Current Board Members (2008-2009; board list in process of being updated)

Lynn Brandstetter
Chair

Shlomi Harif
Co-Chair, Web Coordinator

Ashley Kim
Festival Director

New Board Member Application
We are always looking for enthusiastic individuals to help with the festival. AIPF is currently seeking new board members. No poetry or writing experience required. Send all inquiries to aipfdirector@gmail.com.

Lynn has been with the AIPF board for three years. She was born in British Columbia, Canada, and moved to Brownsville, Texas, in 1980 with her Mother and Stepfather. She then moved to Austin, Texas, where she attended Austin Community College. She was employed with the private sector until she transferred to the State of Texas in 1999. Lynn is currently employed with Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, Manufactured Housing Division.  Her commitment in serving the citizens and residents of Texas makes a profound difference in other peoples' lives, and provides her with satisfaction. She is known for her dedication on the job as a State employee. She has a passion to write poetry based on her current and past experiences. Her love and creativity for writing is a gift she shares, hoping to touch lives and the people she encounters. Her desire to write poetry has continued through the years. Her zest for life has flourished through her poetry, and is exemplified in her writing. Energetic, loyal, and devoted, she has spent several years volunteering her time for several non-profit organizations. Lynn has two beautiful daughters, Meagan and Kaitlan, and two grandsons, Hunter and Garrett. She is married to a wonderful, loving husband, Curtis Dale Brandstetter.
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This is Shlomi's second bout with AIPF. Medication and changes of address were of no avail. Although born in New York, and lived in Israel, most of his genetic contribution to humanity was perpetrated in Texas. He's herded cows in minefields, pruned avocado orchards wielding a pair of chain saws, and used a band saw to carve liver to serve to 600 hungry folk. He's been ruled a geezer by his three kids, but refuses to succumb to the inevitable, because they're not old enough to categorize him as such. He writes, published, edits, re-edits and then does it all again, in (almost) silence. He blogs, and guest blogs on a number of sites.
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Deb Akers worked with special children for over thirty years. She has been a long time volunteer with AIPF. Over the years, she has been published in a variety of newspapers, magazines and journals as well as reading her poetry on AUSTIN NOW and at local Austin venues. She now focuses her attention on the promotion of poetry in all its forms, faces and incarnations by serving on the AIPF board as volunteer organizer, registrar and editor of the AIPF Youth Anthology, Diverse Youth. She is on the board of directors for BORDERLANDS: Texas Poetry Review where she serves as mail manager and editorial assistant.
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Barbara Youngblood Carr - Native-born Texan; poet, humorist, storyteller, musician, editor; author of fourteen books of poetry/prose and short stories about Native American Cherokee heritage & Texas/Southern upbringing (nine funded by City of Austin Arts Commission); host of Borders-On-The-Word poetry venue & Board member of Austin Poets International, Inc. for sixteen years; Editor for A Galaxy of Verse & DreamersThree Press; published on three continents; appointed in Wash, DC as National Poet Laureate for the Military Order of the Purple Heart for 2005 - 2008; (Sep 09) recipient of first White Buffalo Poet Laureate Award for her Native American writing. Contact info: bcarr2@austin.rr.com.
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AIPF Festival Director, X-heptathlete, and blue-moon poet Ash Kim is an Austin native and seventh-generation Texan. A professional nanny and published family writer, this "Maya Poppins" of sorts, and self-proclaimed "Captist" (loving Catholic wife, devoted Baptist daughter), can also sing the alphabet backwards and play both hands of "Heart and Soul."  Despite the murder of countless innocent poems and houseplants, she intends one day to garden. For now, she lets the flame acanthus spread like wildfire, and the passiflora flourish, tendrils spilling over fences, searching for something.  Much like her metaphors.
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