She is also the associate director of the MFA in Creative Writing program as CSU. She is a poet whose work has appeared inSisterfire: Black Womanist Fiction and Poetry,Spirit and Flame,Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art,Boomer Girls,Essence Magazine,Obsidian,Calyx, andCornbread Nation. She is a recipient of a Kentucky Foundation for Women writer’s grant and is a Cave Canem fellow and founding member of the Affrilachian Poets. Her first collection of poetryTougaloo Blueswas published by Third World Press in 2003. Dr. Ellis is at work on a new collection entitledThe Shoe Cobbler’s Daughters. Currently she lives on Chicago’s south side with her partner Kevin and their daughter Naomi Zora.