Ellen Bass was born in Philadelphia in 1947. She is the author of four books of poetry including The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), which was named a Notable Book of 2007 by the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition, she is co-author of the million-seller Courage to Heal. After a ten-year break from writing to work with survivors of child sexual abuse, Bass felt a calling to return to poetry with the acclaimed Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002.) In 1970, she received her master's degree from Boston University, where she studied with Anne Sexton. Her groundbreaking work, No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday) was one of the first anthologies dedicated to poetry written specifically by women. She currently teaches in the low residency MFA program at Pacific University, and lives in Santa Cruz, CA, where she has taught writing and poetry workshops since 1974.