Ellery Akers

Who is Ellery Akers?

Ellery Akers is an American writer, artist, and naturalist living on the coast of Northern California. She is the author of a collection of poems, Knocking on the Earth, and an illustrated children's novel, Sarah's Waterfall: A Healing Story About Sexual Abuse. She received a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.A. from San Francisco State University.

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. 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.