Ellen Santasiero moved to Oregon from New York in 1989 to volunteer for the Winema National Forest. In 1990 she created and organized Bend’s first annual Earth Month, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. That same year, with her experience in publications production with Marymount Manhattan College in New York, she secured a position in the communications office at the High Desert Museum in Bend.

After receiving her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College in Vermont in 1999, she left the museum to devote part of her time to writing personal essays and memoirs about her experiences with depressive illness, spirituality, literature, and community. During this time she worked for the EcoTeam Program in Deschutes County, organizing small neighborhood groups that worked together to develop skills in sustainable living. She began mentoring beginning writers in 1999 by teaching creative writing at Central Oregon Community College and working privately with individual writers, helping them develop literary and academic writing projects.

In 2001, she published a personal essay in Northwest Review, and since has had essays appear in Oregon Home and High Desert Journal. She began interviewing Northwest writers in 2003 in preparation for a book-length collection. Her interviews with such established writers as Kim Barnes, Marjorie Sandor and Floyd Skloot appear in Northwest Review and The Marlboro Review. Ellen was a panelist at the 2004 Associated Writing Programs annual conference, and has been a featured reader at the Second Sunday Reading series and Word Café in Bend. To help support her writing, Caldera and Soapstone awarded her writing residency fellowships in 2003 and 2005, respectively.

In 2004, Ellen helped found High Desert Journal, a literary and visual art magazine published in Bend. She served as president of the magazine’s board of directors and is currently a member of the editorial board. A freelance writer specializing in higher education marketing since 2002, her clients are nationwide, and include Linfield College and Central Oregon Community College. She lives in Bend with her husband, John Schubert.

Final Report