Kizziah Burton
Filed under: Authors
Kizziah Burton grew up in the slow, soft voices of the American South in a landscape of flower gardens, forests and birdsong. She spent much of her professional life in Los Angeles working in the motion picture industry as a writer/associate producer for an award-winning travel show, and later as content development executive to an executive producer/angel investor.
She is Creative of her own consulting agency for professional creatives and innovators. Her background for poetry is in film, music and art. She apprenticed in motion picture directing with American Director Leslie Linka Glatter and studied with Director Irvin Kershner. She was also a student of the Japanese poet/artist Narae Mochizuki, and the potter, Juan Quezada Celado—the recreator of the Mongollon pottery of the prehistoric Casas Grandes known as Mata Ortiz. A graduate fellow of the University of Southern California, she was recipient of three education grants from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation.
She holds a BA in Art History and Religion and an MA in creative writing, with additional studies at The Santa Fe School of Art & Design and The Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts in London.
In 2023/24, Burton was a Finalist for the Mslexia Poetry Prize, and Shortlisted for the Forward Prize Best Single Poem, the Manchester Poetry Prize, and the Aesthetica Poetry Prize. She was Highly Commended for the Oxford Prize, Bridport Prize, Magma–Judge's Prize, and a Finalist for the Gregory O'Donogue International Competition. She was Third Place Mslexia Poetry Prize (2022), Highly Commended for The National Poetry Competition (2021), Second Place Ledbury Poetry Competition (2020) among others.
Winning Entry: Cist
Contest Won: Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2023, First Prize, Tom Howard Prize
