Ellen Elder

Ellen Elder's debut poetry collection We Left a Window Open to the Sea was awarded The Louisville Review's Frederick Smock poetry prize and is forthcoming by Fleur-de-Lis Press in November, 2026. Elder was born in New York City, raised in Cincinnati, and studied English and Creative Writing at The University of Chicago, Miami University of Ohio and The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She spent childhood summers in Ireland where her family ran an inn. Her poems and reviews have appeared in About Place Journal, Banshee Lit, Poetry, Tampa Review, Tupelo Quarterly and elsewhere. Formerly co-poetry editor at Literary Mama, she writes about motherhood, childhood, grief and the influence of transnational experience on expression. She taught at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and lived for nine years in Germany before relocating to Charleston, South Carolina where she lives with her daughter.