Andrea Louise Thomas is a Canadian, Californian, Australian performance poet. In 2010 she was a top ranked finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam State Final, the Overload Poetry Slam Final, as well as being a finalist in the Poetry Idol Final at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival in 2009 and 2010.

She has won first place in the FabSlam Poetry Slam at B’Artiste in Frankston four times. This year she placed second and then first at the Frankston Library Slams. In 2010 she participated as the only woman on Team Australia in the first International Poetry Slam via Skype (versus Scotland). She has appeared on the Red Lobster television program on Channel 31 several times and was interviewed on SYN FM and 3CR AM. Andrea’s poems are published in the Paradise Anthology.  Andrea has several articles published in magazines. She was selected in 2011 as the inaugural Café Poet, or Poet-in-Residence for the Mornington Peninsula Library in conjunction with Australian Poetry which gave her the opportunity to read with Les Murray.  Andrea will be a feature poet in the Poetry Idol Feature Poets event at the Melbourne Writers Festival in September 2011.  She plans to publish and release a chapbook of her poems this year.

Andrea has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley where she specialized in poetry and Shakespeare.  She also holds two teaching credentials from San Francisco State University in primary school teaching and secondary school English.  She taught English as a second language in Tokyo, Japan for two years as part of a Japanese national teaching program. Andrea teaches poetry workshops in schools and also speaks publically at local community organizations. As part of her residency, Andrea will be teaching poetry workshops, reading poetry and chairing a panel discussion with Peter Bakowsi and Joel Deane at the Mornington Peninsula libraries later this year. She is also the director and MC of the upcoming environmental poetry competition, the Go Green Slam.