Bio

Ryka Aoki is a writer, performer, and educator who has been honored by the California State Senate for creating Trans/Giving, LA’s only art/performance series dedicated to trans*, genderqueer, and intersex artists. She has also closely worked with the American Association of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, and two of her compositions were adopted by the group as its “Songs of Peace.” Ryka appears in the recent trans documentaries “Diagnosing Difference” and “Riot Acts” as well as the Anthology Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation (Seal Press).

Ryka was the inaugural performer for San Francisco’s first ever Transgender Stage at San Francisco Pride 2005, and has performed in venues including the San Francisco Pride Main Stage, the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival, the National Queer Arts Festival, Ladyfest South, Atlanta Pride, UCLA’s OutCRY, Santa Cruz Pride, and Emory University’s Pride Week. Ryka was keynote speaker at UC Santa Barbara’s 2005 Pride Week, GenderFusions 2008 at Columbia College, and UW Madison’s Trans Awareness Week 2009.

Ryka has as an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University and is the recipient of a University Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her chapbook, Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines (Inconvenient Press) won the 2010 Eli Coppola Chapbook Contest. Ryka’s poetry appears in the 2011 edition of Many Mountains Moving, and Hummingbird Review. She is a professor of English at Santa Monica College.