Kristina Stykos

Kristina Stykos
Listing Owner
Kristina Stykos

Kristina Stykos is a writer, music producer, photographer and landscape gardener based in Vermont. Her first poetry book "Ridgerunner: A Hundred Poems from Rural Vermont", supported in part by the Vermont Community Foundation, was released on Shires Press this year in two editions.

Kristina’s most recent solo album "River of Light" made the #2 slot on County Tracks “Best Vermont Albums of 2019” list, following previous kudos of “Best Songwriter” (2013) and “Best Vermont Album of the Year” (2005) by other media outlets. Kristina’s music and songwriting have been supported by artist residencies at the Ucross Foundation and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, both of Wyoming.

Kristina holds producer credits for upwards of 30 albums featuring diverse artists, and recorded at her rural Pepperbox Studio, using solar, wind & generator power generation exclusively. She dedicates herself to supporting fellow musicians seeking honest self expression and has carved out a distinctive niche in acoustic and roots rock music production on her independent record label, Thunder Ridge Records.

Author USPS Address - PO / Street - City / Town - State
PO Box 367 - Chelsea, Vermont
Author USPS ZIP Code
05038
Where my books are sold.
Shires Press Indie Bound, Bear Pond Books

Ridgerunner - paperback [text only]
Ridgerunner - paperback [text only]
Far from the madding crowd, but keenly aware of the dangerous & uncertain world we live in, Kristina Stykos’ poems from rural Vermont uncover “a joy shining through cracked prisms of love, loss and letting go”, exploring from the ground up, what it is to be human. Working as a landscape gardener, while trying to eke out a living as a musician, Stykos’ persistent voice is as singular as it is unsentimental, musing on a hardscrabble existence made transcendent by the nearly indescribable beauty of her wild and remote surroundings. Using language that is conversational and easy to grasp, her poems are at once elegant and dynamic, taking us directly into the heart her daily routines. Whether it’s pruning a gangly rose bush, eating lunch on a truck tailgate, or taking a chance on a muddy & forgotten dirt road, she makes it clear that there is always more to understand and contemplate about this gnarly paradox we call life. “Through Kristina Stykos’ unflinching lens, we harbor fleeting essences of what it means to live indivisibly from the land—its woods, fields, farms, gardens, streams, mountains, backroads, and everything that grows and fades only to grow again—among neighbors, strangers, friends…all who are inescapably at home in it … Savor the art of a true Vermont original whose deeply inhabited renderings encourage us to linger here, as long and often as we like. “ Partridge Boswell

Ridgerunner - hardcover [text & photographs]
Ridgerunner - hardcover [text & photographs]
Far from the madding crowd, but keenly aware of the dangerous & uncertain world we live in, Kristina Stykos’ poems from rural Vermont uncover “a joy shining through cracked prisms of love, loss and letting go”, exploring from the ground up, what it is to be human. Working as a landscape gardener, while trying to eke out a living as a musician, Stykos’ persistent voice is as singular as it is unsentimental, musing on a hardscrabble existence made transcendent by the nearly indescribable beauty of her wild and remote surroundings. Using language that is conversational and easy to grasp, her poems are at once elegant and dynamic, taking us directly into the heart her daily routines. Whether it’s pruning a gangly rose bush, eating lunch on a truck tailgate, or taking a chance on a muddy & forgotten dirt road, she makes it clear that there is always more to understand and contemplate about this gnarly paradox we call life. In this sumptuous, illustrated edition, the author’s own full-color landscape photos have been matched with poems. Working and traveling through lesser known parts of Vermont with a Lumix G2 digital camera always at the ready, her images are intimate and stunning. They carry the mark of a native woods rambler, as well as that of a keen observer of flowers, painting honest portraits of nature’s inner sanctum, caught in precious, fleeting moments of changing light, throughout the seasons. “Through Kristina Stykos’ unflinching lens, we harbor fleeting essences of what it means to live indivisibly from the land—its woods, fields, farms, gardens, streams, mountains, backroads, and everything that grows and fades only to grow again—among neighbors, strangers, friends…all who are inescapably at home in it … Savor the art of a true Vermont original whose deeply inhabited renderings encourage us to linger here, as long and often as we like. “ Partridge Boswell

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