Ellis Avery (born Elisabeth Atwood; October 25, 1972 – February 15, 2019)[1] was an American writer.

[12] After Princeton Day School, Avery attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1993 with an independent major in Performance Studies.

[16] She published these online, in hard copy in Broken Rooms (2014), in a self-published collection called 365 one-line haiku in 2015, and in haiku-a-day datebooks for the years 2017, 2018, and 2019.

[1] In 2012, Avery was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer that affects smooth muscle tissue.

Avery and her spouse, Sharon Marcus, a professor of English and French literature, influenced each other's work through a shared interest in interrogating received social constructs about women's relationships and lesbian identity in historical contexts.