UTAH STATE POETRY SOCIETY
NURTURING THOSE WITH A DESIRE TO WRITE POETRYAnita Krotz, UTSPS Poet of the Year 2017
Anita Krotz was born in La Jolla, California and raised in Pasadena, California. She attended public school there and started writing stories in third grade. As a freshman at Pasadena City College she started a photography business, won awards for her work, and had a photograph published on the cover of a Pan American World Airways travel magazine. Her sophomore year was spent at San Diego State College, where for fun she entered and won a best-dressed contest! Anita has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Prior to her life profession, she had many enjoyable jobs: playground coach for elementary school students; legal secretary for an attorney in Beverly Hills; Hogle Zoo docent. Anita had a rewarding career as an International Flight Attendant for thirty-five years, starting with Western Airlines in 1974 and retiring from Delta Airlines after the merger of the two companies. She is a gourmet cook and between flight assignments worked part-time as a prep chef.
She has lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Lake Tahoe, California; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; New York City; and Park City, Utah where she enjoyed riding her quarter horse, Jesse, over the Wasatch Range. Time was spent living in Antigua, Guatemala where she studied Spanish and became a language-speaker for Western, flying to various cities in Mexico. Salt Lake City, Utah is her current home.
While flying for a major airline and traveling the world, she acquired a private pilot’s license. After retirement from her full-time occupation as a Delta crew member, she worked part-time as a bartender at an airline premium flyer lounge.
Anita is passionate about the study of spirit through Eckankar, the Path to Spiritual Freedom, and has attended seminars all over the world. She has a story presented in one of their publications. For many years she was instrumental in helping to organize local Eckankar seminars, and developed a workshop presented at one of these seminars. She volunteered services as CFO for the local chapter.
Writing helps to work through life’s ever changing identities. Poetry has become an even stronger way to express the complexity of human experience. The Utah State Poetry Society is a supportive organization that has enhanced her study of this rewarding process. She has won more than 130 awards in state and national contests, was the Editor for the Utah State Poetry Society’s 2013 edition of Panorama, as well as a judge for the Redrock Writers’ Seminar contest published in Chaparral Poetry Forum, 2016. She was a proofreader for a spiritually-themed book by author M. Harrington. Poems have been generated by her growing up years, career, retirement, and the broad world around her.
Gardening is an obsession during spring and summer months. She is certified as a Master Gardener and grows vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers. She was taught how to sew by her grandmother, an excellent seamstress. This was a valuable skill while making several hundred quilts for a local children’s hospital. Current activities include volunteer work as an usher for a local playhouse, making hand-built clay dishes, and fine art painting. Anita is a gallery-level artist with a recent showing in April, 2017.
Anita still travels widely, both flying and cruising, and often visits family in California. During the writing of this volume of poetry she lived with two precious cats, Zeke and Zena. They both passed on recently after nearly 20 years together. She misses them very much.