NEWS:
- Practicing the Truth, Akers's new book of poems, was nominated for a 2016 Northern California Book Award. The collection also won the 2015 San Francisco Book Festival Poetry Award, the 2014 Autumn House Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Award, Silver Medal in Poetry.
- “The Word That Is a Prayer” has been featured on American Life in Poetry, column 312.
- “Mud Lake” won the 2011 Poetry International Prize
- Sarah’s Waterfall is a 2010 Mom's Choice Award book, a 2010 NAPPA Award book, and a 2009 Honor Award book from Skipping Stones magazine
Winner, 2015
San Francisco
Book Festival
Poetry Award
Winner of a 2015 IPPY Award
“Practicing the Truth is one of those rare books one can't stop reading. It's that good, that compelling.”“…I can’t say strongly enough how story becomes an art form in this book. Ellery Akers has the golden gift, with good profit to literature. ”
“…stunning poems… a fine and impressive book…”
About Ellery Akers
Ellery Akers is an award-winning writer and artist living on the coast of Northern California. She received a B.A. from Harvard and an M.A. from San Francisco State University.
Her new book of poems, Practicing the Truth, won the 2014 Autumn House Poetry Prize. Her previous collection, Knocking on the Earth, (Wesleyan University Press) was named a Best Book of the Year by The San Jose Mercury News. She is also the author of a children's novel, Sarah's Waterfall: A Healing Story About Sexual Abuse. Akers has won thirteen national writing awards, including the John Masefield and Paumanok Awards, the Poetry International Prize, and Sierra magazine's Nature Writing Award. Her poetry has been featured on American Life in Poetry and on National Public Radio and has appeared in such journals as Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and the New York Times Magazine. Her nature essays have been published in numerous anthologies, including Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals (Ballantine). Her play, Letters to Anna, won a Dominican University One Act Play Festival Award.
Among her honors are fellowships from Blue Mountain Center, the MacDowell Colony, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Ucross Foundation.
She has taught at private workshops and at Cabrillo College, and has been on the faculty of writing conferences at Squaw Valley, Humboldt State University, Foothill College, and Skyline College.
An award-winning visual artist as well, Akers has exhibited her artwork in galleries and museums nationally, including the Anchorage Museum of History and Art and the Muscarelle Museum of Art.