Kelli Russell Agodon was born and raised in Seattle and educated at the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop where she received her MFA in creative writing. She is the author of two books of poems, Small Knots (2004) and Geography, winner of the 2003 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.
In 2007, Kelli won the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest for poetry and was also a recipient of the Dorothy Rosenberg Prize for poetry. Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as the Atlantic Monthly, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Image, 5 a.m, Meridian, Bellevue Literary Journal, Crab Orchard Review, PoetLore, Calyx, The Seattle Review, Rhino, and many others. She is a recipient of two Washington State Artist Trust GAP grants, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the William Stafford Award, the Carlin Aden Award for formal verse, a Soapstone Writer's Residency, and most recently, a grant from the Puffin Foundation for her work towards peace and as a poetry editor.
Her poems have been published in many anthologies including Poets Against the War edited by Sam Hamill, Red, White & Blues, Poets on the Promise of America, as well as on NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac” with Garrison Keillor. She is also included in Keillor's second Good Poems for Hard Times anthology published by Viking Press. She edited the Poetry Broadside Series: The Making of Peace and is currently editing an anthology on motherhood with photographerElisha Rain. She lives in a small seaside community in Washington state with her family and posse of pets. |
