Working Artist: Nancy Lynée Woo

     What is the definition of a working artist?

      Nancy is a poet, educator, and community organizer. She has co-founded a handful of arts organizations, including the Long Beach Literary Arts Center and briefly ran a social justice-based literary press. 

As an organizer, she has produced innumerable arts events, including writing workshops, public readings and arts festivals. She is also the creator of Surprise the Line, a community poetry workshop.

Writing from an eco-feminist perspective, her poetry is largely inspired by the magic and power of the natural world. Nancy has received fellowships from PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, and Idyllwild Writers Week. 

      Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro serves as one of the cultural hubs as part of the Artists At Work initiative, as it hosts both Nancy and artist Taylor Griffith for year-long artist residencies.

     The ARTISTS AT WORK program is inspired by the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, or WPA

It was designed to give artists resources to continue to produce work during the COVID crisis, but also, to build new structures and partnerships to help sustain the creative sector in a post-pandemic America. 

The goals of Artists At Work are to give artists a living wage to support their work and to put that work into the public sphere for free, to connect artists and cultural organizations to local initiatives in areas like youth mental health, suicide prevention, food justice, prison reform, youth at risk and other civic engagements to foster healthy communities.

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