Elizabeth Oness was born in New York and did her undergraduate work at James Madison University in Virginia.  She has an M.F.A. in poetry from  the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Her stories have appeared in The Hudson Review, Crazyhorse and other magazines, and have received an O. Henry Prize and a Nelson Algren Award.  A chapbook of poems, Sure Knowledge, was published by Parallel Press in 1999.  She directs marketing and development for Sutton Hoo Press, a literary fine press.

Her collection of short stories, Articles of Faith, was the winner of the 2000 Iowa Short Fiction Prize and published by the University of Iowa Press.  Her first novel, Departures, was published by Penguin Putnam in 2004.  

She lives in Winona, Minnesota, with her husband, the poet C. Mikal Oness, and their son.