Ellen Kartz

Ellen Kartz holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and a professional writing certificate from Mount Royal University. As an active writer and freelance editor throughout her career, Ellen worked with and for the Edmonton Poetry Festival for many years as a volunteer coordinator, event planner, founding member, and board member. She was the Communications and Partnerships Coordinator for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta from 2015-2023. In 2018, she self-produced a one-person stage show and poetry/nonfiction chapbook, both titled The Tenderness of Stone, about a trek she made in 2016 through Nepal’s Khumbu Valley to Mount Everest Base Camp. In 2020, Ellen founded a small poetry chapbook press, Armistice Press, and launched a quartet of chapbooks by emerging queer Edmonton authors. Ellen performed a second stage show, If I Was Fearless, in November 2024, and launched a poetry chapbook, Gravity, through Agatha Press in the same month. Currently, she is the executive director for LitFest and sits on the board of the SkirtsAfire Festival.