Kelly Norman Ellis

Kelly Norman Ellis is the author of Tougaloo Blues (Third World Press, 2003) and Offerings of Desire (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2012). She was also the co-editor of Spaces Between Us: Poetry, Prose, and Art on HIV/AIDS (Third World Press, 2010).

Ellis’s poetry has appeared in Essence Magazine, Obsidian, Calyx, as well as the anthologies, What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People (University Press of Kentucky, 2023), Wherever I’m At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry (Third World Press, 2022), Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (Third World Press, 2002), Sisterfire: Black Womanist Fiction and Poetry, (HarperPerennial, 1994). 

She is a recipient of a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women Writers, and she is a Cave Canem fellow and founding member of the Affrilachian Poets. Ellis is a retired associate professor of English and creative writing at Chicago State University. Currently she is a Visiting Professor of English and Creative Writing at Jackson State University.