Carol Bly (April 16, 1930 – December 21, 2007) was an American teacher and an author of short stories, essays, and nonfiction works on writing.

Her work often featured Minnesota women who must identify the moral crisis that is facing their community or themselves and enact change through empathy, or opening one's eyes to the realities of the situation.

She was raised in Duluth and Tryon, North Carolina, where she was sent to live with one of her father's sisters because her mother had had tuberculosis and was often away from the family being treated in sanitariums.

[3] Their house was usually filled with visiting poets, including Donald Hall, James Wright, and Bill Holm, all of whom were asked to do their share of chores before Bly would feed them.

[1] The couple had four children, Micah,[4] Bridget, Noah, and Mary, who is an English professor at Fordham University and a best-selling romance novelist under the pseudonym Eloisa James.

[5] At the beginning of the next decade, Bly was asked to write a monthly column, "A Letter from the Country" for the Minnesota Public Radio Magazine.

A typical Bly protagonist is a conventional woman who has been content to live in "ignorant complacency," but, through her own strength and intelligence must first identify the moral crisis facing either her or her community and then work to accomplish change.

"[10] Her books are somewhat controversial, as they encourage students to use "the sort of 'empathetic questioning' therapists and social workers use" in order to find their strongest feelings and amplify their ideas.

[11] These principles were demonstrated during the four creative writing workshops that Bly taught each spring in Saint Paul, Minnesota as well as in the talks and readings she gave.

In 2003, Bly donated to the University of Minnesota her correspondence, notes from writing workshops and classes she taught, and drafts of her works.