Elise M. McHugh is a writer, teacher, and editor based in Washington State. Originally from New Mexico, she serves as a senior acquisitions editor for the University of New Mexico Press, acquiring fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, writing guides, and photography on the trade side and literary criticism, popular culture, and art/photography/architecture on the scholarly side. In acquisitions since 2011, McHugh has worked at the press since 2007, serving time as both a production editor and as managing editor. Between 2000 and 2010 she worked part time with West End Press, a small independent publisher based in Albuquerque. She also completed a three-month internship with Milkweed Editions in 2001. Since 2024 McHugh has taught classes on various aspects of publishing and creative writing for Hugo House in Seattle. She is founder of Publish and Perish, through which she soon plans to offer additional classes and coaching. McHugh has published poetry and nonfiction in numerous venues, including bosque (the magazine), ABQ InPrint, New Mexico Magazine, Zaghareet Magazine, and Red Rock Review. In 2013 she served as a guest blogger for OldWestNewWest.com, and in 2007 her Albuquerque-based writing group, Glorious, was featured on Santa Fe Public Radio KSFR-FM’s Poetry Talk, hosted by Gary Mex Glazer. McHugh has served several times on the NEA’s Grants for the Arts–Literature Publishing Panel and as a reader for the CLMP Firecracker Book Awards. She has also served as a judge for the Illinois Arts Council Agency’s Literary Awards in 2014 and as a judge for the 2013 Colorado statewide Poetry Out Loud finals. McHugh has conducted presentations and workshops for various organizations, including the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, the Southwest Popular and American Culture Conference, the Women Writing the West, the Las Vegas Writers’ Conference, the UNM Continuing Education OSHER program, the Albuquerque chapter of the New Mexico Southwest Poetry Society, and the Albuquerque chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, as well as high school and college classes. She holds an MA in creative writing from the University of New Mexico and a BA in English from Hamline University.