Ellery Akers



Ellery Akers (born 1946) is an American poet, children's writer, artist, and naturalist.

Life
She lives on the coast of Northern California. She is the author of a collection of poems, Knocking on the Earth (Wesleyan University Press, 1989), and an illustrated children's novel, Sarah's Waterfall: A Healing Story About Sexual Abuse (Safer Society Press, 2009). She received a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.A. from San Francisco State University.

Her poetry has been featured on National Public Radio, and has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Harvard Magazine, Ploughshares, The Sun, and many other magazines. Her nature essays have been included in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her play, Letters to Anna: 1846-54, won a Dominican University One Act Play Festival Award in 2003.

Akers has taught at Cabrillo College and been on the faculty at writer's conferences at Squaw Valley, Skyline College, and Humboldt State University.

Recognition
Akers has won nine national awards for writing, including the John Masefield Award, the Paumanok Award, the Gordon Barber Award, and Sierra magazine's Nature Writing Award.

Akers has exhibited her artwork in a number of galleries and museums in the United States, and her fellowships include writing residencies at Ucross Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, the MacDowell Colony, and Headlands Center for the Arts.