Michelle Bitting

Michelle Bitting earned a MFA in creative writing from Pacific University and a PhD in mythological studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. 

Bitting is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Ruined Beauty (Walton Well Press, 2026); Dummy Ventriloquist (C & R Press 2024); and Nightmares & Miracles (Two Sylvias Press, 2022), winner of the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize.

The recipient of the City of Los Angeles (COLA) 2026–27 Independent Master Artist Project Grant, Bitting was commissioned by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs for the 2024 Paris/Los Angeles Cultural Olympiad. Her other awards include the 2025 Banyan Review Poetry Prize, the 2018 Catamaran Poetry Prize, the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Prize, and the DeNovo Prize.

Bitting has taught as a California Poet in the Schools for ten years and led creative writing workshops at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Downtown Los Angeles for two years through PRISM Restorative Justice. Since 2018, she has worked as a senior lecturer in creative writing and literature at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where she lives on the unceded land (Tovangaar) of the Tongva people. In 2012, she was appointed poet laureate of the Pacific Palisades.