Veronica is a graduate of Brown University who studies poetry with Mark Doty and is a candidate for an MFA in poetry at Pacific University. Since she began to write creatively in September 2021, she has also studied poetry with Ellen Bass, Marie Howe, at Philip Schultz’ The Writers Studio and the extension schools at Stanford University, U. C. Berkeley and UCLA.
Veronica, writing as V. A. Bettencourt, was an International Merit Award winner in the Atlanta Review 2023 International Poetry Competition. Two of her poems were long-listed for the 2024 Fish Poetry Prize Judged by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.
While at Brown, Veronica founded and was Editor in Chief of the undergraduate literary magazine Ophelia.
She served as a reader at Palette Poetry in 2024.