Biography
Kelli Russell Agodon was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1969. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and an M.F.A. from the Rainier Writers Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. She is the author of Small Knots, finalist for the 2004 Cherry Grove Poetry Prize and Geography, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.
She is the recipient of two Washington State Artist Trust GAP grants, a Puffin Foundation grant, The James Hearst Poetry Prize, the William Stafford Award, the Lohmann Prize, and the Carlin Aden Award for formal verse. Agodon edited the Poetry Broadside Series: The Making of Peace, which was displayed international throughout National Poetry Month in 2006. She also worked as the Regional Coordinator for Poets for Peace organizing the Poets for Peace: Mission 911 readings for Washington State raising money for the American Red Cross after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Her work has been featured on NPR's "The Writer's Almanac" with Garrison Keillor and in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Poets Against the War edited by Sam Hamill and Good Poems for Hard Times edited by Garrison Keillor. She lives in a small seaside community with her husband and daughter in the Northwest. Her website is: www.agodon.com
