Elizabeth S Wolf

Poet

Amesbury, MA
Massachusetts US

Author's Bio

Elizabeth S. Wolf has published six poetry books. Her breakthrough chapbook Did You Know? won the Rattle Chapbook Prize in 2018. A memoir of growing up in the 1960s and 70s, it revealed the cost of family secrets and her evolving relationship with her mother. In 2020, during the pandemic quarantine, Wolf donated over 300 copies of the book plus writing prompts to incarcerated poets via Prisoner Express. Poems selected from this project appeared in Rattle’s Summer 2022 Tribute to Prisoner Express.

Wolf’s other books include I Am From: Voices from the Mako House in Ghana (KDP, 2023); A Collection of Partings (Kelsay Books, 2022); When Lawyers Wept (Kelsay Books, 2019); and What I Learned (Finishing Line Press, 2017). The anthology I Am From: Voices from the Mako House in Ghana was created from a series of workshops with at-risk children ages 9-17 living in a boarding house in a rural village in West Africa. Her most recent book, Parenting in the Age of Columbine (Kelsay Books, 2025), is a braided collection where each triplet includes a shooting incident, a personal slice of life, and an external quote. In the tradition of “the personal is political” Wolf shows how school shootings have shaped our lives and the way we move in the world. The anchor poem “April 1999” was a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize in 2022. The video version was featured at the Poetry in Motion Festival in Colorado in 2024.

Wolf is a member of Writers On The Moon, a digital time capsule of independent writers scheduled to land near the moon’s South Pole in 2026. Her work is included in the Lunar Codex archived on the moon at various Artemis Accord Heritage sites. She has published over 160 poems and stories and received four Pushcart nominations. Wolf was featured in Boston Literary Magazine in April 2026.

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
Making Space for the Light: Documenting the Violence that Shapes the Lives of Women and Girls (Write Where We Belong Press, 2026)
,
1 in 8: An Anthology for Those Affected by Breast Cancer (Wyld Syde Press, 2025)
,
Poetry is Dead II: Once You’re Dead, You’re Dead Forever (Hercules Press, 2025)
,
Vagabond Lunar Anthology (Vagabond Press, 2025)
,
American Graveyard: calls to end gun violence, vol 1 (Read or Green Books, 2023)
,
The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft (Terrapin Books, 2021)
,
Persian Sugar in English Tea: A Bilingual Anthology of Short Poems and Haikus (CreateSpace, 2018)
,
UnCommon Minds (Fighting Monkey Press, 2017)
,
Mosaics: A Collection of Independent Women (CreateSpace, 2016)
,
The Best of Kindness: Origami Poems Project (Origami Poems Project, 2016)
Books:
Parenting in the Age of Columbine (Kelsay Books, 2025)
,
When Lawyers Wept (Kelsay Books, 2019)
Chapbooks:
A Collection of Partings (Kelsay Books, 2022)
,
Did You Know? (Rattle, 2019)
,
What I Learned: Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2017)
Journals: , ,
Ibbetson Street
,
One Art
, , , ,
Silkworm
,
Third Wednesday
,
Tuck Magazine
,
Verse Daily
Prizes won: 

Joy Harjo Poetry Prize 2022, April 1999, finalist;  Third Wednesday Poetry Contest 2020, I am not/the woman I was/ in that house, winner; Rattle Chapbook Contest 2018, Did You Know?, winner; Full Moon Story Slam: Judges’ Winner, 2018; Audience Favorite, 2019; Four nominations for the Pushcart Prize

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More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Prefers to work with: 
Adults, At Risk Youth, Parents, Teenagers, Women
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Boston, MA
Massachusetts
Raised in: 
MA
Massachusetts
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Apr 29, 2026