NEWS:
- Practicing the Truth, Akers' new book of poems, won the 2014 Autumn House Poetry Prize, judged by Alicia Ostriker, and was published in January 2015.
- “Mud Lake” won the 2011 Poetry International Prize
- “The Word That Is a Prayer” featured on American Life in Poetry, column 312
- 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
About Ellery Akers
New Book
“Practicing the Truth is one of those rare books one can't stop reading. It's that good, that compelling.”“These poems embody a quest for directness and for a lost sense of the living world.... That life, that oneness are a joy to discover.”
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 and was published in January 2015. 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 eleven 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 Sun. 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.