Ellen is a poet and lecturer. Her first collection, The Immortalist, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for Best First Collection. Her new collection, Crystal, will be published by Bloodaxe in April 2024.
Ellen has taught Creative Writing and literature at the University of St Andrews, City University and University College London. Recent teaching posts include Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Hull where she ran the poetry modules. She currently teaches Masterclass and Advanced Poetry at the City Lit Institute, London.
Ellen’s first collection of poetry, The Immortalist, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for Best First Collection 2018.
“Poetry of wild imagination, charm and exuberance…full of arresting detail and panache…I was entranced…I have read entire books that burn with less passion than a few lines by Ellen Cranitch” – review, Poetry London, Autumn 2017.
“Poetry from a lucid and enquiring mind, equally at home in the prose poem as with rhyme and metre; the language is both inventive and controlled” – review, Poetry Ireland Review, 2018
“An important and haunting book” – Bernard O’Donoghue.