Ellen Bass was born in 1947 in Philadelphia. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), which the San Francisco Chronicle named a Noteworthy Book of 2007. She is also the co-author of the best-selling Courage to Heal. Bass felt a called to return to poetry with the renowned Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002) after a ten-year absence to work with survivors of child sexual abuse. She obtained her master's degree from Boston University in 1970, where she studied with Anne Sexton. No More Masks! is her ground-breaking work. She presently teaches in Pacific University's low-residency MFA program and lives in Santa Cruz, California, where she has been teaching writing and poetry workshops since 1974.