Alice Courtright is a poet and writer living in New York. She thinks about literature, dance, grace, and the natural world. Alice has received degrees from Yale University, Sewanee’s School of Theology, and Yale Divinity School. She is ordained in the Episcopal Church, and her writing has recently appeared in The Hedgehog Review, Mockingbird, and SAGE Magazine. She lives with her husband, Drew, a parish priest, and their three daughters, about an hour north of the city.

  • Alice Courtright is a poet, writer, and Episcopal priest. She studied English literature at Yale University, where she worked as a research assistant for Harold Bloom, an editorial assistant for The Yale Review, and served as a literacy volunteer at New Haven Reads. She studied with Elizabeth Alexander, and her poetry thesis was advised by her writing mentor, Louise Glück. Alice won first place in the national Atlantic student writing competition in poetry. She hiked the 2,174 mile Appalachian Trail, running from Georgia to Maine.

    After college, Alice attended seminary at Sewanee’s School of Theology. She was the founding student of the Westcott Exchange Program at Cambridge University, where she studied with the poet Malcolm Guite. Alice did her field education at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Chaplaincy at Vanderbilt University. There, she was mentored by Becca Stevens, founder of Thistle Farms and advocate against human trafficking. During her time at Sewanee, Alice was given the Woods Leadership Award and the seminary prize for Excellence in Practical Theology. She was formed by the teaching of Julia Gatta and the practice of the Daily Office. She developed a love of theology and the arts, and worked for the Center for Religion and the Environment.

    Alice was ordained an Episcopal priest in 2014 at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. She was the first woman to serve as Dean of Chapel in the school’s history. She taught humanities classes, led Bible Studies, advised in a girls dormitory, and coached cross-country skiing. During her time at SPS, Alice joined the National Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies Special Committee against Sexual Assault and Exploitation and the boards of the Episcopal Church at Yale and the University of the South.

    Alice earned her Masters of Sacred Theology degree at Yale Divinity School in 2023. She studied with Miroslav Volf, Michael Warner, Willie James Jennings, and David Mahan. At Yale, Alice was a student fellow at the Law, Ethics, Animals, and Policy program. She began writing creative non-fiction under the mentorship of Verlyn Klinkenborg, and her thesis explored the imagined lives of biblical women like Mary Magdalene alongside her own mothering and the poetry of Marie Howe.

    In 2024, Alice turned to her vocation as a writer and mother. She now writes poetry and prose while caring for her home, garden, and three daughters. Alice practices vipassana meditation and hatha yoga, and volunteers with Woman2Woman, a ministry of friendship to the women of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She’s been married to her husband, Drew, a parish priest, for eleven years, and they live in Bedford, NY, with their children, about an hour north of the city.