Erin Malone

Born to military parents in New Mexico on March 14, 1970, Erin Malone was raised in Nebraska and Colorado. She earned a degree in English literature from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and received her MFA from the University of Washington, where she was awarded an Academy of American Poets College Prize.  

Malone is the author of The Dictionary of Shapes (Poetry Northwest Editions, 2026), a collaboration with visual artist Patricia Sonnino; Site of Disappearance (Ornithopter, 2023), a finalist for the National Poetry Series; Hover (Tebot Bach, 2015), winner of the Patricia Bibby First Book Award; and What Sound Does It Make (2008), winner of the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Prize. 

Malone’s other honors include the Robert Creeley Memorial Award and the Coniston Prize, grants from Colorado Council on the Arts and Hugo House, and fellowship and residency support from Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Monson Arts. 

Malone has taught in many college and community classrooms, as well as in elementary schools for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers in the Schools. A former editor of Poetry Northwest, she is currently poetry editor at Okay Donkey and serves as poet laureate of Bainbridge Island in Washington State through 2027.