Biography
Ellen is a poet, journalist and lecturer. Her first collection, The Immortalist, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for Best First Collection. Her new collection, Crystal, was 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 has an MA in English from Cambridge University and a PhD in Creative Writing (Poetry and Poetics) from St Andrews, where her supervisor was Don Paterson. She also holds a Masters in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Ellen is represented by Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White 
Thesis
PhD - 'The Metaphor Imperative: A Study of Metaphor's Assuaging Role in Poetic Composition from Ovid to Alice Oswald'
Awarded by the University of St Andrews
Supervisor - Don Paterson
Examiners - John Burnside and Michael Symmons Roberts
PhD Abstract
This thesis considers the nature and function of metaphor in the articulation of poetic themes and poetic self. It draws on original interviews I conducted with Alice Oswald, Glyn Maxwell and Andrew Motion and on close analysis of texts by Ovid, Shakespeare, George Herbert and a number of contemporary poets. Using metaphor theory, literary criticism and cognitive poetic criticism, it argues for the fundamental assuaging role of metaphor at critical junctures of poetic composition.