Ellen Bass
Ellen Bass was born in Philadelphia in 1947 and grew up in New Jersey. She received a BA from Goucher College and an MA in creative writing from Boston University, where she studied with Anne Sexton. She later said that Sexton “encouraged me to write more, to expand, to go deeper and wider. She breathed life back into the process. Without her, I might have given up.”
Bass is the author ten poetry collections which include Oh Honey, Oh Baby (Copper Canyon Press, 2027); Indigo (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), of which The Los Angeles Review of Books says, “This genius for detail shines through in Indigo—an iridescent thread that gives pleasure over and over, no matter the subject”; Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), which the New York Times notes, “pulses with sex, humor and compassion”; The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007); Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002); and I’m Not Your Laughing Daughter (University of Massachusetts Press, 1973). She coedited with Florence Howe No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Anchor Books, 1973).
In addition to her poetry, Bass has written several works of nonfiction, including Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth—and Their Allies (Harper Perennial, 1996), which she cowrote with Kate Kaufman; The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (Perennial Library, 1988), cowritten with Laura Davis, which has been translated into ten languages; and I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (Harper & Row, 1983).
Bass is the recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her honors include the Lambda Literary Award for Poetry, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and five Pushcart Prizes.
Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and in jails in Santa Cruz, California. She teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific University and lives in Santa Cruz, California. She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2017 and served until 2022.