Amontaine is a Seattle-based writer and performance artist. She has written and performed several one-woman shows including, Waiting for Billie Holiday, My Name is Trazar, QueenRita’s Blues Alley, and Free Desiree, that have been performed at Richard Hugo House, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, Seattle City Hall, Freehold Theater, and On The Boards in Seattle; The 59E59Theater in New York, and Venue 260 at the Edinbugh Fringe Festival in Scotland.

She has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Essence Magazine, CALYX - a Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Colors NW, The Raven Chronicles, Aim Magazine and Midwest Express Magazine. Her essay, The Gift of Breath, appears in the Seal Press anthology, Sometimes Rhythm, Sometimes Blues: Young African Americans on Love, Relationships, Sex and the Search for Mr. Right.

Amontaine is the recipient of several artist grants from the Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and most recently, the Creation Project Grant, a year-long professional development grant for African American performing artists, funded in part by Microsoft and the National Endowment of the Arts. In 1996 and 2004 Amontaine was a writer-in-residence at the Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat on Whidbey Island.

She holds an undergraduate degree in writing from Antioch University, and has studied acting, dance and writing extensively in Los Angeles and New York, as well as countries around the world, including Italy, Bali and Egypt.

Learn more about Amontaine by visiting her website, www.tenauras.com