Ellen Doré Watson’s 5th and most recent book is PRAY ME STAY EAGER (Alice James 2018). Earlier collections include DOGGED HEARTS (Tupelo Press, 2010), THIS SHARPENING, also from Tupelo and, from Alice James, WE LIVE IN BODIES and LADDER MUSIC, winner of the N.E./N.Y. award. Among her honors are a a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, Mass. Cultural Council Artists Grant, and a Rona Jaffe Writers Award. Watson has translated a dozen books from the Brazilian Portuguese, including THE ALPHABET IN THE PARK: SELECTED POEMS OF ADELIA PRADO (Wesleyan University Press and another Prado collection, EX-VOTO (Tupelo Press, 2013).  Watson served as Director of the Poetry Center at Smith College for 20 years, followed by 3 years as Smith's Grace Hazard Conkling Visiting Poet. Concurently, she taught at the Drew University Low-Residency MFA program in poetry and translation. Poetry and translation editor of The Massachusetts Review for decades. Now a Contributing Editor at MR, she is core e faculty at the Colrain Manuscript Conference and continues to offer manuscript editing and writing workskhops online.