Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein
Founder & Artistic Director
Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein is a poet, classically trained soprano, and educator recently moved to Santa Barbara, CA after 12yrs in NYC. She is the author of Nympholepsy (Inside the Castle, 2018), which was a finalist for the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize selected by Bhanu Kapil. Excerpts from Nympholepsy are also forthcoming in the Best American Experimental Writing, summer 2020, selected by Joyelle McSweeney and Carmen Maria Machado. Alyssa is also the author of Quiet (The New School University Press, 2013), which was the winner of The New School University Press contest selected by Matthea Harvey; and semifinalist for the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize for her collection, Forniphilia, which is forthcoming from dancing girl press, spring 2020. Her work can also be found in Sporklet, Prick of the Spindle, Front Porch, and others.
Alyssa is the Founder and Artistic Director of Diorama, the hybrid life poetry series with events hosted by Atlas Obscura and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Founding Editor of [saUnd] Literary Magazine, the cross-genre publication on contemporary musico-poetics.
Alyssa is also the Founder of Wildwood Home for the Arts, a center for voice, poetry, and music education based at the historic Music Academy of the West; and the President of the Santa Barbara Chapter of the American Orff Schulwerk Association.
Alyssa holds certifications in Heart-Based Singing and Orff Schulwerk. She received her MFA in poetry from NYC’s The New School, and her BM in classical vocal performance and concurrent BA in English literature from Mannes Conservatory.
Past Collaborators
Rachel Boyadjis
Diorama: Bestiary (premiered June 2018)
Rachel Boyadjis is a poet, aerialist, and actress living in NYC. She is the Co-Director of Contemporary Circus/Aerial Dance collaborative Circus Solaris, and one half of the aerial duo The Lost Boys. @circus.solaris
Lisa Marie Basile, Co-Founder
Volumes and Diorama: Missa Brevis (premiered Oct. 2017)
Lisa Marie Basile is the editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and Ingenue X. She is the author of Apocryphal (Noctuary Press) and a few chapbooks, including Andalucia (Poetry Society of NY) and war/lock (Hyacinth Girl). She was a finalist for the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize, and you can find her work in The Atlas Review, Spork, PANK, Dusie, Huffington Post, the Tin House blog and Ampersand Review. She's also a journalist and editor.