Katy E. Ellis grew up in Renton, Washington. Her chapbook Night Watch won the 2017 Floating Bridge Press chapbook contest. She is the author of two other chapbooks: Urban Animal Expeditions and Gravity, which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She studied writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada and at Western Washington University. Her poetry appears in a number of literary journals including Pithead Chapel, Literary Mama, MAYDAY Magazine, Calyx: A Journal of Art & Literature by Women, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and the Canadian journals PRISM International, Grain, and Fiddlehead. Her fiction has appeared in Burnside Review and won Third Place in the Glimmer Train super-short fiction contest. She has been awarded grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Seattle's Office of Arts & Culture and Artist Trust/Centrum. From 2014-2019, Katy co-curated WordsWest Literary series, a monthly literary event in West Seattle. She answers phones and processes electronic faxes of communicable diseases for Public Health-Seattle & King County, and lives on Vashon Island.