Ellen Beardsley
Class of 1981
The 1981 Sophie Kerr Winner
Ellen used her prize money to travel and establish her career as a freelancer. The prize “gave me great freedom to find my way in literary and academic pursuits for several years, and it continues to influence the way I think, write and act,” she wrote recently. She has published, by her count, more than a thousand poems, stories, feature articles and book reviews in Ireland, England, Korea and the U.S.
For about nine years, while raising her daughter, she also worked as an editor with an academic publisher in Ireland. She now works with horses and continues to write poetry and fiction in her spare time.
Ellen Beardsley lives and writes in County Cork, Ireland
