Ellen Bass

Ellen Bass’s most recent collection, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Among her other poetry books are Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Her poetry appears frequently in The New Yorker and The American Poetry Review, as well as in many other journals and anthologies. In 1973, she co-edited with Florence Howe the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks! and her nonfiction books include the groundbreaking The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse,  Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth, and I Never Told Anyone:  Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The California Arts Council, The Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. A Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets. she founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, California jails, and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University.