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Summary

Anya Shah is a student, reader, hot-drink enthusiast, farmer, and poet. A high school senior at Thousand Oaks High School, Anya has pushed the boundaries in search of knowledge. Anya was the only student to be a year ahead in her English classes. Additionally, she was consistently taking new classes at local community colleges and reading all the books she could find. Her love of reading is only matched with her love of hot drinks. She can typically be found enjoying a book with a cup of hot chocolate or chai in hand; when not there, she can be seen wandering the rows of her family farm and eating oranges directly from the tree. This love of reading and nature has fueled her poetry as she writes about her place in community and the world. Anya takes pride in giving back to the community—from picking and donating thousands of pounds of produce to spreading an appreciation of poetry and art. As the 2023-2024 Ventura County Youth Poet Laureate, Anya is driven to inspire positive change and foster deeper connections with her community.

Brandon Bishop is a student at California State University, Channel Islands, where he studies Psychology and Creative Writing. He has had short stories and poems published in the school’s Island Fox creative writing journal, and was one of the winners of the Ventura County Poetry Festival’s student category. He currently lives in Ventura County.

Kat Gutierrez is a Creative Writer from Cal State Channel Islands University. She recently was a winner in the 2024 college level Ventura County Poetry Festival Competition, and is about to be published in Island Fox magazine. While she primary writes in fantasy, she also writes poems about real world issues and is an advocate of both Women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights.