikes Peak Arts Council grant for ArtPop 2019. Patty’s fiction has been anthologized in two books: Story Cities: A city guide to the imagination (2019) and No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book (2020) both from Arachne Press. She has recently been accepted into the We Are The West anthology from Twenty Bellows, forthcoming in 2022. Her chapbook with photographs, Elementals: Songs for Gaia won jury prize for inclusion in the Commonwheel Artists Co-op exhibit for Climate Change in 2020. She also read selections from Elementals during Denver’s Headroom Sessions broadcast #44.  She works as a copywriter for some excellent people at AWS and lives in Colorado with some animals and people.

Some notes/links about some of these publications/events:

I have two biographies–one for my creative endeavors as a poet, blogger, memoirist and novelist, one as a writer and consultant for businesses–mostly large Fortune 500 clients who are always my best teachers and cherished colleagues (really!!).

For all things business-y, check me out on LinkedIn or on my contently site (Patricia Wittnebert Tomsky– I have lots of aliases. I fancy myself an outlaw).

My creative bio is about writing since I was five years old with my first award in kindergarten, as the youngest elementary school entrant with a poem that was destroyed, along with the book it appeared in, during Hurricane Floyd, in a Rockaway, NJ basement with very faulty French drains.

So incredibly blessed and humble–even if you don’t give a flip about my work, it would behoove you to follow the links back to these great organizations, writers and magazines to see my fellow creatives’ work.

• Paterson Literary Review and Paterson Poetry Center- I was able to win third place in their Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize as well as Honorable Mention. I was also so grateful to work under founder Maria Maziotti Gillan during several poetry retreats. What a talented gift to poetry she is–and now an acclaimed painter, as well.
• I won a jury prize for the Commonwheel Artists show Responding to Climate Change Through Art for Elementals: Songs for Gaia chapbook in March 2020 right before life got so crazy. All proceeds donated to Sierra Club and Commonwheel Artists. I still have a few left, if you want one hit me up–I personalize one-of-a-kind bookmarks for all orders. $7 free shipping.
• Poems also appear in Ken Ronkowitz‘ invaluable e-zine, Poets Online. The prompts almost every month have been beams of light for me when all of my oh-so-serious copywriting and PR/Marketing work seems to block my inner poet. Here’s a link to one of my faves, Shame: A Song Heard Three Rooms Ago.
• Arachne Press’ Story Cities: A City Guide for the Imagination. My flash fiction, Alleys and Dumpsters, In Between, Sunny Day is in this ultra-cool anthology, published in June, 2019. Check out the story, Spider Circus among the talented people I share an anthology with in No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book (Arachne Press 2020)
• Short stories in FemZine UK, poems in Kota Press, US 1 Worksheets, Peterson Literary Review, Adirondack Review and elsewhere, TBD.
• Then there’s my book, Take Back The Night, a novel about how a Bowie-esque rock star and his girlfriend Cy save the world from tarot card demons come to life during a three-day Coachella-like concert. It’s not online anymore because I’m trying to get it agented/published.
• I won a grant from the Pikes Peak Arts Council for my multimedia event with poetry, music, film, photography and very special guests Patricia McCrystal, Elle Naef and Sue Fine. Rock n Roll Hootchy Koo was unbelievably fun and I performed as Trish Trash, reading poems from the chapbook Rock n Roll Hootchy Koo–hit me up for one of the those. I have altered rock star bookmarks for ya!
• Here’s my author page with my self-help eBooks for Minimalism, Clutter, Sales and Customer Service (yes really). I had a contract with this group and these taught me how to write to extreme deadline. Not my favorite work but they do great business on Amazon–and the contract I got was awful, so don’t worry, you aren’t stiffing me if you don’t buy them.

Thank you Adirondack Center for Writing! Election-day-tensions-npr-10-26-20-by-patty-tomsky/amp/