State's poet Laureate coming to Odessa

Elizabeth Austen feared letting her poetry loose in public, until she realized she was just its channel.

A stage actor for years before turning wholesale to the written word, the Seattle poet never endured stage fright when speaking lines from other writers. It was only her own work that scared her when she tried to give it voice.

“My mouth would go dry, my knees would shake, and it troubled me,” says the Seattle poet, 48. “I couldn’t figure out why it was so completely different to perform my own work.”

Then, an epiphany – one of a handful that have guided Austen to her nomination this year a...