A graduate of Barnard College (who also attended Bryn Mawr), she grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She began her career in publishing as a fiction editor in New York City, but left to write her first novel, Swordspoint, which became a cult classic.

She then moved to Boston, where she became a radio host for WGBH. In 1996 there, she launched Sound & Spirit, PRI's award-winning national public radio series, which Bill Moyers called "the best program on public radio, bar none." The program aired nationally until 2010 with Ellen as host and writer; many of the original shows can now be heard archived online.

Her first novel, Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners, which begins her "Riverside" series, was hailed as the progenitor of the "Mannerpunk" (or "Fantasy of Manners") school of urban fantasy. The next in the series, The Privilege of the Sword, a genre-crossing, gender-bending novel, earned an eclectic range of honors, and won the Locus Award. The third in the series, The Fall of the Kings, co-written with Delia Sherman, "taps into fantasy's genuine source of drama, its ability to haunt, appall, transform (Locus)."

Her second novel, Thomas the Rhymer (1991 World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award) stands alone as a work of mythic fiction with strong musical ties. Her short stories have appeared in award-winning anthologies, including The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Complete bibliography here.

Ellen Kushner's work has been translated into many languages, including Japanese, French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Latvian and Finnish. An enthusiastic traveler, she has been Guest of Honor at conventions all over the world. She has also taught writing at the prestigious Clarion Workshop, and the Hollins University graduate program in Children's Literature.

As a performer, her solo spoken word works include Esther: the Feast of Masks, and The Golden Dreydl: a Klezmer 'Nutcracker' for Chanukah (with Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, on Rykodisc CD), which she revised and published as a children's chapter book as The Golden Dreydl (Charlesbridge). In 2008, Vital Theatre in New York City commissioned her to script a fullscale theatrical version. The Klezmer Nutcracker played to sold-out audiences, with Kushner in the role of the magical Tante Miriam.

Recent projects include Welcome to Bordertown (2011, co-edited with Holly Black), an anthology of new stories from Terri Windling's seminal shared-world series, and The Witches of Lublin, a musical audio drama written with Elizabeth Schwartz & Yale Strom for public radio, featuring Tovah Feldshuh and Simon Jones (Gabriel, Gracie and Wilbur Awards) and produced by SueMedia. In audiobook form, both were Audie Award finalists.

In 2012, Kushner entered the world of audiobooks, narrating and co-producing "illuminated" versions of both her novels Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword with SueMedia Productions for "Neil Gaiman Presents" at Audible.com. Both were selected as Audie Award finalists in 2013. A third is in production.

Ellen Kushner is a co-founder and past president of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, an organization supporting work that falls between genre categories. She lives in New York City with author and educator Delia Sherman, a lot of books, airplane and theater ticket stubs, and no cats whatsoever.