2024 was a banner year for poet, author and columnist Ellen Waterston who, that year, received Soapstone’s Bread and Roses Award, Literary Arts’ Stewart H Holbrook Award, and was named to a two-year term as the eleventh Poet Laureate of Oregon. She has dedicated herself to writing and advocating for the literary arts in the high desert region of Oregon, all the while continuing to write poetry and nonfiction works that have evolved into essential reading about Oregon and the West. She has published five literary nonfiction titles, including, most recently, We Could Die Doing This (2024) and Walking the High Desert (2020). During her reading, she is delighted to debut her fifth poetry title As Far as I Can Anthem, featuring poems written during the first year of her tenure as Oregon’s Poet Laureate. Ellen is also the founder of the Writing Ranch which offers retreats to established and emerging writers, and of the Waterston Desert Writing Prize awarded annually to the author of a nonfiction book proposal about a desert anywhere in the world. For more information visit www.writingranch.com