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Ellen Bass (born June 16, 1947) is an American poet and author. She has won three and a Lambda Literary Award for her 2002 book Mules of Love. She co-authored the 1991 book The Courage to Heal about recovery from child sexual abuse. She received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2014 and was elected chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2017. Bass taught poetry at Pacific University and has founded poetry programs for people in prison.
She co-wrote the best-selling The Courage to Heal with Laura Davis about healing from childhood sexual abuse, as well as developing training seminars for professionals, offering workshops for survivors, and lecturing to mental health professionals nationally and internationally. The book has been widely criticized; neither Bass nor Davis have any formal training in psychotherapy or psychiatry, and critics argue that the book's scientifically unsound therapeutic advice exacerbated the moral panic over Satanic panic. She is a co-founder of the Survivors Healing Center in Santa Cruz, California, a non-profit organization offering services to survivors of child sexual abuse.
Bass teaches at the low-residency Master of Fine Arts program at Pacific University in Oregon. She has taught workshops in Santa Cruz, California since she moved there in 1974 as well as nationally. In 2013, she founded the Poetry Program at the Salinas Valley State Prison, which offers a weekly workshop to incarcerated men. In 2014, she also founded the Santa Cruz Poetry Project, which offers weekly workshops to people incarcerated in Santa Cruz County jails.
Bass has written poetry books including Indigo (2020), which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, a Publishing Triangle Award, and a Northern California Book Award; Like a Beggar (2014), which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, a Publishing Triangle Award, the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry, and a Northern California Book Award; The Human Line (2007); and Mules of Love (2002), which won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry. Her poems have been published widely in journals and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, and Ploughshares.
Her nonfiction books include I Never Told Anyone (co-edited with Louise Thornton, HarperCollins, 1983); Free Your Mind (written with Kate Kaufman, HarperCollins, 1996); and The Courage to Heal (HarperCollins, 1988). They have been translated into twelve languages.
In 2017, Bass was elected as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and served until 2022.
Bass was named the Santa Cruz County Arts Commission Artist of the Year in 2019.
Bass lives in Santa Cruz with her wife, Janet Bryer. She has two children.
Indigo (2020) was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, a Publishing Triangle Award, and a Northern California Book Award. Like a Beggar (2014) was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, a Publishing Triangle Award, the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry, and a Northern California Book Award. The Human Line (2007) was named among the notable books of 2007 in the poetry section by the San Francisco Chronicle. Mules of Love (2002) won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry.
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