Ellen Waterston Short Bio

In 2024, Waterston was named to a two-year term as the eleventh Poet Laureate of Oregon and has so far visited twenty-two out of thirty-six counties across Oregon’s 96,000 square miles. Ellen has dedicated herself to writing and advocating for the literary arts in the high desert region of Oregon, all the while continuing to write poetry and nonfiction works that have evolved into essential reading about Oregon and the West. As an award-winning high desert author and poet Waterston has published five poetry and four literary nonfiction titles, including, most recently, As Far as I Can Anthem, Poems (2026), We Could Die Doing This (2024), and Walking the High Desert (2020). She has received the Soapstone Bread and Roses Award, the Stewart H Holbrook Award, an honorary PhD in the Humane Letters from OSU Cascades.

Ellen Waterston Medium Bio

High desert author, poet and columnist Ellen Waterston has published five poetry and four literary nonfiction titles, including, most recently, As Far as I Can Anthem, Poems (2026), We Could Die Doing This (2024), and Walking the High Desert (2020). In 2024, she was appointed to a two-year term as the eleventh Oregon Poet Laureate and awarded both the Stewart H. Holbrook and Soapstone Bread and Roses awards recognizing her work as an author and advocate for the literary arts. Waterston’s awards and recognitions include the WILLA in both nonfiction and poetry, Foreword finalist in literary nonfiction, the Obsidian Prize in Poetry, an honorary Ph.D. in Humane Letters from Oregon State University Cascades and individual artist fellowships from Diderot, Fishtrap and the Oregon Arts Commission. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is founder of the Writing Ranch which, since 2000, has conducted workshops for established and emerging writers, and of the annual Waterston Desert Writing Prize, established in 2015 and adopted in 2019 as a program of the High Desert Museum.