He taught creative writing, adolescent literature and playwriting at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire from 1998 to 2013.
The Children's Book Committee (CBC) at Bank Street College of Education has recognized Elliott's work numerous times.
In 2024, his children's picture book of poetry, At the Poles (illustrated by Ellen Rooney) (Candlewick), received the Claudia Lewis Award for Younger Poetry[2] and appeared on the Best Children's Book of the Year list with Outstanding Merit.
[3] His fictionalized biography, Voices: the final hours of Joan of Arc (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) won the CBC's 2020 Claudia Lewis Award for Poetry[4] and appeared on the Best Children's Book of the Year list with Outstanding Merit.
[5] In addition to these titles, The CBC's Best Children's Book of the Year list has featured other work by Elliott including The Seventh Raven, In the Woods, In the Past, Bull, The Two Tims, Nobody's Perfect, On the Wing, In the Sea, In the Wild, Finn Throws a Fit, On the Farm, What the Grizzly Knows, Evangeline Mudd and the Great Mink Escapade, And Here's to You!, The Transmogrification of Roscoe Wizzle, and The Cool Crazy Crickets.