Elana Bell

Elana Bell was born in Los Angeles, Calif., and her debut poetry collection, Eyes, Stones (LSU Press 2012) was selected as the 2011 Walt Whitman Award winner from the Academy of American Poets. Selected publications include AGNI, Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, Southern Review, and Barrow Street, among others. She has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, Edward Albee Foundation, Saltonstall Foundation, and the Brooklyn Arts Council. Bell has taught at the City University of New York—Staten Island, Bronx Academy of Letters, and for the peace building and leadership organization Seeds of Peace. She curates public art installations and performs with Poets in Unexpected Places, a collective of poets dedicated to bringing poetry to unlikely public spaces. She holds a BA degree in literature and theater and a MFA degree in creative writing poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and has been on the Drama faculty at Juilliard since 2016.