Ellen Waterston

Ellen Waterston is a poet, author and literary arts advocate. She is the author of Vía Láctea: A Woman of a Certain Age Walks the Camino, Where the Crooked River Rises, and a memoir titled Then There Was No Mountain, named a WILLA finalist and one of the top 10 books of 2003 by The Oregonian. After 11 years as founder and director of The Nature of Words, a literary arts nonprofit, she passed the baton in 2012 to focus on the Writing Ranch, the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, and her own writing. Founded by Waterston in 2000, the Writing Ranch offers writing workshops and retreats. The Waterston Desert Writing Prize, established in 2014, is awarded annually each June to nonfiction projects concerning deserts anywhere in the world. In August 2024, Waterston was named to serve a two-year term as Oregon Poet Laureate.