An Announcement from the Members of the Board of Friends of Writers

Poet Ellen Bryant Voigt (1943-2025), founder of Friends of Writers, died late October 2025 in her beloved Vermont at the age of eighty-two. Ellen was the author of nine volumes of poetry including, most recently, Collected Poems (2023), and two works of prose. She also co-authored two essay anthologies. For the past sixty years, she has been central to the making and teaching of American literature.

We mourn the loss of our dear friend, fellow board member, and visionary, and we celebrate her long service to creating and supporting writing communities. Ellen was the founder of the renowned MFA Program for Writers in 1976 at Goddard College. It was the first low-residency MFA program of its kind and became a model for adult writers committed to their craft. The MFA Program at Goddard closed in 1980, subsequently re-convening at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, where it thrives. Asheville-based journalist and MFA Program alum Dale Neal (January 1989) recounts the program’s history on his recent Substack post.

Ellen held the position of MFA Program Academic Board Chair from the program’s inception until 2018. As an author and master teacher, Ellen left her imprint on thousands of students and teachers working in the literary arts. Among the many honors she received during her lifetime were fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations; she was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award. She was the Vermont State Poet from 1999-2002 and served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2003-2009.

As stewards of Ellen’s legacy, we hold close her commitment to Friends of Writers: that we champion integrity and excellence in writing while nurturing the communities writers belong to. Friends of Writers fosters the education and growth of writers, and, in her memory, we provide essential financial and material resources, ensuring continuity of the spirit Ellen gave to her life’s work.

We extend our deepest condolences to Ellen’s daughter, Dudley, her son, Will, and three grandchildren, and to her extended family. Social media, blogs, and websites are filling with fond remembrances. The Yale Review published tributes from members of the Warren Wilson MFA community.

The Friends of Writers Forum will be posting additional tributes and remembrances on our website throughout the upcoming months.

A gathering to celebrate the life and work of Ellen Bryant Voigt will be held in 2026. We will share more information when available.

 

Here is the concluding poem from Ellen’s majestic Headwaters, published in 2013:

 

Storm

 

One minute a slender pine indistinguishable from the others

the next its trunk horizontal still green the jagged stump

a nest for the flickers

one minute high wind and rain the skies

lit up the next a few bright winking stars the lashing of the brook

 

one minute an exhalation in the apple trees the shadblow trees

the next white trash on the ground new birds

or the same birds crowding the feeder

one minute the children were sleeping in their beds

 

you got sick you got well you got sick

 

the lilac bush we planted is a tree the cat creeps past

with something in her mouth she’s hurrying down to where

 

the culvert overflowed one minute bright yellow

marsh marigolds springing up the next

the farmer sweeps them into his bales of hay

 

~ Ellen Bryant Voigt