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BIO

Originally from Atlanta, Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer is a poet and installation artist in St. Louis. She is the author of the poetry collections Well Waiting Room (Fordham University Press, Editor’s Prize, 2021), and Cleavemark (BOAAT Press, 2016), as well as the children’s book The Cloud Lasso (Penny Candy Books, 2019). Schlaifer earned her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and her poems, art, and criticism have appeared in Bomb, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, AGNI, Washington Square, The Offing, The Wilson Quarterly, Colorado Review, Ploughshares, and the Poetry Foundation, among others. She served as the 2016 Greyfriar Writer-in-Residence at Sienna College, and she was named the 2019 runner-up for the Iowa Review Prize. Her work has been supported by the Saint Louis Regional Arts Commission and the Mid-America Arts Alliance (MAAA), and in 2025 she will attend residencies at Ragdale and Willapa Bay AIR. She frequently collaborates with other artists on works that combine language and visual art.

Contact her to schedule a class visit, reading, or other engagement.